In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In Part 3, we began configuring a number of default widgets in WordPress.
In this final installment, we show you how to complete this step-by-step tutorial series by learning how to configure a few more commonly-used sidebar widgets.
In WordPress v. 4.8, WordPress introduced new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an updated text widget that supports visual editing …
(WordPress 4.8 introduced new widget updates)
These widgets let you add content from your media library and media stored in other servers or storage locations (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.).
Let’s go through how to configure and use each of these widgets:
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 format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text quickly and easily …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
To learn more about using text widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:
WordPress Image Widget
The WordPress Image Widget lets you add an image to your sidebar from your Media Library or an external storage location.
To add an image, drag an image widget to your active widgets area …
(Image Widget)
Click on ‘Add Image’ …
(Let’s add an image!)
Select an image from the Image Library, check or add image details (e.g. Caption, Alt text, Description, etc.) if desired and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …
(Select an image)
The image will automatically load into the widget area …
(Image added to widget)
Add a Title to your image if you want, or leave the ‘Title:’ field blank and click ‘Save’ …
(Save your image)
Preview your website and you should see the image displayed where you have placed your image widget …
(Image added to website using WordPress image widget)
If you want to link your image to an URL, go back to your image widget and click on ‘Edit Image’ …
(Image Widget – Edit Image)
Add a URL in the ‘Image Details’ > ‘Display Settings’ > ‘Link To’ screen and click the ‘Update’ button …
(Link your image to an URL)
To add an image stored in an external server or remote location, locate and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard …
(Copy image URL to your clipboard)
Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …
(Image Widget – Replace image)
The Media Library browser opens. Click on ‘Insert from URL’ and paste in the image URL copied to your clipboard, then click on ‘Add to Widget’ …
(Add image URL)
If you have previously added an image title in your widget, remember to replace it if required, then click ‘Save’ …
(Save your new image)
The new image will now display on your sidebar …
(New image added using WordPress image widget)
To learn more about adding images to WordPress, see this tutorial:
WordPress Video Widget
The WordPress Video Widget lets you add audio files to your sidebar from your Media Library, YouTube, Vimeo, or an external storage location.
To add a video to the sidebar, drag a Video widget to your active widgets area …
(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)
Click the ‘Add Video’ button …
(Video widget – Add Video)
Select a video from your media library or add a video URL and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …
(Add a video URL)
Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …
(WordPress Video Widget – Save Button)
Your video will display on your site where the video widget has been added …
(Video added using WordPress video widget)
To learn more about adding video to WordPress, see this tutorial:
WordPress Audio Widget
The WordPress Audio Widget lets you add audio files like podcasts, music or a personal greeting to your sidebar from your media library or an external storage location.
To add an audio file to your sidebar, drag an audio widget to your active widgets area …
(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)
Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…
(WordPress Audio Widget – Add Audio button)
Select an audio file from your media library or insert the URL of an audio file stored in an external location …
(Select your audio file)
Add a title to your widget if desired and click the ‘Save’ button …
(Save the audio file on your audio widget)
Your site will now display an audio file to visitors where you have placed the audio widget …
(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)
To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:
Adding A Newsfeed To The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Let’s add a widget to the sidebar section that will display news updates from An RSS feed.
To add the widget, find an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your active area …
(RSS Widget)
Enter the following information into the widget settings:
- RSS feed URL: Enter the RSS feed URL here.
- Feed Title: If you would like to add an optional title to your feed, enter it into this field.
- Items to display: Select the number of RSS feed items you would like to show in your sidebar from the drop-down menu.
- Display item content: Check this box if you would like to show the RSS feed content.
- Display item author: Tick this box if you would like to show the RSS feed item author.
- Display item date: Tick this box to display the RSS feed item date.
(WordPress RSS Widget settings)
Experiment with different widget settings to find the combination that best suits your needs.
The screenshot below shows the RSS Feed widget configured using the settings shown above …
(RSS Widget displayed on blog sidebar)
The screenshot below shows a published RSS Feed widget configured using some of the other options selected …
(RSS Widget settings)
To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:
Add A Tag Cloud Section
Let’s add a widget to the sidebar navigation menu that will display a tag cloud.
Tags appearing in your Tag Cloud widget are managed in the Tags section …
(Tags area)
To insert the widget, select a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to the sidebar area …
(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget)
There’s very little to set up in this widget. You can add a widget title, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when done …
(Tag Cloud Widget settings)
Your Tag cloud will now display on the sidebar menu …
(Tag cloud displaying tags)
The screenshot below shows a published Tag Cloud widget configured to show Categories instead of Tags …
(Tag Cloud widget set to display categories)
To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:
Configuring Your WordPress Archives Widget
To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the default Archives Widget, which is another commonly-used widget.
As you continue adding new posts to WordPress, your older posts begin to get pushed further down the chronological list and become less visible to site users. Your content is still there, it’s just not as visible.
The Archives Widget lets your visitors access WordPress posts that you may have published some months ago …
(WordPress Archives Widget)
There’s really very little to set up here. You can add a title, and choose whether to display items in your Archives widget in a dropdown menu, and display post counts . Click Save when finished …
(Archives Widget settings)
The example below shows an Archives widget configured for displaying posts as a dropdown menu with post counts checkbox enabled …
(WordPress Archives Widget displayed on sidebar)
Now that you know how to configure a number of widgets in WordPress, let’s explore some other aspects of WordPress widgets.
Useful Widget Tips
Here are some useful ways to use WordPress widgets:
Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets
Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …
(Jetpack Widgets)
It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …
(Jetpack adds ‘Visibility’ to all widgets)
This function lets you specify whether to display or hide widgets from your sidebar based on conditions you set for a particular category, author, user. role, tag, date, or page …
(Set conditions to show or hide widgets)
This is a really useful function to have.
For example, you can:
- Display a widget only on your home page or only on posts published under certain categories, tags, authors, dates, etc.
- Configure widgets to display specific or time-sensitive announcements based on a post’s category, date, etc.
- Configure widgets to display targeted ad banners based on a post’s category or tag.
- Hide widgets from appearing on certain posts or pages to prevent users from being distracted (e.g. remove widgets with ads from your sales pages).
- And more!
To learn more about using the Jetpack plugin, go here:
Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets
If you see widgets showing up on your site’s sidebar navigation menu that aren’t showing up in the active sidebar inside your Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because with some themes, unless you add widgets to the sidebar area, the theme will display its own default set of widgets.
For example, the site below shows widgets in the blog sidebar …
If you look inside the Widgets area, however, you will see that no widgets have been added to any of the available widget areas …
This theme is obviously using default widgets.
As soon as you add one or more widgets to an available widget area, the other widgets will your new widgets will be used instead.
Note: If you want nothing to show up in your sidebar menu, either use a theme page template without a widgets section or just add a blank Text widget to your sidebar menu.
Add a blank text widget to a widget area …
And the default widgets won’t display in your sidebar/footer section …
Widget Accessibility Mode
As we’ve explained earlier, with WordPress you can quickly reorder how information displays in areas like your site’s sidebars, footers and navigation menus with only a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-&-drop …
(Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can improve visitor experience)
In the above screenshot, for example, you can see that we have quickly and easily redesigned the sidebar area by switching the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widget elements into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience.
If, for some reason, you find that you are unable to drag and drop widgets around (e.g. using a mobile device that doesn’t support dragging-and-dropping), you can still use widgets if you enable Accessibility Mode.
Enabling Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets
Enabling Accessibility Mode, via your Screen Options, lets you use Add and Edit buttons instead of using drag-and-drop.
To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your admin and navigate to the Widgets section …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
Click on Screen Options on the top right hand corner of the screen …
(Widgets – Screen Options)
Click link to enable accessibility mode …
(Switch On accessibility mode)
Once accessibility mode has been enabled, the widgets in the Available Widgets section will display an Add link, and the widgets in the Active Widgets section will display an Edit link …
Click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …
A screen will display the selected widget with options for customizing its settings, selecting a location to add the widget, plus dropdown menus that let you specify the position of the widget in your selected location (e.g. position “1”, “2”, “6”, etc.) …
Click Save Widget to add the widget to your Active Widgets section, or Cancel to go back to your previous screen …
Click on the Edit link of an active widget …
A screen displays the selected widget with options for changing the widget’s settings.
Click Save Widget to return to the Active Widgets screen, or click the Delete button to remove the widget from the Active Widgets section …
Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to restore the drag-and-drop functionality to your Widgets …
(Turn off accessibility mode)
How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets
Most of the widgets that you will use will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets section when you install new plugins on your website.
Here is an easy way to create your own sidebar widget:
First, create a new Post and type in the content that you want to display on the sidebar navigation area…
Ensure that any images you use fit the maximum width of your sidebar navigation area. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have a lot of room to put content on your blog sidebar, so try and keep your information concise.
Also, don’t worry about publishing your Post – all we are after is to copy the content HTML to paste into the sidebar widget.
To get the content code, click on the Text tab …
Select and copy everything to your clipboard…
Now, go into your Widgets Screen.
Insert a new Text widget into your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save …
Your custom widget will be added to your sidebar navigation section…
(Create your own sidebar widgets)
Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure sidebar widgets.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)