In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In Part 3, we began configuring a number of frequently-used blog widgets.
In this final installment, you are going to conclude the step-by-step tutorial by configuring a few more useful sidebar widgets.
In WordPress v. 4.8, WordPress introduced new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an updated text widget that supports visual editing …
(WordPress 4.8 introduced new widget updates)
These widgets let you add content from your media library and media stored in other servers or storage locations (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.).
Let’s go through how to configure and use each of these widgets:
Rich Text Widget
From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …
(Rich Text Widget)
This lets you format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text quickly and easily …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
To learn more about using text widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
WordPress Image Widget
The WordPress Image Widget lets you add an image to your sidebar from your Media Library or an external storage location.
To add an image, drag an image widget to your active widgets area …
(Image Widget)
Click on ‘Add Image’ …
(Let’s add an image!)
Select an image from the Image Library, check or add image details (e.g. Caption, Alt text, Description, etc.) if desired and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …
(Select an image)
The image will automatically load into the widget area …
(Image added to widget)
Add a Title to your image if you want, or leave the ‘Title:’ field blank and click ‘Save’ …
(Save your image)
Preview your website and you should see the image displayed where you have placed your image widget …
(Image added to website using WordPress image widget)
If you want to link your image to an URL, go back to your image widget and click on ‘Edit Image’ …
(Image Widget – Edit Image)
Add a URL in the ‘Image Details’ > ‘Display Settings’ > ‘Link To’ screen and click the ‘Update’ button …
(Link your image to an URL)
To add an image stored in an external server or remote location, locate and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard …
(Copy image URL to your clipboard)
Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …
(Image Widget – Replace image)
The Media Library browser opens. Click on ‘Insert from URL’ and paste in the image URL copied to your clipboard, then click on ‘Add to Widget’ …
(Add image URL)
If you have previously added an image title in your widget, remember to replace it if required, then click ‘Save’ …
(Save your new image)
The new image will now display on your sidebar …
(New image added using WordPress image widget)
To learn more about adding images to WordPress, see this tutorial:
WordPress Video Widget
The WordPress Video Widget lets you add audio files to your sidebar from your Media Library, YouTube, Vimeo, or an external storage location.
To add a video to the sidebar, drag a Video widget to your active widgets area …
(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)
Click the ‘Add Video’ button …
(Video widget – Add Video)
Select a video from your media library or add a video URL and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …
(Add a video URL)
Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …
(WordPress Video Widget – Save Button)
Your video will display on your site where the video widget has been added …
(Video added using WordPress video widget)
To learn more about adding video to WordPress, see this tutorial:
WordPress Audio Widget
The WordPress Audio Widget lets you add audio files like podcasts, music or a personal greeting to your sidebar from your media library or an external storage location.
To add an audio file to your sidebar, drag an audio widget to your active widgets area …
(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)
Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…
(WordPress Audio Widget – Add Audio button)
Select an audio file from your media library or insert the URL of an audio file stored in an external location …
(Select your audio file)
Add a title to your widget if desired and click the ‘Save’ button …
(Save the audio file on your audio widget)
Your site will now display an audio file to visitors where you have placed the audio widget …
(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)
To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:
Adding A Newsfeed Section
Now, let’s add An RSS widget to your sidebar.
To add the widget, find an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your sidebar …
(WordPress RSS Widget)
Enter the following information into the widget settings:
- RSS feed URL: Enter the RSS feed URL into this field.
- Feed Title: If you would like to add a title to your feed, enter it into this field.
- Items to display: Select how many items you would like to show in your sidebar navigation section from this drop-down menu.
- Display item content: Tick this box if you would like to display the item content.
- Display item author: Tick this box if you would like to show the item item author.
- Display item date: Tick this box if you want to display the RSS feed item date.
(RSS Widget settings)
Experiment with different settings to find the ideal combination for you.
The example below shows a published RSS widget configured as per the above settings …
(RSS Widget displayed on sidebar)
The example below shows the RSS Feed widget configured with some of the other options selected …
(WordPress RSS Widget settings)
To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:
Adding A Tag Cloud Section To The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Let’s add A Tag Cloud widget to the sidebar section.
Tags displayed in the widget can be found in the Tags screen …
(WordPress Tags screen)
To use the widget, select a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to the sidebar area …
(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget)
There is really not much to configure. You can add a title, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when finished …
(Tag Cloud Widget settings)
Your Tag cloud will now display on your sidebar …
(Tag cloud displaying post tags)
The example below shows a published Tag Cloud widget configured to show Categories instead of Tags …
(Tag Cloud widget displaying categories)
To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:
Configuring The WordPress Archives Section In The Sidebar Navigation Menu
To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the Archives Widget, which is another common widget.
As you continue adding new content to WordPress, your older posts begin to move further away from public view. Your content is still there, it’s just not as visible.
The Archives Widget allows your readers to access earlier posts …
(Archives Widget)
There’s very little to set up in this widget. You can add a title, and choose whether to display items in the sidebar widget in a dropdown menu, and display post counts . Click Save when done …
(Archives Widget settings)
The example below shows the Archives widget set up to show posts as a dropdown menu with post counts enabled …
(WordPress Archives Widget displayed on sidebar)
Now that you know how to configure most of the frequently-used sidebar widgets, let’s explore some other aspects of using WordPress widgets.
Useful Widget Tips
Here are some useful ways to use widgets:
Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets
Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …
(Jetpack Widgets)
It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …
(Jetpack adds ‘Visibility’ to all widgets)
This function lets you specify whether to display or hide widgets from your sidebar based on conditions you set for a particular category, author, user. role, tag, date, or page …
(Set conditions to show or hide widgets)
This is a really useful function to have.
For example, you can:
- Display a widget only on your home page or only on posts published under certain categories, tags, authors, dates, etc.
- Configure widgets to display specific or time-sensitive announcements based on a post’s category, date, etc.
- Configure widgets to display targeted ad banners based on a post’s category or tag.
- Hide widgets from appearing on certain posts or pages to prevent users from being distracted (e.g. remove widgets with ads from your sales pages).
- And more!
To learn more about using the Jetpack plugin, go here:
How To Override Default Widgets
If you see widgets displaying on your site’s sidebar navigation menu that aren’t listed under your active sidebar inside your Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because some themes will display their own default set of widgets unless you add widgets to your sidebar.
For example, this site displays some widgets in the blog sidebar …
If you look in the Widgets area, however, you could find that no widgets have been added to any of the active widget areas …
This is because the theme above could be using default widgets.
As soon as you add one or more widgets to an active widget area, the other widgets will disappear and the widgets you want added will be used instead.
Note: If you want nothing to appear in the sidebar navigation section, either use a theme page template without a widgets section or just add a blank Text widget to the sidebar.
Just add a blank text widget to a widget area …
And default widgets will not appear in the sidebar/footer section …
Widget Accessibility Mode
As we’ve shown you in an earlier example, WordPress lets you completely reorganize how information displays in areas of your site sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse button, using drag-and-drop technology …
(Rearrange sidebar layout with widgets to improve visitor experience)
In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have quickly and easily change the widget elements in the site’s sidebar by switching the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the widget elements into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve user experience.
If, for some reason, you find that you cannot move widgets using drag-and-drop (e.g. using a mobile device that doesn’t support dragging-and-dropping), you can still use widgets if you enable Accessibility Mode.
Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets
Enabling Accessibility Mode, via the Screen Options, allows you to use Add and Edit buttons instead of using drag & drop.
To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your WordPress admin and navigate to the Widgets section …
(Widgets Menu)
Click on Screen Options on the top right hand corner of your screen …
(Widgets – Screen Options)
Click on Enable accessibility mode …
(Turn on accessibility mode)
Once the feature has been enabled, the widgets in the Available Widgets and the Active Widgets sections, widgets will display an Add and Edit link respectively …
If you click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …
A screen opens up the selected widget with options for customizing its settings, selecting the location to add the widget, and drop-down menus that let you specify the position of the widget in the widget area (e.g. position “1”, “3”, “5”, etc.) …
Click Save Widget to add the widget to the Active Widgets section, or click the Cancel button to go back to the previous screen …
Click on an active widget’s Edit link …
A screen will display your selected widget with options for modifying its settings.
Click Save Widget to return to the Active Widgets section, or click the Delete button to delete the widget from the Active Widgets area …
Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to go back to using drag-and-drop …
(Switch off accessibility mode)
Creating Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets
Most widgets will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets section when you install a new plugin on your site.
If you want to create your own custom sidebar widgets, then here is a simple and easy way:
First, create a new Post and enter the content that you want to add to your sidebar navigation area…
Ensure that any images you plan to use fit the maximum width of your sidebar navigation section. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have a lot of room to put content on the sidebar, so try and keep your information concise.
Also, don’t worry about publishing your Post – all we really want is to copy the content HTML to be pasted into your widget.
Once you have composed your content in the WordPress post editor, click on the Text tab …
Select everything inside the editor window and copy it to your clipboard…
Now, go into your Widgets Area.
Insert a new Text widget into your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save …
Your new custom widget is now added to the sidebar…
(Create your own custom sidebar widgets)
Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure your WordPress sidebar widgets.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum