In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you will configure other commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Section To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure Post Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on your sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend setting up your Post Categoriessection first …
(WordPress Post Categories Screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up WordPress post categories.
Configure the Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to add several categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar. (2)
- Leave the remaining options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh the page to see how your sidebar categories will display to your site visitors …
(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 unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget is added to the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really very little to configure in this widget. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on the sidebar menu …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on blog sidebar)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial about how to create and edit posts in WordPress here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation menu showing links to your pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar area)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (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 (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To exclude pages from displaying in your widget, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A tutorial is provided on how to find a page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate The Unique ID Of Posts And Pages 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 the site’s main pages will now show on the sidebar area …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is helpful if you need to display different page groups on your sidebar area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we first recommend configuring your Links feature inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to create tutorials on configuring the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links 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 the sidebar …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar 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 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 …
( 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 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 sidebar navigation section.
***
This is the end of section three of this tutorial series.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
***
"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)