In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will configure other sidebar widgets.
How To Add Categories
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Post Categories on the sidebar section.
The Categories widget displays on the sidebar section by default. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend first configuring your categories inside your WP dashboard …
(Categories Panel)
Note: Using post categories in WordPress will be explained in separate tutorials.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for your widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to add 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 the sidebar. (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 …
(Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your browser or refresh the page to see how your content will display to your visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar menu)
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 on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget
The Recent Posts widget normally displays on the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on the Recent Posts widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s very little to configure in this widget. 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 enter the number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to sidebar area)
We provide a tutorial about how to create and edit posts in WordPress here: How To Create A New WP Post
Adding A Pages Widget To The Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar area to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Sections“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing on the sidebar navigation area (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 in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent pages from showing to visitors, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Locate Page And Post IDs In WordPress
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your main pages will now appear on your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is useful if you want to display different groups of pages on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Section
Next, let’s add a widget to the WordPress sidebar to display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar menu, you will first need to configure your Links feature inside your WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar …
(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 section …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar navigation menu 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 Navigation 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 …
(Links added to sidebar)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to the WordPress sidebar navigation menu.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial on how to use WordPress widgets.
To continue, click this link:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)