In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other widgets.
Adding A Categories Widget To The Blog Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable contact button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Post Categories on your sidebar navigation area.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on the sidebar navigation section. Place this 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 your sidebar area, we recommend first configuring your Post Categoriessection inside your dashboard …
(Categories Panel)
Note: Setting up WordPress post categories will be explained in separate tutorials.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your widget 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. (2)
- Leave the other options as the default, 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 your page to see how the Categories widget will look to 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 option as is.
- 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 Widget
The Recent Posts widget normally displays on your sidebar navigation area by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really very little to set up. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and 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 widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you’ve specified will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on sidebar)
To learn how to create and edit WordPress Posts, see this tutorial: How To Create A New WordPress 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 active widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar area)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Useful Sections“) (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 navigation area (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from showing to visitors, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
For a tutorial about how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: How To Locate Page And Post IDs In WordPress
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 main pages will now show in the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is helpful if you want to display different page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To The Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to display external links on your WordPress sidebar navigation menu.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar navigation area, we first recommend setting up your Links section inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Configuring the WordPress Links feature will be explained in separate tutorials.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active 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 the sidebar …
(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)
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 to update your settings. Your links will display immediately on the sidebar …
(External links added to sidebar)
As the above example shows, you can display specific external links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to the WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of section three 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