Tag: Widgets WP

In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.

In this section you are going to configure other frequently-used sidebar widgets.

How To Add A Categories Section

Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Post Categories on the sidebar.

By default, the Categories widget displays on the sidebar. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …

(WordPress Post Categories widget)

your categories …

(Categories Panel)

Note: Setting up and using categories in WordPress will be explained in separate tutorials.

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

• In Title: type something that visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
• If you plan to add many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
• You can 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 …

(Categories widget settings)

Load the site in your browser or reload your page to see how the content 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 box, 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 on your sidebar section by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.

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

(Recent Posts widget)

There’s very little to set up here. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 when done …

(Recent Posts widget settings)

Your most recent posts will be listed on the sidebar navigation area …

(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar)

For a step-by-step tutorial about how to create a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress

Add A Pages Widget To The Blog Sidebar

Next, we’ll 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 widget area …

(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar)

The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:

• 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 by page ID. (2)
• Exclude: Prevent pages from being visible on your sidebar (3) …

(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 – item sorting options)

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

(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)

For a tutorial about how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: Finding A WordPress Post Or Page ID

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

Links to the pages will now display in the sidebar …

(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)

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

Display Links On The WordPress Blog Sidebar

Next, we’ll add a widget to the WordPress sidebar section to display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).

Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring your Links feature inside your WP dashboard …

(WordPress Links section)

Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure the WordPress Links feature.

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

(WordPress Links Widget)

Drag the widget to your sidebar 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 your sidebar navigation section …

(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 The Sidebar)

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 …

(External links added to WordPress 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 sidebar.

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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series about how to use WordPress widgets.

To continue, click this link:

• How To Use Widgets – Part Four

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