In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this tutorial you will configure various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Frequently-Used WordPress Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration needed, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, filter posts by categories, text or HTML banners, add a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
Adding Sidebar Widgets In WordPress: Tutorial
In this tutorial, we are going to add, configure and reorder various widgets, including:
- Adding a Help graphic linking to the contact details page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display useful Links on the sidebar navigation section.
- Displaying the latest news with an RSS Feed section.
- Add clickable tags using a Tag Cloud.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to your sidebar.
The Widgets area is located inside the WordPress admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings you to the Widgets area into your browser window …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s configure a text widget …
Add A Text Widget To Your Sidebar
Text widgets are incredibly useful …
(Text widget)
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 quickly and easily format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as email and contact information, videos, special promotions and more to your site … just type in text or paste HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is really versatile!)
Example: Using A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Support Button To The Sidebar Navigation Menu
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable contact button on the sidebar navigation section that takes visitors to a page on your site (or an external site, e.g. a helpdesk) where they can contact you for help and support.
First, you will need to create or source a graphic image that you can use on your own site …
We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar navigation menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable button image on your site, the image must be uploaded to your server. Upload your button image to the images folder in your server and note down the address of your image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
For someone to be taken to your contact page when the graphic button is clicked, you will need to either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your destination page.
Create a contact page and note its URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, we just need to create the instructions linking your button image to your destination URL.
Your code can be composed in a simple text editor and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot below shows the sections of the above code that you will need to replace with the actual web addresses …
Replace the above URLs and then copy the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help understanding basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, find a Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag your Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag and drop your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget settings.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click save …
Add a title section to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the Content box, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to test all links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text without formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: this is not necessary if you paste in formatted HTML code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not selected)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added the text widget and code, go to the front end of your site and refresh your browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the clickable support button should display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support contact button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that your clickable button works. Test this by clicking the button. If you are taken directly to your support page, then the text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test your text widget)
Useful Tips:
If you would like the contact page to display in a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part that says: target=”_blank” in your code):
When inserting images into your sidebar area, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of your button images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make images display correctly on your sidebar.
(Make sure the width of the image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your button image in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link your contact button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external link, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the content inside your widget.
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This is the end of section two of this tutorial series.
To view Part 3, click this link:
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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