How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 4

Learn how to add and configure various useful WordPress widgets on your sidebar and how to create custom sidebar widgets …

Adding And Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar Navigation MenuIn Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.

In Part Three, we began configuring a number of default WordPress blog widgets.

In this final installment, you will complete this tutorial series by configuring a few more useful sidebar widgets.

Info

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 - WordPress Widget Updates

(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

(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

(Image Widget)

Click on ‘Add Image’ …

Let's add an 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

(Select an image)

The image will automatically load into the widget area …

Image added to widget

(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

(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 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

(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

(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

(Copy image URL to your clipboard)

Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …

Image Widget - 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

(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

(Save your new image)

The new image will now display on your sidebar …

New image added using WordPress image widget

(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

(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Video’ button …

Video widget - Add Video

(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 video URL)

Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …

WordPress Video Widget - Save Button

(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

(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

(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…

WordPress Audio Widget - 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

(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

(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

(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)

To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:

Adding An RSS Widget

Now, let’s add a widget to the sidebar that displays news items from RSS feeds.

To add the widget, find an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your sidebar area …

WordPress RSS Widget

(WordPress RSS Widget)

Enter the following information into the widget settings:

  1. RSS feed URL: Paste the URL of your RSS feed into this section.
  2. Feed Title: If you want to add an optional title to the feed, type it here.
  3. Items to display: Select how many feed items to show on the sidebar from this drop-down menu.
  4. Display item content: Check this box if you want to display the item content.
  5. Display item author: Tick this box if you would like to show the RSS feed item author.
  6. Display item date: Tick this box to show the RSS feed item date.

RSS Widget settings

(WordPress RSS Widget settings)

Experiment with different options to find the combination that works best for you.

The screenshot below shows the RSS Feed widget configured with the above settings …

WordPress RSS Widget on sidebar

(WordPress RSS Widget displayed on sidebar)

The screenshot below shows a published RSS Feed widget configured with additional options selected …

WordPress RSS Widget settings

(WordPress RSS Widget settings)

To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:

Add A Tag Cloud Widget To Your Sidebar Navigation Area

Let’s add A Tag Cloud widget to the sidebar.

Important Info

Tags displayed in your widget are listed in the Tags section …

WordPress Tags screen

(Tags screen)

To add the widget, find a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your active area …

Tag Cloud Widget

(Tag Cloud Widget)

There’s really not much to set up. You can add a title if you want, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when finished …

WordPress Tag Cloud Widget settings

(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget settings)

Your Tag cloud will now display on the sidebar …

Tag cloud displaying WordPress post tags

(Tag Cloud widget displaying tags)

The example below shows the Tag Cloud widget configured for displaying Categories instead of Tags

Tag Cloud widget displaying WordPress post categories

(Tag Cloud widget displaying WordPress categories)

To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:

Configure Your WordPress Archives Widget In The Blog Sidebar

To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the Archives Widget, which is a common widget.

As you continue adding new posts to WordPress, your older posts begin to get pushed further down the chronology ladder and become less visible to blog visitors. Your content is still there, it’s just not as visible.

The Archives Widget allows site visitors to access WordPress posts that you may have published a while back …

WordPress Archives Widget

(WordPress Archives Widget)

There is very little to set up. You can add a title, and choose whether to display items in the sidebar widget as a dropdown menu, and display the number of posts . Click Save when done …

WordPress Archives Widget settings

(WordPress Archives Widget settings)

The screenshot below shows a published Archives widget set up to show posts as a dropdown menu with post counts enabled …

WordPress Archives widget displayed on sidebar

(Archives Widget added to sidebar)

Now that you know how to configure widgets on your WordPress site, let’s explore some other useful ways to use WordPress widgets.

Widgets – Useful Tips

Here are some useful things to know about WordPress widgets:

Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets

Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …

Jetpack Widgets

(Jetpack Widgets)

It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …

Jetpack adds 'Visibility' to all 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

(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:

How To Override Default Widgets

If you see widgets appearing on your site’s sidebar navigation section that aren’t listed under the active sidebar inside the Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because with some themes, unless you add widgets to the sidebar, the theme will display its own default set of widgets.

For example, the site below shows a couple of widgets in the blog sidebar …

Overriding Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

If you look inside the Widgets section, however, you will see that no widgets have actually been added to any of the available widget areas …

How To Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

The theme above is obviously using default widgets.

As soon as you add one or more widgets to an active widget area, the other widgets will your selected widgets will be used instead.

Note: If you don’t want anything to display in your sidebar, either use a theme page template without a widgets layout or just add a blank Text widget to the sidebar.

Just add a blank text widget to a widget area …

How To Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

And default widgets will not show in the sidebar/footer section …

Overriding Default Widgets

Accessibility Mode

As we have explained earlier, WordPress lets you quickly rearrange how information displays in areas of your site sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse button, using drag-and-drop …

Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve user experience

(Reorganize sidebar layout using widgets to improve visitor experience)

In the above screenshot, for example, you can see that we have reorganized the sidebar 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 elements with widgets can help to improve user experience.

If, however, 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), then you can still use widgets if you enable Accessibility Mode.

Enabling Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Enabling Accessibility Mode, via Screen Options, lets you use Add and Edit buttons instead of using drag-and-drop.

To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your administration area and go to the Widgets section …

WordPress Widgets Menu

(Widgets Menu)

Click on Screen Options on the top right hand corner of the screen …

Widgets - Screen Options

(WordPress Widgets – Screen Options)

Click on the Enable accessibility mode link …

Turn on accessibility mode

(Turn 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 …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

If you click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

A screen displays the selected widget with options for customizing its settings, selecting a location to add the widget, with dropdown menus that let you specify the position of the widget in the widget area (e.g. position “1”, “2”, “5”, etc.) …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Click Save Widget to add the widget to the Active Widgets section, or click Cancel to go back to the previous screen …

Enabling Widget Accessibility Mode

Click on the Edit link of an active widget …

Enabling Accessibility Mode For Widgets

A screen displays your selected widget with options for editing the widget’s settings.

Click Save Widget to update your settings and go back to the Active Widgets screen, or click the Delete button to delete the widget from the Active Widgets area …

Enable Widget Accessibility Mode

Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to go back to using drag-and-drop …

Switch off accessibility mode

(Switch off accessibility mode)

How To Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Most widgets will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets area when you install a new plugin on your website.

Here is an easy way to create your own custom sidebar widget:

First, create a new Post and enter the content that you want to show on the sidebar area…

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Ensure that any images you use are resized to fit the maximum width of your sidebar. Also, keep in mind that there’s no a lot of room to put content on the sidebar section, so keep your information concise.

Also, don’t worry about publishing your Post – all we are looking for is the code of the content so we can paste it into your widget.

Once you have written your content in the WordPress post editor, click on the Text tab …

Creating Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Select everything inside the text editor window and copy it to your clipboard…

Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Now, go into your Widgets Area.

Insert a new Text widget into your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save

Creating Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Your new widget will be added to the sidebar…

Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

(Create your own custom sidebar widgets)

Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure the most frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.

How To Add Widgets To WordPress

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