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 WordPress Widgets To Your SidebarIn Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.

In Part 3, we began configuring various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

In this final installment, we show you how to complete this step-by-step tutorial by configuring a few more useful widgets.

Useful Information

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:

Add An RSS Widget To Your WordPress Sidebar Section

Let’s now add a widget to your sidebar navigation menu that displays news items from An RSS feed.

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

WordPress RSS Widget

(RSS Widget)

Enter the following information into the widget settings:

  1. RSS feed URL: Enter the RSS feed URL here.
  2. Feed Title: If you want to add a title to the widget, type it into this section.
  3. Items to display: Choose how many feed items to display 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: Check this box if you want to display the item item author.
  6. Display item date: Tick this box if you would like to display the RSS feed item date.

RSS Widget settings

(RSS Widget settings)

Experiment with different settings to find the ideal combination for your blog.

The example below shows a published RSS Feed widget configured as per the settings shown above …

WordPress RSS Widget on blog sidebar

(RSS Widget displayed on blog sidebar)

The example below shows the RSS widget configured with some of the other options selected …

WordPress RSS Widget settings

(RSS Widget settings)

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

Adding A Tag Cloud To The Sidebar Area

Let’s add a widget to your sidebar area that displays clickable tags.

Useful Information

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

Tags area

(Tags area)

To use the widget, select a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your sidebar area …

WordPress Tag Cloud Widget

(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget)

There is not much to configure. 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

(Tag Cloud Widget settings)

Your Tag cloud will now display on your sidebar …

Tag Cloud widget set to display tags

(Tag Cloud widget set to display tags)

The screenshot below shows an Tag Cloud widget configured to show Categories instead of Tags

Tag Cloud widget set to display categories

(Tag Cloud widget set to display WordPress categories)

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

Configuring Your Archives Widget In The Sidebar

To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the Archives Widget, which is another frequently-used widget.

As you continue adding new content to WordPress, your older posts begin to move further away from public view. Your content is still there, it’s just not as visible.

The Archives Widget allows your readers to view your previously published WordPress posts …

WordPress Archives Widget

(WordPress Archives Widget)

There’s very little to configure. You can add a widget title, and choose whether to display items in your Archives widget in a dropdown menu, and display the number of posts . Click Save when done …

Archives Widget settings

(Archives Widget settings)

The example below shows a published Archives widget set to display posts as a dropdown menu with post counts checkbox enabled …

WordPress Archives widget added to sidebar section

(WordPress Archives Widget added to sidebar)

Now that you know how to configure widgets in WordPress, let’s explore some other areas of WordPress widgets.

Widgets – Useful Tips

Here are some additional features of 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:

Overriding Default Widgets

If you see widgets showing up on your blog sidebar menu that aren’t showing up in your active sidebar in the Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because with some themes, until you add widgets to your sidebar, the theme will display its own default set of widgets.

For example, this site displays a couple of widgets in the sidebar …

How To Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

If you look in the Widgets area, however, you will see that no widgets have been added to the active widget areas …

How To Override Default Widgets

This theme is using default widgets.

Once you add one or more widgets to an available widget area, the other widgets will disappear and be replaced with the newly-added widgets instead.

Note: If you want nothing 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 Sidebar Widgets

And the default widgets won’t appear in the sidebar/footer section …

Override Default Sidebar Widgets

Widget Accessibility Mode

As we’ve explained previously, WordPress lets you completely reorder how information is displayed in areas of your website sidebars, footers and navigation menus with only a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-and-drop technology …

Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve your site's visitor experience

(Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience)

In the above screenshot, for example, you can see that we have easily reorganized the layout in the site’s sidebar by switching the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

You can reorganize your sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s 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 by enabling Accessibility Mode.

Enable Widget Accessibility Mode

Enabling Accessibility Mode, via Screen Options, allows you to use Add and Edit buttons instead of dragging and dropping.

To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your WordPress admin and navigate to the Widgets section …

Widgets Menu

(Widgets Menu)

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

WordPress Widgets - Screen Options

(Widgets – Screen Options)

Click on the Enable accessibility mode link …

Switch 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 …

Enabling Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

A screen opens up the selected widget with options for customizing the widget’s settings, selecting the location to add the widget, with dropdown menus that let you specify the position of the widget in your widget area (e.g. position “1”, “3”, “4”, etc.) …

How To Enable Widget Accessibility Mode

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

Enable Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

Click on an active widget’s Edit link …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

A screen will display the selected widget with options for editing its settings.

Click Save Widget to return to the Active Widgets section, or click the Delete button to delete the widget from the Active Widgets section …

Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

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

Turn off accessibility mode

(Disable accessibility mode)

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets – An Easy Cheat

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 by plugins that you install on your site.

Here is a simple way to create your own custom sidebar widgets:

First, create a new Post and type in the content that you want to display on the sidebar…

Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Ensure that any images you use fit the maximum width of your sidebar. 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 saving your Post – all we are after is to copy the content HTML to paste into a sidebar widget.

After writing your content, switch to the Text tab …

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Select and copy everything to your clipboard…

How To 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

Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Your new widget will be added to your sidebar…

Create Your Own Sidebar Widgets

(Create your own sidebar widgets)

Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure your sidebar widgets.

Adding And Configuring Widgets On The WordPress Sidebar

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