In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other default WordPress blog widgets.
Adding Post Categories
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget to display Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar section. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar area, we recommend configuring your categories first …
(Post Categories)
Note: Setting up post categories in WordPress will be covered in separate tutorials.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for your widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have many categories (this significantly reduces the length of your content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar navigation area. (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 done …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your browser or refresh the page to see how your content will look to your site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar navigation 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 Your Blog Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget displays in your sidebar menu by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 enter the number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will display on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget on blog sidebar)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to create WordPress Posts here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation area linking visitors to the pages you select.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Info“) (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 section (3) …
(WordPress 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 …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude certain pages from showing to your visitors, enter the Page Ids for all the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
We provide a tutorial about how to find a page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate The Page Or Post ID In WordPress
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the main pages will now show on the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is helpful if you need to display different page groups on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Now, let’s add a widget to your sidebar that displays external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar area, you will first need to configure the Links feature inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to provide separate tutorials about setting up Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar …
(Making Links Widget active)
The Links 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 …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar menu 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 Menu)
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 the Links Widget, click the Save button to update your settings. Your links will display immediately on your site …
(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 lists of links to your sidebar menu.
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This is the end of section three of this series of tutorials on how to use WordPress widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click here:
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