In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you will configure other commonly-used sidebar widgets.
Add Post Categories
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure Post Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on the sidebar by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend setting up your Post Categoriessection first …
(Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure and use categories in WordPress.
Configure the Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your widget 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 your sidebar navigation menu. (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 finished …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how your content will look to visitors …
(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 unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget is added to your sidebar menu by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really not much to configure. 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 a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you’ve specified will be listed on the sidebar navigation section …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar area)
A tutorial is provided on how to create a WordPress Post here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar linking visitors to the pages you select.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Pages“) (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 navigation menu (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed 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 …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from showing to your visitors, type in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Locate The ID Of A WordPress Page Or Post
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s pages will now display on your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation section. This is helpful if you would like to display separate page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, we’ll add a widget to your WordPress sidebar that displays links to external resources.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation area, we recommend setting up the Links section inside your WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to create separate tutorials on setting up and using Links.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active 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 your sidebar section …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the 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 WordPress 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 …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar navigation 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 lists of links to your sidebar navigation area.
***
This is the end of part three of this tutorial series.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group