In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this tutorial we are going to show you how to configure a number of WordPress widgets.
How To Configure Sidebar Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration needed, such as widgets for displaying links to your site’s pages, recent posts, RSS feed content, adding site search features, etc.
(By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets)
Configuring Sidebar Widgets In WordPress In WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will add, configure and reorder various widgets to display in your site’s sidebar section, including:
- Adding a clickable Support Contact graphic linking to the contact page.
- Adding a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Adding a list of the site’s most important Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar.
- Displaying news items with an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on your sidebar menu.
The Widgets area 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 panel into your web browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin configuring some sidebar menu widgets …
Add A Text Widget To The Sidebar Area
Text widgets are quite 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 can be used to add lists of favorite items, social media buttons, news and updates and more to your site … simply by typing in text or pasting HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are versatile!)
Example: Add A Support Button To Your Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a support button on your sidebar menu 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, create or source a graphic image that visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable image on your site, the button image must be uploaded to your server. Upload your button image to the images folder in your server and note the path to 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 your contact page when they click on the support button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your contact page.
Create a contact page and note 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. In simple terms, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable image.
Your code can be typed in a plain text file 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 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 web addresses …
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, see this tutorial:
Now, go back to your Widgets area …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want your clickable button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release it at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag-and-drop your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the text widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget 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 your 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: Remember to test your contact page and button image URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text without 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’re pasting in formatted HTML code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not selected)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option selected)
***
Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
After adding the text widget and formatted content, visit the front end of your site and refresh the browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your support button will display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows a clickable button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the widget.
The last step is to ensure that your destination URL works. Test this by clicking the button. You should be taken to your contact page …
(Test the clickable button)
Tips:
If you would like the contact page to open in a new window when visitors click on the support (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part containing target=”_blank” in your code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar area, make sure that the width of the image doesn’t exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may need to either adjust the image size, or the width of your sidebar column to make graphics display correctly on your sidebar.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want your image to be centered 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 site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links in the text widget.
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This is the end of section two of this series of tutorials about using Widgets.
To keep reading, click here:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)