In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to configure other default widgets.
Adding A Post Categories Section
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure your Categories.
By default, the Categories widget displays on the sidebar area. All you need to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(Post Categories widget)
your your WordPress categories …
(Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up WordPress categories.
Let’s configure the Categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to add several categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). If you plan to publish posts under a few categories only, then leave the Display as dropdown box unticked. (2)
- You can leave the remaining options as the default, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your web browser or reload your page to see how your Categories widget will look to 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
The Recent Posts widget normally appears on your sidebar menu by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really very little to set up. You can add a widget 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 enter a number of posts to show and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget displayed on sidebar)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on creating and editing a WordPress Post here: How To Create A New WordPress Post
Add Links To Your Site’s Main Pages
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Info“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide pages on your sidebar section (3) …
(Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed 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 – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying in your sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Find The Page Or Post ID In WordPress
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the main pages will now appear on your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar section. This is helpful if you want to display separate page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your WordPress sidebar for displaying links to external resources.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend first configuring your Links section inside your WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Configuring and using the Links feature will be covered in other tutorials.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar …
(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 area …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar 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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar)
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 …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your widget will display immediately on the WordPress sidebar navigation section …
(External links added to sidebar)
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 the WordPress sidebar navigation area.
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This is the end of section three of this series of tutorials.
Click here to view the rest of this tutorial series:
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