In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other default blog widgets.
How To Add A Categories Section
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on your sidebar menu by default. All you need to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar section, we recommend configuring your post categories first …
(Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure and use WordPress categories.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for this widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to have many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the 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 the sidebar navigation area. (2)
- Leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh the page to see how your sidebar categories will look to your 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 unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget
The Recent Posts widget displays in your sidebar navigation section by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is not much to set up. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy with the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on your sidebar navigation section …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar)
Creating and editing WordPress Posts is explained in this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A New WP Post
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide pages on your sidebar (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed 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 – sort options)
To prevent pages from showing on the sidebar, type in the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
We provide a tutorial on how to find a post or page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate WordPress Post And Page IDs
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your blog’s pages will now appear on your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is helpful if you need to display different page groups on your sidebar section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your WordPress sidebar that will display links to external resources.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar section, we recommend configuring the Links section first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: Setting up Links will be explained in other tutorials.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active area …
(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 the sidebar area …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar navigation section 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 Area)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(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 …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar)
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.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
To keep reading, click here:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum