In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you will learn how to configure other frequently-used sidebar widgets.
Add A Categories Section To The Blog Sidebar
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
The Categories widget already displays on your sidebar by default. All you need to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, you should first configure your Categoriessection inside the dashboard …
(Post Categories)
Note: We plan to create tutorials about how to set up and use categories.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for your widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the length of the content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the remaining options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or reload your page to see how your Categories widget will display 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 unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget typically shows in the sidebar area by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on the Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is not much to configure. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with 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 WordPress widget settings)
The most recent number of posts you have specified will appear on the sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on blog sidebar)
Creating WordPress Posts is explained here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Adding Links To Your Site’s Main Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar menu that will link to the pages you select.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …
(Inserting a Pages widget into the sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (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: Hide selected pages on the sidebar navigation area (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude pages from showing on your widget, type in the Page Ids for all the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on how to find a page ID in WordPress here: Finding WordPress Post And Page IDs
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s main pages will now show in the sidebar navigation area …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is handy if you need to display different page groups on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a widget that will display external links on the WordPress sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation section, we recommend configuring your Links section inside your WordPress dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide separate tutorials about setting up the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag it to your sidebar area …
(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 …
(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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar Navigation Area)
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 …
(Links added to WordPress sidebar 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 the sidebar menu.
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This is the end of section three of this series of tutorials on how to use WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue:
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