In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other commonly-used sidebar widgets.
How To Add Categories To The Blog Sidebar
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget for Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar menu. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar navigation menu, we first recommend configuring your Categoriessection inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Categories)
Note: We plan to provide separate tutorials that show you how to use post categories.
Configure your categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of the content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar menu. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or reload the page to see how the content will display to blog readers …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar menu)
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, tick the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Widget To The Blog Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget typically displays on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s very little to set up in this widget. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you’ve specified will now display to visitors on your sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar)
We provide a tutorial on how to create WordPress Posts here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Main Pages In Your Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar section)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (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: Use this setting to hide pages on the sidebar (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying to visitors, enter the Page Ids for all the pages you want to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A tutorial is provided on finding a WordPress post or page ID here: Finding WordPress Page And Post IDs
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your main pages will now show on your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar area. This is handy if you would like to display different groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, let’s add a Links widget that will display external links on the sidebar area.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend configuring the Links section first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your sidebar …
(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 your sidebar 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 …
(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 the Links Widget, click the Save button …
(External links added to sidebar)
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 link lists to the sidebar navigation section.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial about using Widgets.
Click on this link to read Part 4:
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