In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will configure other frequently-used blog widgets.
Adding A Categories Widget
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on your sidebar menu.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
your your WordPress categories …
(WordPress Categories Panel)
Note: We plan to provide separate tutorials about configuring and using categories.
Configure your Categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to use many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unchecked. (2)
- Leave the other options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh the page to see how the sidebar categories will display to blog readers …
(Categories widget added to sidebar menu)
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 unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget normally displays in the sidebar menu by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on its widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is not much to set up here. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 the number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you’ve specified will now display to visitors on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
To learn how to create a WordPress Post, see this tutorial: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Displaying Your Site’s Pages In The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Next, let’s 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 active widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar menu)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Information“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide pages on the sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from displaying on the widget, type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial about how to find a page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate The Unique ID Of WordPress Pages And Posts
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s main pages will now appear on your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is useful if you would like to display separate page groups on the sidebar navigation section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget for displaying external links on your WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up your Links feature first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on using 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 the sidebar …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar 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 …
(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 …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar section)
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 three of this series of tutorials.
To continue, click this link:
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