In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section we will continue configuring other WordPress widgets.
How To Add A Post Categories Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on the sidebar navigation menu. All you need to do, therefore, is place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(Categories widget)
your your WordPress categories …
(Post Categories)
Note: We plan to create tutorials on how to use post categories.
Let’s configure your categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of the content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the remaining options as the default, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or reload your page to see how your Categories widget will look to site visitors …
(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 option as is.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget is typically added to the sidebar navigation section by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on its title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really not much to set up. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will appear on the sidebar section …
(Recent Posts widget added to blog sidebar)
To learn how to create WordPress Posts, see this tutorial: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation section to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Inserting a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- 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 by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to hide pages on the sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from displaying to your visitors, simply type the Page Ids for the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial that explain how to find a page ID in WordPress here: Finding The WordPress Page Or Post ID
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the blog’s main pages will now show in the sidebar section …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar area. This is useful if you want to display different groups of pages on the sidebar area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your WordPress Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a widget that will display external links on your WordPress sidebar navigation menu.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation area, we recommend setting up your Links feature inside your dashboard first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to provide separate tutorials about setting up the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your sidebar area …
(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 your sidebar area …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar section 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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(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 the 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.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
To view Part 4, 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