Tag: Widgets

In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.

In this section you will configure other widgets.

How To Add Categories To Your Blog Sidebar

Now that you have set up a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories on the sidebar.

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

(Categories widget)

your categories …

(WordPress Post Categories)

Note: We plan to create separate tutorials on how to use post categories.

Let’s configure your Categories widget settings as shown below:

• In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
• Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size 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 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 …

(Categories widget settings)

Load the site in your web browser or reload the page to see how the sidebar categories will look to site 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 Recent Posts To Your Blog Sidebar Area

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

Click on its title bar to display the configuration settings …

(Recent Posts widget)

There’s really not much to set up. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy with the default Number of posts to show setting, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save when done …

(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)

Your most recent posts will display on the sidebar …

(Recent Posts widget on sidebar)

For a tutorial on how to create WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A WP Post

Adding Links To Your Site’s Main Pages

Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar menu to display page links.

Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …

(Pages Widget)

Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …

(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar navigation section)

The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:

• Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Pages“) (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 navigation section (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 – sorting options)

To prevent pages from displaying on your sidebar, simply enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …

(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)

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

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

Links to your site’s main pages will now appear in the sidebar navigation menu …

(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)

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

Add Links To The WordPress Blog Sidebar

Now, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar.

Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links feature inside your dashboard first …

(WordPress Links screen)

Note: Using the Links feature in WordPress will be explained in separate tutorials.

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

(WordPress Links Widget)

Drag it to your sidebar area …

(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 the sidebar navigation menu …

(Links Widget Settings)

You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar area 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 Navigation Area)

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 the Links Widget, click the Save button …

(Links added to 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 link lists to the sidebar navigation menu.

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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials on how to use WordPress widgets.

To view the rest of this tutorial series, click here:

• Adding Widgets To The Sidebar – Part Four

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