In Part One of this tutorial series, we cover the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial we are going to show you how to configure a number of commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Commonly-Used WordPress Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several preinstalled active widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, filter posts by categories, newsfeeds, adding a search box, etc.
(By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
How To Configure Commonly-Used Widgets On The Blog Sidebar: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder various widgets to display in your site’s sidebar, including:
- Adding a Contact Us button linking visitors to the contact page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Adding a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar area.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how your Archived Posts display on your sidebar navigation menu.
The Widgets area is located inside the WordPress administration by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This opens the Widgets screen in your web browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s begin to configure your sidebar widgets …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are incredibly useful …
(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 section or other widget sections, such as single lines or paragraphs of text, image links, reviews and more to your site … simply type in text or insert HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is extremely versatile!)
Example: Add A Clickable Contact Button To The Sidebar Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable support button on the sidebar that will take 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 graphic image that 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 button image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the image to the images folder in your server and write down the address of 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 the 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 then link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create the contact page.
Create a contact page on your site and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Create the HTML 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 instructions can be composed in a simple 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 with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows which sections of the above sample code you need to replace with your actual contact page and image URLs …
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, see this tutorial:
Now, go back to your Widgets section …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want your button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …
(WordPress 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 your text widget settings.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click save …
Add a title section to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the large text box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and image links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the clickable button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re 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 type in HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh your browser.
After adding the widget and code content, go to your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then your clickable support button should display at the top of your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the contact button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the button.
The final step is to make sure that your destination link works. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to your support page when they click on the button. If you are taken directly to your support page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test your text widget to make sure it works)
Tips:
If you want your contact page to display in a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. add the section containing target=”_blank” in the text widget code):
When adding images to 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 we’ve previously mentioned, some themes can display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of your button images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make elements display correctly on your sidebar.
(Make sure the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your button image inside the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link the contact button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code in the text widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to continue:
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