In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this tutorial you will learn how to begin configuring various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Configuring Commonly-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, recent posts, news items, adding tag clouds, etc.
(By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
How To Add Sidebar Widgets In WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to learn how to add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets to display in your site’s sidebar, including:
- Adding a Support Contact graphic linking to the contact details page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display important Links on the sidebar navigation area.
- Display news items with an RSS Feed section.
- Adding tag links using a Tag Cloud.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar navigation area.
The Widgets area can be accessed inside the WP administration by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets section in your browser window …
(Widgets Section)
Let’s start by configuring a WordPress text widget …
Adding Text Widgets To Your Sidebar
Text widgets are quite 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)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar section or other widget sections, such as lists, videos, news and updates and more to your site … just by typing in text or inserting HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are extremely versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Help Button To Your Sidebar Section
For this example, let’s set up a help button on the sidebar navigation area 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 graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of your sidebar navigation section like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable button image on your site, first you must upload the button image to your server’s images folder and note down the address of your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
For someone to be taken to your contact page when the support button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create a contact page.
Create a contact page and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Compose the HTML 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, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
Your code can be typed 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 with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot below shows which sections of the above code 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 figuring out 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 in the location where the support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release it at the 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 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 section to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the Content area, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to check your contact page and button image links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or your button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re 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 paste in HTML code like we’re doing in 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 with Automatically add paragraphs option selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box ticked)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the browser.
Once you have added the text widget and code, go to the front-end of your site and refresh the web browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then your clickable support button will display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The last step is to make sure that the links work. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to the help page when they click on the button. You should be taken to the contact page …
(Test your clickable button to ensure you’ve set everything up correctly)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like a new window to open up when visitors click on your help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. add the section containing target=”_blank” in your text widget code):
When choosing images for your sidebar area, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of your 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 are wide and some are narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of your button image, then you may need to either adjust the image size, or the width of your sidebar column to make elements display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
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 code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link the help button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external site, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code inside your text widget.
***
This is the end of part 2 of this series of tutorials about how to use Widgets.
To continue reading, click here:
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com