Tag: Using Widgets

In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we cover the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.

In this tutorial we are going to show you how to configure various widgets in WordPress.

Configuring Frequently-Used WordPress Widgets

In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration required, such as widgets for displaying links to your site’s pages, recent posts, RSS feed content, add a search box, etc.

(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several active widgets)

Configuring Frequently-Used Sidebar Widgets: Tutorial

In this step-by-step tutorial, we will add, configure and reorder s number of widgets, including:

• Add a clickable Support Contact image linking visitors to the help page.
• Add a Categories section.
• Add a Recent Posts section.
• Adding a list of your site’s main Pages.
• Display important Links on the sidebar.
• Display newsfeeds using an RSS Feed section.
• Adding tag links with a Tag Cloud.
• Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar.

The Widgets section is located in your WordPress admin area and can easily be accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …

(WordPress Widgets Menu)

This brings up the Widgets section in your web browser …

(Widgets Panel)

Let’s start by learning how to configure text widgets …

Adding Text Widgets

Text widgets are incredibly versatile …

(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 lists, social media buttons, special promotions and more to your site … simply by typing in text or inserting HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings …

(A text widget is really versatile!)

Example: Add A Support Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Area Using A Text Widget

For this example, let’s set up a clickable contact button on the sidebar 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 “help button” graphic image that visitors can click on …

We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar navigation section like in the example shown below …

Step 1 – Upload your image.

To display the image on your site, you must first upload the button image to the images folder in your server and note down the path to your server’s image location.

E.g. …

http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg

You will use this information in Step 3.

For someone to be taken to the contact page when the graphic button is 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 image to this URL in Step 3 …

Step 2 – Create a contact page.

Create a contact page on your site and note down its URL …

Step 3 – Create the code for your text widget.

If you’re not a technical-minded person, 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 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 screenshot below shows the sections of the above sample code that you will need to replace with your actual contact page and image URLs …

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:

• A Beginner’s Guide To Formatting Content With HTML For WordPress Users

Now, go back into your Widgets area …

(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 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 …

(Drag-and-drop your WordPress text widget)

Step 5 – Configure your text widget.

Click on the Text widget title bar to configure its settings. 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?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the large text box, then click the save button …

Note: Make sure to check your contact page and button image URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the clickable button will not 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: this is not necessary if you’re typing in formatted HTML code like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).

Here is some text added to a Text widget 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 ticked …

(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)

***

Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.

After adding the text widget and code content, go to your site and refresh the web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the support button should display in your site’s sidebar menu …

(Clickable support button widget on sidebar)

The screenshot above shows the support contact button added to a brand new WordPress site.

Step 7 – Test your button.

The last step is to ensure that the links work. Test this by clicking the button. You should be taken to your contact page …

(Test the clickable button)

Useful Tips:

If you would like the support page to display in a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:

To this (i.e. add the section that says: target=”_blank” in your code):

When choosing images for your sidebar menu, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes can display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make graphics display correctly on your theme.

(Adjust column width or reduce image size)

More Tips:

• If you don’t want to center your image in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
• Link the help button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external site, contact form, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content in your text widget.

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This is the end of section two of this tutorial.

To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:

• How To Add Widgets To Your WordPress Blog Sidebar – Part 3

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