In Part One of this tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to configure other frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Add Post Categories To Your Sidebar
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
The Categories widget displays on the sidebar area by default. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, you should first configure the Categoriesfeature inside the WordPress dashboard …
(Categories Panel)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring post categories in WordPress.
Let’s configure your categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (this significantly reduces the size of your widget content by displaying all categories inside 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 this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Categories widget settings)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your sidebar categories will look to your visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar navigation menu)
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 unchecked.
- 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)
Add A Recent Posts Section To The Sidebar Navigation Area
The Recent Posts widget is typically added to the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is not much 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)
The most recent number of posts you’ve specified will be listed on the sidebar menu …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on creating a WordPress Post here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Displaying Your Site’s Main Pages In The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar for listing pages.
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 allows you to configure the following options:
- 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 selected pages on the sidebar navigation menu (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 …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude pages from showing on the sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you would like excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A tutorial is provided on finding a WordPress page ID here: How To Locate The Post Or Page ID In Your WP Blog
Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s pages will now show on the sidebar menu …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar area. This is helpful if you want to display different page groups on your sidebar menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to the sidebar to display links to external resources.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar area, we recommend configuring the Links section inside the dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: How to use the Links feature in WordPress will be covered in other tutorials.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag it to your active 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 …
(WordPress 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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar)
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 …
(External links added to sidebar navigation menu)
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.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series.
Click here to continue reading:
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