How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 4

Learn how to add and configure various useful WordPress widgets on your sidebar and how to create custom sidebar widgets …

How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets On Your Blog Sidebar Navigation MenuIn Part 1 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 Part 3, we began configuring a number of frequently-used widgets.

In this final section, we show you how to complete this step-by-step tutorial series by configuring a few more useful widgets.

Info

In WordPress v. 4.8, WordPress introduced new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an updated text widget that supports visual editing

WordPress 4.8 - WordPress Widget Updates

(WordPress 4.8 introduced new widget updates)

These widgets let you add content from your media library and media stored in other servers or storage locations (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.).

Let’s go through how to configure and use each of these widgets:

Rich Text Widget

From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …

Rich Text Widget

(Rich Text Widget)

This lets you format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text quickly and easily …

(Format text easily with the new text widget)

To learn more about using text widgets in WordPress, see the tutorial below:

WordPress Image Widget

The WordPress Image Widget lets you add an image to your sidebar from your Media Library or an external storage location.

To add an image, drag an image widget to your active widgets area …

Image Widget

(Image Widget)

Click on ‘Add Image’ …

Let's add an image!

(Let’s add an image!)

Select an image from the Image Library, check or add image details (e.g. Caption, Alt text, Description, etc.) if desired and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …

Select an image

(Select an image)

The image will automatically load into the widget area …

Image added to widget

(Image added to widget)

Add a Title to your image if you want, or leave the ‘Title:’ field blank and click ‘Save’ …

Save your image

(Save your image)

Preview your website and you should see the image displayed where you have placed your image widget …

Image added to website using image widget

(Image added to website using WordPress image widget)

If you want to link your image to an URL, go back to your image widget and click on ‘Edit Image’ …

Image Widget - Edit Image

(Image Widget – Edit Image)

Add a URL in the ‘Image Details’ > ‘Display Settings’ > ‘Link To’ screen and click the ‘Update’ button …

Link your image to an URL

(Link your image to an URL)

To add an image stored in an external server or remote location, locate and copy the URL of the image to your clipboard …

Copy image URL to your clipboard

(Copy image URL to your clipboard)

Go back to your image widget and click on ‘Replace Image’ …

Image Widget - Replace image

(Image Widget – Replace image)

The Media Library browser opens. Click on ‘Insert from URL’ and paste in the image URL copied to your clipboard, then click on ‘Add to Widget’  …

Add image URL

(Add image URL)

If you have previously added an image title in your widget, remember to replace it if required, then click ‘Save’ …

Save your new image

(Save your new image)

The new image will now display on your sidebar …

New image added using WordPress image widget

(New image added using WordPress image widget)

To learn more about adding images to WordPress, see this tutorial:

WordPress Video Widget

The WordPress Video Widget lets you add audio files to your sidebar from your Media Library, YouTube, Vimeo, or an external storage location.

To add a video to the sidebar, drag a Video widget to your active widgets area …

Drag a Video widget to your sidebar

(Drag a Video widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Video’ button …

Video widget - Add Video

(Video widget – Add Video)

Select a video from your media library or add a video URL and click the ‘Add to Widget’ button …

Add a video URL

(Add a video URL)

Add a title to the widget if desired and click ‘Save’ …

WordPress Video Widget - Save Button

(WordPress Video Widget – Save Button)

Your video will display on your site where the video widget has been added …

Video added using WordPress video widget

(Video added using WordPress video widget)

To learn more about adding video to WordPress, see this tutorial:

WordPress Audio Widget

The WordPress Audio Widget lets you add audio files like podcasts, music or a personal greeting to your sidebar from your media library or an external storage location.

To add an audio file to your sidebar, drag an audio widget to your active widgets area …

Add an audio widget to your sidebar

(Add an audio widget to your sidebar)

Click the ‘Add Audio’ button…

WordPress Audio Widget - Add Audio button

(WordPress Audio Widget – Add Audio button)

Select an audio file from your media library or insert the URL of an audio file stored in an external location …

Select your audio file

(Select your audio file)

Add a title to your widget if desired and click the ‘Save’ button …

Save the audio file on your audio widget

(Save the audio file on your audio widget)

Your site will now display an audio file to visitors where you have placed the audio widget …

Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget

(Audio file added to your site using the WordPress Audio Widget)

To learn more about adding audios to WordPress, see this tutorial:

Adding An RSS Widget To Your Blog Sidebar

Let’s add An RSS widget to your sidebar.

To add the widget, find an RSS widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to your sidebar …

RSS Widget

(RSS Widget)

Enter the following information into the widget settings:

  1. RSS feed URL: Enter the RSS feed URL here.
  2. Feed Title: If you would like to add an optional widget feed, type it into this section.
  3. Items to display: Choose how many items you want to display in your sidebar section from the drop-down menu.
  4. Display item content: Tick this box if you want to display the item content.
  5. Display item author: Tick this box if you want to display the item item author.
  6. Display item date: Tick this box if you would like to display the item item date.

RSS Widget settings

(WordPress RSS Widget settings)

Experiment with different settings to find the combination that works best for you.

The example below shows an RSS widget configured using the settings shown above …

WordPress RSS Widget on sidebar

(WordPress RSS Widget added to sidebar)

The screenshot below shows a published RSS Feed widget configured with additional options selected …

RSS Widget settings

(WordPress RSS Widget settings)

To learn more about using RSS feeds in WordPress, see this tutorial:

Adding A Tag Cloud To Your Sidebar Area

Let’s add A Tag Cloud widget to your sidebar.

Info

Tags appearing in your Tag Cloud widget are managed in the Tags section …

Tags screen

(Tags area)

To insert the widget, select a Tag Cloud widget in the Available Widgets section and drag it to the sidebar …

Tag Cloud Widget

(WordPress Tag Cloud Widget)

There is really not much to set up here. You can add a title, and choose whether to display items in the tag cloud using Tags or Categories. Click Save when finished …

WordPress Tag Cloud Widget settings

(Tag Cloud Widget settings)

Your Tag cloud will now display on your sidebar navigation menu …

Tag Cloud widget displaying WordPress post tags

(Tag Cloud widget set to display WordPress tags)

The screenshot below shows an Tag Cloud widget configured for displaying Categories instead of Tags

Tag cloud set to display categories

(Tag Cloud widget displaying WordPress post categories)

To learn more about using post tags in WordPress, see this tutorial:

Configuring Your Archives Section

To complete this tutorial series, we’ll configure the default Archives Widget, which is another frequently-used WordPress widget.

As you publish new posts in WordPress, your older posts begin to move further away from public view. Your content is still there, it’s just not as visible.

The Archives Widget lets blog visitors view dated posts …

WordPress Archives Widget

(Archives Widget)

There is really not much to set up here. You can add a title if you want, and choose whether to display items in your sidebar widget in a dropdown menu, and show post counts . Click Save when done …

Archives Widget settings

(Archives Widget settings)

The screenshot below shows the Archives widget set to show posts as a dropdown menu with post counts enabled …

WordPress Archives widget displayed on sidebar area

(WordPress Archives Widget added to sidebar)

Now that you know how to configure various widgets in WordPress, let’s explore some other useful ways to use WordPress widgets.

Widgets – Useful Tips

Here are some additional ways to use WordPress widgets:

Add ‘Visibility’ Function To Widgets

Installing the Jetpack plugin not only adds many new widgets to your widgets area …

Jetpack Widgets

(Jetpack Widgets)

It also adds a useful ‘Visibility’ function to all WordPress widgets …

Jetpack adds 'Visibility' to all widgets

(Jetpack adds ‘Visibility’ to all widgets)

This function lets you specify whether to display or hide widgets from your sidebar based on conditions you set for a particular category, author, user. role, tag, date, or page …

Set conditions to show or hide widgets

(Set conditions to show or hide widgets)

This is a really useful function to have.

For example, you can:

  • Display a widget only on your home page or only on posts published under certain categories, tags, authors, dates, etc.
  • Configure widgets to display specific or time-sensitive announcements based on a post’s category, date, etc.
  • Configure widgets to display targeted ad banners based on a post’s category or tag.
  • Hide widgets from appearing on certain posts or pages to prevent users from being distracted (e.g. remove widgets with ads from your sales pages).
  • And more!

To learn more about using the Jetpack plugin, go here:

Overriding Default Sidebar Widgets

If you see widgets showing up on your blog sidebar that aren’t showing up in the active sidebar in the Appearance > Widgets section, it’s because with some themes, until you add widgets to your sidebar, the theme will display its own default set of widgets.

For example, this site displays some widgets in the blog sidebar …

Overriding Default Widgets

If you look inside the Widgets section, however, you will see that no widgets have actually been added to any of the available widget areas …

How To Override Default Widgets

This is because the theme above is probably using default widgets.

Once you add one or more widgets to an available widget area, the placeholder widgets will your newly-added widgets will be used instead.

Note: If you don’t want anything to show up in the sidebar section, either use a theme page template without a widgets layout or just add a blank Text widget to the sidebar menu.

Just add a blank text widget …

Override Default WordPress Sidebar Widgets

And the default widgets will not display in the sidebar/footer section …

Overriding Default Widgets

Accessibility Mode

As we’ve explained earlier, with WordPress you can quickly reorder how content displays in widgetized areas of your site sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse button, using drag-&-drop …

Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site's visitor experience

(Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience)

In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have quickly and easily reorganized the sidebar by switching the search and testimonial sections. This is easily done by dragging and dropping the widget elements into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

You can reorganize your sidebar layout with widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience.

If, for some reason, you find that you cannot move widgets around using drag-and-drop (e.g. using a mobile device that doesn’t support dragging-and-dropping), then you can still use widgets by enabling Accessibility Mode.

Enabling Widget Accessibility Mode

Enabling Accessibility Mode, via the Screen Options, allows you to use Add and Edit buttons instead of dragging and dropping.

To enable Accessibility Mode, log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Widgets

Widgets Menu

(Widgets Menu)

Select Screen Options on the top right hand corner of the screen …

WordPress Widgets - Screen Options

(Widgets – Screen Options)

Click on Enable accessibility mode

Switch On accessibility mode

(Enable accessibility mode)

Once accessibility mode has been enabled, the widgets in the Available Widgets section will display an Add link, and the widgets in the Active Widgets section will display an Edit link …

Enabling Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

Click on a Widget’s Add link in the Available Widgets section …

How To Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

A screen displays the selected widget with options for customizing its settings, selecting a location to add the widget, plus drop-down menus for specifying the position of the widget in your selected location (e.g. position “1”, “3”, “4”, etc.) …

Enabling Accessibility Mode For WordPress Widgets

Click Save Widget to add the widget to your Active Widgets section, or Cancel to go back to the previous screen …

Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

Click on the Edit link of an active widget …

Enable Accessibility Mode For Widgets

A screen displays the selected widget with options for changing its settings.

Click Save Widget to update your settings and go back to the Active Widgets screen, or click the Delete button to remove the widget from the Active Widgets section …

Enabling Widget Accessibility Mode

Click on Disable accessibility mode in the Screen Options section to go back to using drag-and-drop …

Turn off accessibility mode

(Turn off accessibility mode)

Creating Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets – An Easy Cheat

Most of the widgets that you will use will either be installed by default when you create a new WordPress site, or be automatically added to your Available Widgets area when you install new plugins on your site.

If you want to create your own sidebar widget, then here is a simple and easy way:

First, create a new Post and type in the content that you would like to display on the sidebar…

Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Ensure that any images you plan to use are resized to fit the maximum width of the sidebar area. Also, keep in mind that you don’t have a lot of room to put content on the blog sidebar, so try and keep your information concise.

Also, don’t worry about saving your Post – all we really want is the content HTML so we can paste it into the custom sidebar widget.

Once you have written your content in the WordPress editor, switch to the Text tab …

Creating Your Own Sidebar Widgets

Select and copy everything to your clipboard…

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Now, go into your Widgets Area.

Add a new Text widget to your sidebar, paste the content from your clipboard into the content field and click Save

Creating Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

Your custom widget will be added to your sidebar navigation section…

How To Create Your Own Custom Sidebar Widgets

(Create your own custom sidebar widgets)

Congratulations! Now you know how to use and configure sidebar widgets.

How To Add WordPress Widgets To The Website

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