In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to configure other default WordPress sidebar widgets.
How To Add A Post Categories Section To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you know how to configure a text widget containing a support button, let’s configure a widget for your Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar area. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Post Categories widget)
your post categories …
(WordPress Categories Panel)
Note: We plan to provide tutorials about setting up and using WordPress post categories.
Configure the Categories settings for your widget as described below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have several categories (this significantly reduces the size of your content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- You can leave the other options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(WordPress Categories widget settings)
Load the site in your browser or reload your page to see how your sidebar categories will look to blog readers …
(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 option, otherwise leave this box unticked.
- 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 Recent Posts
The Recent Posts widget is added to the sidebar area by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the Recent Posts widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is very little to set up here. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you want to use 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 when done …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
Your most recent posts will display on the sidebar menu …
(Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar section)
To learn how to create and edit a WordPress Post, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A WordPress Post
Displaying Your Site’s Main Pages In The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Area
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation section for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget area …
(Inserting a Pages widget into the sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Useful Pages“) (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 the sidebar menu (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed 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 – item sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from showing in the sidebar, just type their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
For a tutorial about how to find a WordPress post or page ID, go here: How To Find A WordPress Post Or Page ID
Click the Save button when finished and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to your pages will now display in the sidebar menu …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar section. This is helpful if you want to display different page groups on your sidebar navigation area (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to the sidebar navigation menu to display external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar menu, we recommend setting up the Links feature first …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: How to set up and use the WordPress Links feature will be covered in separate tutorials.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget 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 section …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the 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 The Sidebar Navigation Area)
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 …
( 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 widget will become immediately visible on your site …
(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 your WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial on how to use Widgets.
Click here to continue:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum