In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we cover the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you will learn how to begin configuring several WordPress widgets.
How To Configure Commonly-Used WordPress Blog Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, recent posts, RSS feed content, adding a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)
How To Set Up Sidebar Widgets In WordPress In WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will learn how to add, configure and reorder various WordPress widgets to display in the site’s sidebar, including:
- Add a Support graphic button linking visitors to the contact page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Adding a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display Links on the sidebar.
- Display a newsfeed using an RSS Feed section.
- Adding tag links through a Tag Cloud section.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to the sidebar area.
The Widgets panel can be easily accessed inside the WP admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets screen in your browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s start by learning how to configure WordPress text widgets …
Adding Text Widgets
Text widgets are versatile …
(WordPress Text widget)
Rich Text Widget
From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …
(Rich Text Widget)
This lets you quickly and easily format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
A text widget can be used to add article snippets, maps and directions, forms and more to your site … just type in text or insert HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is very useful!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Contact Button To The Sidebar Navigation Section
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable contact button on the sidebar navigation menu that will take your visitors to a page on your site (or an external site, e.g. a helpdesk) where they can contact you for help and support.
First, you will need to create or source a “help button” graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar area like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the image on your site, first you must upload the button image to the images folder in your server and write down the path to your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will need this information in Step 3.
For visitors to be taken to your contact page when the help button gets clicked, you will need to either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link the button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create your destination page.
Create a contact page on your site and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Compose your text widget code.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
Your instructions can be typed into a plain text file and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above sample code that you will need to replace with your actual contact details …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of your text file content to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back to your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release it at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the text widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure its options. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a title section to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the large text box, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to test all links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your clickable button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: not required if you paste in formatted content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not checked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box ticked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added your text widget and formatted content, go to the front end of your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the support button will display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support contact button added to a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that your destination link works. Test this by clicking the graphic button. You should be taken to your support page …
(Test your clickable button to ensure it works)
Tips:
If you want a new browser window to open up when visitors click on the help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. include the part that says: target=”_blank” in your text widget code):
When choosing images for your sidebar menu, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of the button images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make elements display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Make sure the width of the image does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your button image in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- Link your contact button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external site, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links in the widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this tutorial about how to use Widgets.
To view Part 3, click this link:
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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