In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you will learn how to configure other frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Add Post Categories
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Post Categories on your sidebar.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar navigation section. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar, we recommend first setting up your post categories inside the WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure your categories settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to add many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your 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 unchecked. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your Categories widget will look to your visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar navigation area)
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 section as is.
- 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 Recent Posts To The Blog Sidebar Area
The Recent Posts widget typically appears in the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really not much to configure. 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 …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar)
Creating a post in WordPress is explained here: How To Create A WordPress Post
Displaying Your Site’s Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar that will link to your site’s main pages.
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 your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Pages“) (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 one of the other options, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from displaying to your visitors, simply paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
Finding a page ID in WordPress is covered here: How To Locate The Unique ID Of WordPress Posts And Pages
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now display in your sidebar area …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar section. This is useful if you need to display separate page groups on the sidebar navigation menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your WordPress Sidebar Section
Now, we’ll add a widget for displaying external links on the WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links feature inside the WordPress dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up WordPress Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag it to your sidebar …
(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 …
(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)
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 …
( 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 widget will become immediately visible on your site …
(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 lists of links to your WordPress sidebar menu.
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This is the end of part three of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to continue:
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