In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to configure other default sidebar widgets.
How To Add Categories To The Blog Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on the sidebar area. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar area, you should first configure the Post Categoriessection inside the dashboard …
(Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up and using post categories in WordPress.
Configure the Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to use several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar navigation menu. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how the Categories widget will look to site visitors …
(WordPress 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 box unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget normally appears in your sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s not much to configure. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on blog sidebar)
For a tutorial on how to create and edit a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Display Your Site’s Pages In The Sidebar Navigation Section
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation area to display the pages on your site.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful 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 your sidebar menu (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying in your sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on finding a WordPress post or page ID here: How To Find The ID Of Any Page Or Post In WordPress
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now display on the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar section. This is useful if you want to display different page groups on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your Sidebar Area
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar for displaying external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend setting up your Links section inside the dashboard first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to provide a separate tutorial about how to use Links.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the 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 …
(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 Section)
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 sidebar menu)
As the above example shows, you can display specific external links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to the sidebar section.
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This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial series.
Click on this link to continue reading:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now