In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to configure other frequently-used blog widgets.
How To Add A Post Categories Section To The Sidebar
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, you will first need to configure your categories inside the WP dashboard …
(WordPress Post Categories Panel)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up and using categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure your categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of your content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unchecked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar navigation section. (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 …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload the page to see how the sidebar categories will look to site visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar navigation section)
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, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add A Recent Posts Section To Your Sidebar Area
The Recent Posts widget is added to your sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really not much to configure in this widget. 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 setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will be listed on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar)
For a tutorial about how to create and edit a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar area for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar section)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Useful Information“) (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 your sidebar (3) …
(WordPress 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 choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from showing to visitors, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on finding a page ID in WordPress here: How To Find The Unique ID Of Any WordPress Post Or Page
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s main pages will now display in the sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation section. This is handy if you want to display different groups of pages on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To The Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar navigation area, we recommend configuring your Links feature first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to create a separate tutorial that explains how to set up the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar …
(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 navigation 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 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 your Links Widget, click the Save button to update your settings. Your links will become immediately visible on your sidebar 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 sidebar section.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
Click here to continue:
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