In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure other widgets.
How To Add Categories
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar navigation section by default. Place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(Categories widget)
your categories …
(WordPress Post Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring categories in WordPress.
Configure the Categories settings for your widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, like “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 in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar navigation section. (2)
- Leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload the page to see how your sidebar categories will display to site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar)
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 unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Section
The Recent Posts widget is added to the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on its widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The number of posts you’ve specified will be listed on your sidebar navigation section …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to blog sidebar)
For a tutorial about how to create a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A WP Post
Add A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar Area
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar to display the pages on your site.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar menu)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Information“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Prevent pages from showing on the sidebar (3) …
(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 from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from showing in your widget, just enter the Page Ids for the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to find a post or page ID in WordPress here: Finding WordPress Page And Post IDs
Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your site’s pages will now appear in the sidebar menu …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is useful if you need to display separate groups of pages on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, we’ll add a widget to the WordPress sidebar for displaying external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links section first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure and use the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your sidebar area …
(Making Links Widget active)
The Links 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 …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the 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 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)
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)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your widget will display immediately on your site …
(External links added to sidebar navigation area)
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 your WordPress sidebar navigation area.
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This is the end of part three of this series of tutorials about how to use WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue:
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