How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 3

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

How To Add And Configure WordPress Widgets In The BlogIn Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.

In this section you will learn how to configure other commonly-used widgets.

Adding Categories To The Sidebar

Now that you have set up a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.

The Categories widget displays on your sidebar area by default. All you need to do, therefore, is place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …

WordPress Categories Widget

(WordPress Post Categories widget)

Practical Tip

your post categories …

Post Categories Screen

(Categories)

Note: We plan to provide tutorials on how to set up and use WordPress categories.

Configure your Categories widget settings as described below:

  • In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
  • If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar section. (2)
  • You can leave the remaining options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
  • Click Save when finished …

Categories Widget settings

(WordPress Categories widget settings)

Load the site in your browser or refresh the page to see how the sidebar categories will display to your blog readers …

WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar

(Categories widget added to sidebar menu)

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 option as is.
  • 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

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

Add A Recent Posts Widget

The Recent Posts widget displays in the 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

(Recent Posts widget)

There is really very little to set up in this widget. You can add a title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you want 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 when done …

Recent Posts widget settings

(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)

Your most recent posts will display on your sidebar navigation area …

Recent Posts widget added to sidebar section

(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar area)

A step-by-step tutorial is provided on how to create WordPress Posts here: How To Create A New WP Post

Displaying Your Site’s Main Pages In The WordPress Sidebar

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

Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …

Pages Widget

(Pages Widget)

Drag the Pages widget to your active widget area …

Inserting a Pages widget into the sidebar section

(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar navigation area)

The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:

  • 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: Hide pages on your sidebar area (3) …

Pages Widget settings

(WordPress Pages Widget settings)

By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then select a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …

Pages Widget settings - sort options

(WordPress Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)

To prevent certain pages from displaying on your widget, enter the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …

WordPress Pages Widget settings - exclude pages

(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)

For a step-by-step tutorial about how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: How To Find A Page Or Post ID In Your WordPress Blog

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

Links to the site’s main pages will now show on your sidebar menu …

Pages Widget on sidebar

(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)

Practical Tip

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

Add Links To The WordPress Blog Sidebar

Next, we’ll add a Links widget that will display external links on the sidebar.

Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar, you should first configure your Links section inside the WP dashboard …

WordPress Links section

(WordPress Links screen)

Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on using the Links feature in WordPress.

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

Links Widget

(WordPress Links Widget)

Drag it to your active area …

Make Links Widget active

(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 section …

WordPress Links Widget Settings

(Links Widget Settings)

You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar navigation section 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 The Sidebar

(Add Multiple Links Widgets To The Sidebar Navigation Section)

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

(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

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

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

Links added to WordPress sidebar navigation menu

(External links added to WordPress sidebar section)

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 your WordPress sidebar.

How To Add Widgets To WordPress

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This is the end of section three of this tutorial series about how to use Widgets.

Click on this link to read Part Four:

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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum