In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other default WordPress blog widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Section To The Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for Post Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on your sidebar section by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
your categories …
(WordPress Post Categories Screen)
Note: We plan to create tutorials on setting up categories.
Configure the Categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how the Categories widget will display to your site 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 box, otherwise leave this box unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget typically appears on the sidebar navigation area by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is not much to configure. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you want 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 when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will be listed on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to blog sidebar)
Creating a post in WordPress is covered here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation area that will link to your pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from showing to visitors, simply type their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A tutorial is provided on how to find a WordPress post or page ID here: How To Find Post And Page IDs In WordPress
Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the site’s main pages will now show on your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is helpful if you want to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On The Blog Sidebar
Now, let’s add a widget to the sidebar area for displaying links to external resources.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar navigation area, we recommend setting up the Links feature inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: Setting up the Links feature in WordPress will be explained in separate tutorials.
To add the widget, find 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 navigation area …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar navigation section 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 Area)
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 …
( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button. Your links will become immediately visible on your site …
(Links added to sidebar)
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 WordPress sidebar area.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
Click on this link to continue:
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