In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other commonly-used widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Section
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on your sidebar.
The Categories widget displays on the sidebar area by default. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring your Post Categoriesfeature inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Post Categories)
Note: We plan to create a separate step-by-step tutorial that explains how to set up post categories.
Configure your categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar navigation section. (2)
- Leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how the content will look to your 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 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 A Recent Posts Section
The Recent Posts widget typically appears on your sidebar section by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s really not much to configure. You can add a title, 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 enter the number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar)
To learn how to create and edit a WordPress Post, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages In The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation section linking visitors to your pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar navigation section)
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: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing on your sidebar menu (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 select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from showing to your visitors, type in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
How to find a page ID in WordPress is explained here: How To Find Post And Page 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 display on the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is handy if you would like to display different groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your WordPress Sidebar Menu
Next, let’s add a Links widget to display external links on the sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation area, you will first need to configure your Links section inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to create step-by-step tutorials that explain how to set up Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(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 …
(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 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 your Links Widget, click the Save button …
(Links added to WordPress 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 sidebar area.
***
This is the end of section three of this series of tutorials.
To view Part 4, click this link:
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya