In Part 1 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 learn how to configure other commonly-used sidebar widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Widget
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable contact button, let’s configure your Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar, you should first configure your post categories inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Post Categories Panel)
Note: We plan to create tutorials about how to use post categories.
Configure your categories settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “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 unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or reload the page to see how your Categories widget will look to blog readers …
(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 section as is.
- 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 A Recent Posts Section To The Sidebar Menu
The Recent Posts widget typically displays on the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really very little to set up in this widget. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The number of posts you’ve specified will now display to visitors on the sidebar navigation section …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on sidebar)
To learn how to create and edit WordPress Posts, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation section for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …
(Inserting a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to 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 page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from showing in your sidebar, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
Finding a WordPress post or page ID is covered in this tutorial: How To Locate The Unique ID Of WordPress Posts And Pages
Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your site’s pages will now display on the sidebar navigation section …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation menu. This is handy if you want to display different groups of pages on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar to display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar, we first recommend setting up the Links feature inside the WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag it to your sidebar 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 …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar 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 WordPress Links Widgets To Your Sidebar Menu)
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 the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your widget will become immediately visible on your sidebar …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar menu)
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 area.
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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to continue:
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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