In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to configure other commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Adding Categories To Your Sidebar Menu
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories on the sidebar.
The Categories widget already displays on the sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
your categories …
(Categories Screen)
Note: We plan to provide step-by-step tutorials about how to configure and use post categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure your categories settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have several categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- 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 …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or refresh the page to see how your sidebar categories will look to 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 option, otherwise leave this box unchecked.
- 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 Recent Posts To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget normally displays on your sidebar menu by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really not much to set up. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
Creating a new post in WordPress is covered here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages In The Sidebar Navigation Section
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar navigation section)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Information“) (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 displaying on the sidebar menu (3) …
(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 – item sorting options)
To prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar, enter the Page Ids for all the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
We provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to find a page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate WordPress Page And Post IDs
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the site’s pages will now appear on your sidebar area …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar section. This is useful if you would like to display different groups of pages on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Area
Next, we’ll add a Links widget to the sidebar.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar section, you should first configure the Links section inside your WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure and use the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget 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 …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the 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 …
(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. Your widget will display immediately on the WordPress sidebar menu …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar navigation area)
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 your sidebar navigation menu.
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This is the end of part three of this tutorial series about how to use WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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