In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure various WordPress sidebar widgets.
Sidebar Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration needed, such as widgets that let you display links to your site’s pages, filter posts by categories, text or HTML banners, filter content by publish dates, etc.
(By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets)
Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Section: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will add, configure and reorder various widgets, including:
- Adding a clickable Support Contact graphic button linking to the contact page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display important Links on the sidebar.
- Add an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud section.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar navigation section.
To access the Widgets section log into your dashboard and go to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets screen in your browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s begin to configure your widgets …
Add A Text Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Text widgets are incredibly useful …
(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 lets you insert just about anything you want into the sidebar or other widget sections, such as comments, image links, scripts and more to your site … simply by typing in text or pasting HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are very useful!)
Example: Add A Clickable Support Button To Your Sidebar Menu Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a help 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, 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.
Upload the button image to the images folder in your server and note the URL pointing to your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
In order for visitors to be taken to the contact page when they click on the graphic button, you must either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add a support page.
Create a contact page and note its URL …
Step 3 – Create the code for your text widget.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
Your code can be typed in a simple text editor and should 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 with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot below shows which sections of the above sample code you will need to replace with the actual contact details …
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:
Go back to your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want your support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find a Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag-and-drop your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget settings.
Click on the widget title bar to configure its options. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into the 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 Content area, then click Save when done …
Note: Remember to check all links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or your clickable button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: not required if you type in code like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option ticked)
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Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
After adding your widget and HTML content, go to your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your support button will display at the top of the sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows a clickable button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the widget.
The last step is to ensure that the clickable button works. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to the support page when they click on the button. If you are taken to your contact page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test the clickable button)
Tips:
If you want a new browser window to open up when visitors click on your help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. include the section containing target=”_blank” in the html code):
When choosing images for your sidebar area, 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 layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of your graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make the images display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want your button to be centered in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- You can link the contact button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the links inside your text widget.
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This is the end of section 2 of this series of tutorials.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group