How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 3

Learn how to add and configure a number of useful widgets on your WordPress sidebar …

How To Add Widgets To WordPressIn Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure a text widget.

In this section we will continue configuring other frequently-used sidebar widgets.

How To Add Categories To Your Sidebar Section

Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable contact button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories on your sidebar.

The Categories widget already displays on the sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …

WordPress Post Categories Widget

(Categories widget)

Practical Tip

Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up your post categories inside the WordPress dashboard …

WordPress Categories

(Post Categories)

Note: Using categories in WordPress will be covered in separate tutorials.

Let’s configure your Categories widget settings as described below:

  • In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
  • Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of your content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
  • Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
  • Click Save to update your settings …

WordPress Categories Widget settings

(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)

Click Visit Site or refresh your page to see how your Categories widget will display to your visitors …

Categories widget added to sidebar navigation area

(Categories widget added to sidebar)

Useful Tip

Tips:

  • Change the default Uncategorized post category to something more meaningful.
  • If you use nested categories on your site, you may want to check the Show hierarchy option, otherwise leave this box unchecked.
  • To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …

Category widget options - Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled

(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)

Add A Recent Posts Widget

The Recent Posts widget typically appears in the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.

Click on the Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …

Recent Posts WordPress widget

(Recent Posts WordPress widget)

There’s really very little to set up. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …

Recent Posts widget settings

(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)

The most recent number of posts you have specified will appear on your sidebar area …

Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar navigation section

(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar area)

A step-by-step tutorial is provided on creating and editing WordPress Posts here: How To Create A WordPress Post

Add Links To Your Site’s Pages In The WordPress Blog Sidebar

Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.

Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …

WordPress Pages Widget

(Pages Widget)

Drag the Pages widget to your active widget area …

Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar navigation section

(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar menu)

The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:

  • Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Information“) (1)
  • Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
  • Exclude: Hide selected pages on your sidebar section (3) …

Pages Widget settings

(WordPress Pages Widget settings)

By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …

Pages Widget settings - sort options

(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)

To prevent pages from displaying to your visitors, type or paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …

WordPress Pages Widget settings - exclude pages

(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)

A tutorial is provided on finding a WordPress post or page ID here: How To Locate The ID Of WordPress Posts And Pages

Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.

Links to your blog’s main pages will now appear in your sidebar …

WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar

(Pages Widget on sidebar)

Tip

Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation section. This is helpful if you would like to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)

Add A Links Widget

Now, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for displaying links to external resources.

Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar menu, we recommend configuring the Links section first …

WordPress Links section

(WordPress Links section)

Note: We plan to provide step-by-step tutorials on how to configure and use the Links feature.

To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …

Links Widget

(Links Widget)

Drag it to your sidebar area …

Make Links Widget active

(Making Links Widget active)

The widget offers a number of configurable options, including the ability to specify what information to show about your links and how many links you want to display on your sidebar area …

WordPress Links Widget Settings

(WordPress Links Widget Settings)

You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar as you want. As you will see in a moment, this lets you create and display specific lists of links on your site …

Add Multiple WordPress Links Widgets To Your Sidebar Navigation Menu

(Add Multiple Links Widgets To The Sidebar)

You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …

WordPress Links widget: 'Sort by:' drop-down menu

(WordPress Links widget: ‘Sort by:’ drop-down menu)

You can also create and display a list of items for a specific category, by selecting a link category from the ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu …

Links widget: 'Select Link Category' drop-down menu

( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)

When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button to update your settings. Your widget will become immediately visible on your site …

Links added to sidebar navigation menu

(External links added to sidebar navigation section)

As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to the WordPress sidebar navigation area.

How To Add Widgets To WordPress

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This is the end of section three of this tutorial series.

Click here to continue:

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