In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to configure other commonly-used blog widgets.
How To Add Post Categories
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on the sidebar section. All you need to do, therefore, is place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(Post Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar menu, you should first configure your post categories inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring and using WordPress categories.
Configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to add many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the 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 area. (2)
- Leave the other options as the default, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how your sidebar categories will look 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 box, otherwise leave this option as is.
- 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 Sidebar Navigation Area
The Recent Posts widget normally displays on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really very little to set up in this widget. 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 WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will appear on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar navigation section)
For a step-by-step tutorial about how to create a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A New WP Post
Displaying Your Site’s Main Pages In The Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation section to display page links.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Inserting a Pages widget into your 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 page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to hide pages on your sidebar section (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed 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 certain pages from displaying on your sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you would like to exclude separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Find A Post Or Page ID In WordPress
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your main pages will now show on your sidebar navigation section …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is handy if you need to display separate groups of pages on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget that will display external links on your sidebar section.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links section inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to create separate step-by-step tutorials that explain how to set up and use the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget 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 your sidebar …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar navigation menu 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 Menu)
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 to update your settings. Your widget will become immediately visible on your site …
(External 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 your sidebar navigation section.
***
This is the end of part 3 of this series of tutorials.
To continue, click this link:
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group