In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other default widgets.
Adding Categories To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on the sidebar navigation area. All you have to do, therefore, is 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)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar navigation section, we recommend setting up the Categoriessection inside your dashboard …
(Categories Panel)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to use post categories in WordPress.
Configure the Categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to add many categories (this significantly reduces the size of the 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 unchecked. (2)
- You can leave the other options unchecked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how the Categories widget will display to visitors …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar 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 option, 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 Widget
The Recent Posts widget normally appears on your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really not much to set up here. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to display post dates. If you’re happy to use the default setting for Number of posts to show, then just leave the widget as is, otherwise enter a number of posts to show and click Save when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar)
How to create posts in WordPress is covered in this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A New Post In WordPress
Add Links To Your Site’s Main Pages In The WordPress Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar section for listing pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar navigation area)
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 by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide selected 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 one of the other options, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To prevent certain pages from showing in the sidebar, type in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages by ID)
How to find a WordPress page ID is explained here: How To Find The Unique ID Of A WordPress Post Or Page
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 main pages will now appear in your sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation section. This is handy if you would like to display different groups of pages on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Now, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation section that displays external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar area, we recommend first setting up your Links feature inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to provide step-by-step tutorials that explain how to configure the WordPress Links feature.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag it 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 the sidebar navigation area …
(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 Your Sidebar Menu)
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 …
(Links added to WordPress 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 lists of links to the sidebar.
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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials on how to use WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to access the rest of this tutorial series:
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