In Part One of this tutorial, we explained the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this section you are going to learn how to begin configuring various sidebar widgets in WordPress.
Configuring Widgets
By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets, such as widgets that let you display external links, filter posts by categories, news items, adding search features, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several active widgets)
How To Add Widgets To The Blog Sidebar Area: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you are going to learn how to add, configure and reorder various commonly-used WordPress widgets, including:
- Add a Help graphic linking to your support page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar.
- Add an RSS Feed section.
- Add tag links through a Tag Cloud.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar area.
The Widgets section is located inside the WordPress admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets area in your web browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s get started …
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)
Text widgets can be used to add article snippets, videos, special promotions 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 really useful!)
Example: Add A Support Button To Your Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a contact button on the sidebar menu that takes 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, create or source a graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display an image on your site, the graphic image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the button image to the images folder in your server and write down the URL pointing to your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
In order for someone to go to your contact page when they click on the help button, you will need to either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link the button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create your destination page.
Create a contact page and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable image.
Your code can be composed in a plain text editor and should look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code above 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 screenshot below shows the sections of the above sample code that you will need to replace with your actual web addresses …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help figuring out basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back to your Widgets area …
(Widgets Panel)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the top of the Widget Area …
(Drag and drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget options. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click save …
Add a title to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the text area, then click Save when done …
Note: Remember to test all URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text without formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: this is not necessary if you’re pasting in HTML code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not selected)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added the widget and formatted content, visit the front end of your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the support button will display in the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support contact button in the sidebar navigation menu of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the widget.
The final step is to make sure that the destination link works. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to the contact page when clicking the graphic image. If you are taken to your contact page, then your text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget to ensure you’ve set everything up correctly)
Useful Tips:
If you would like your support page to display inside a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. include the section containing target=”_blank” in the text widget code):
When inserting images into 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. As mentioned earlier, some themes may display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may need to either adjust the graphic size, or the column width to make graphics display correctly on your theme.
(Make sure that the image width does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want your image to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then align to the left.
- 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 text widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this series of tutorials.
To continue, click this link:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum