In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we cover the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to begin configuring a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Configure Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled active widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, recent posts, RSS feed content, add search features, etc.
(By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
How To Set Up Sidebar Widgets: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder various widgets, including:
- Adding a Support Contact graphic linking to the contact page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display important Links on your sidebar area.
- Display a newsfeed with an RSS Feed section.
- Add a list of clickable tags through a Tag Cloud section.
- Add and configure an Archives section to your sidebar.
The Widgets section is located inside the WP administration by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets section in your browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s get started …
Adding Text Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar Area
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)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into the sidebar section or other widget sections, such as single lines or paragraphs of text, videos, messages and more to your site … just type in text or insert HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is really useful!)
Example: Using A Text Widget To Add A Clickable Contact Button To Your Sidebar Menu
For this example, we’ll set up a help button on your sidebar navigation area that will take 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 you will want your visitors to click on …
We’ll set up a clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the image on your site, the graphic image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the image to your server and note the URL pointing to your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
For visitors to go to your contact page when they click on the help 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 the button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your destination page.
Create a contact page on your site and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Compose 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, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to the contact page.
Your code can be written a plain 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 which sections of the above code you need to replace with your actual contact details …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want the support 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 WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your text widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a title to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Help”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the large text box, then click the save button …
Note: Make sure to test all URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the button will not 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 an HTML paragraph code (note: this is not necessary if you type 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 checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not checked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
After adding your text widget and content, go to the front-end of your site and refresh your browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button will display in the sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the support contact button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the widget.
The final step is to ensure that your destination URL works. Test the button to make sure that your visitors will go to your contact page when clicking the graphic image. You should be taken directly to the contact page …
(Test your clickable button to ensure you’ve set everything up correctly)
Useful Tips:
If you would like a new browser window to open up when visitors click on the help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part that says: target=”_blank” in the code):
When choosing images for your sidebar navigation area, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of your graphic image, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make elements display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Make sure the image width does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the button inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- Link the support button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, contact form, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code inside the widget.
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This is the end of part two of this tutorial.
To continue reading, click this link:
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