In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other default WordPress blog widgets.
Add Post Categories To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
your categories …
(WordPress Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up categories in WordPress.
Configure your categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to use many categories (this significantly reduces the size of the widget 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 navigation section. (2)
- You can leave the default settings for the remaining options, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or refresh your page to see how your sidebar categories will display to your blog readers …
(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 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 A Recent Posts Section To The Sidebar Menu
The Recent Posts widget typically shows in your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on its title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s not much to configure. You can add a 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 change the number of posts and click Save …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will appear on the sidebar navigation area …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)
For a step-by-step tutorial about how to create a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar Section
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar showing links to the pages you select.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your active widget area …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (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 (3) …
(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 in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying in your sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for all the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A tutorial is provided on finding a WordPress post or page ID here: How To Find WordPress Post And Page IDs
Click the Save button when done and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the pages will now appear in your sidebar navigation area …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation area. This is useful if you want to display different groups of pages on your sidebar navigation section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To The Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget for displaying external links on your sidebar navigation area.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links section inside your WordPress dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide a separate tutorial about how to configure the Links feature in WordPress.
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 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 navigation menu …
(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)
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 the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your links will become immediately visible on the WordPress sidebar …
(External links added to sidebar navigation area)
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 WordPress sidebar menu.
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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials about using WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to continue:
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