In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this section we are going to show you how to configure other frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Add Categories To The Sidebar Area
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on the sidebar. All you need to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring your categories inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Categories Screen)
Note: We plan to create tutorials on how to set up post categories.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for this widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to use several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar section. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how the content will display to your site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar)
Tips:
- Change the default Uncategorized post category to something more meaningful.
- If you use nested categories on your site, you may want to check the Show hierarchy option, otherwise leave this box unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget To The Sidebar Menu
The Recent Posts widget is normally added to your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s really very little to configure in this widget. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will be listed on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to sidebar section)
To learn how to create WordPress Posts, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A WordPress Post
Add A Pages Widget
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Pages“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from appearing on your sidebar navigation section (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this tutorial: How To Find The Post Or Page ID In WordPress
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the site’s pages will now show in your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation area. This is helpful if you need to display separate groups of pages on the sidebar navigation menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your WordPress Sidebar
Next, let’s add a Links widget to the sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation section, we recommend setting up your Links section inside your WordPress dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Setting up the Links feature in WordPress will be covered in separate tutorials.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar …
(Making Links Widget active)
The widget offers a number of configurable options, including the ability to specify what information to show about your links and how many links you want to display on the sidebar area …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar area as you want. As you will see in a moment, this lets you create and display specific lists of links on your site …
(Add Multiple WordPress Links Widgets To The Sidebar)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress Links widget: ‘Sort by:’ drop-down menu)
You can also create and display a list of items for a specific category, by selecting a link category from the ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to your sidebar navigation section.
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This is the end of part 3 of this series of tutorials.
To view Part Four, click this link:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group