How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 3

Learn how to add and configure a number of useful widgets on your WordPress sidebar …

Adding WordPress Widgets To The SiteIn Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure other commonly-used WordPress widgets.

Adding A Post Categories Section

Now that you have configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on your sidebar.

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

WordPress Post Categories Widget

(WordPress Post Categories widget)

Tip

Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Categoriesfeature first …

Categories

(Categories Panel)

Note: We plan to create tutorials about setting up post categories.

Configure your categories settings as shown below:

  • In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
  • If you plan to have several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
  • Leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
  • Click Save when finished …

Configuring a WordPress Categories Widget

(Configuring a Categories widget)

Click Visit Site or reload the page to see how the Categories widget will look to your visitors …

Categories widget added to sidebar area

(Categories widget added to sidebar area)

Practical Tip

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 unticked.
  • To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …

Category widget options - Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled

(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)

Add A Recent Posts Section

The Recent Posts widget is typically added to your sidebar menu by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.

Click on its title bar to configure its settings …

Recent Posts widget

(Recent Posts widget)

There is really not much to configure in this widget. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …

Recent Posts widget settings

(Recent Posts widget settings)

Your most recent posts will be listed on your sidebar menu …

Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar

(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on sidebar)

We provide a step-by-step tutorial that shows you how to create a WordPress Post here: How To Create A Post In WordPress

Adding A Pages Widget

Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.

Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …

Pages Widget

(WordPress Pages Widget)

Drag the Pages widget to your widget section …

Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar area

(Inserting a Pages widget into the sidebar navigation area)

The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:

  • Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Information“) (1)
  • Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
  • Exclude: Hide selected pages on the sidebar (3) …

Pages Widget settings

(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 choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …

WordPress Pages Widget settings - sort options

(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)

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

Pages Widget settings - exclude pages

(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)

For a step-by-step tutorial on how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: How To Find The ID Of WordPress Pages And Posts

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

Links to the blog’s main pages will now appear in your sidebar …

Pages Widget on sidebar

(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)

Useful Tip

Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation menu. This is useful if you want to display separate groups of pages on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)

Display Links On Your WordPress Blog Sidebar

Now, let’s add a widget to the WordPress sidebar that will display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).

Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar navigation menu, we recommend setting up the Links section inside your WP dashboard first …

WordPress Links section

(WordPress Links screen)

Note: How to set up the Links feature will be covered in other tutorials.

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

Links Widget

(WordPress Links Widget)

Drag the Links widget to your sidebar area …

Making Links Widget active

(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 the sidebar …

WordPress Links Widget Settings

(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 Navigation Area

(Add Multiple Links Widgets To The 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

(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

( Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)

When you have finished configuring your Links Widget, click the Save button to update your settings. Your links will become immediately visible on your site …

Links added to WordPress sidebar

(Links added to sidebar section)

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 WordPress sidebar.

How To Add Widgets To Your WordPress Sidebar

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This is the end of part three of this tutorial series.

To continue, click here:

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