In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this section you will learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
How To Configure Commonly-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, recent posts, newsfeeds, adding content search features, etc.
(By default, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets)
Configuring Widgets On The Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder s number of widgets, including:
- Add a clickable Support Contact graphic linking to your help page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Adding a list of your site’s Pages.
- Display a list of useful Links on your sidebar navigation menu.
- Add an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud section.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to your sidebar navigation section.
The Widgets screen is located in the WP dashboard and can be accessed from the admin menu by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets screen in your browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin to configure some sidebar widgets …
Adding Text Widgets
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)
A text widget can be used to add quotes, images, tips and more to your site … simply type in text or add HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is extremely versatile!)
Example: Add A Contact Button To The Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a clickable help button on the sidebar that will take 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, create or source a graphic image that you will want your visitors to click on …
We’ll set up the clickable button to display at the top of your sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display an image on your site, first you must upload the graphic image to your server and note the address of your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
For visitors to go to the contact page when they click on the support button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link the button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add a support page.
Create a contact page and note its URL …
Step 3 – Create the HTML code for your text widget.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, you just need to create the instructions linking the graphic image to the contact page.
Your code can be written a plain text file and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code above with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above code that you 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 with basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Next, go back to your Widgets screen …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release it at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your text widget.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a heading to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the text area, then click Save when done …
Note: Remember to check all URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: not required if you paste in formatted HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not selected)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option selected)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
After adding your text widget and code content, go to your site and refresh the browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the support button will display at the top of the sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the button added to a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the widget.
The last step is to ensure that your destination URL works. Test this by clicking on the button. You should be taken to the support page …
(Test your text widget to make sure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like your contact page to open inside a new browser window when visitors click on the support (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. include the part containing target=”_blank” in your html code):
When inserting images into your sidebar navigation section, make sure that the width of the image doesn’t 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 their layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of your graphic image, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make the images display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Make sure that the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want the image to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then align to the left.
- Link the contact button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external link, contact form, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links in your widget.
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This is the end of section 2 of this tutorial.
To continue, click here:
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