In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you will configure several WordPress widgets.
How To Configure Commonly-Used WordPress Blog Sidebar Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several preinstalled active widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, filter posts by categories, text or HTML banners, add a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several built-in widgets)
Configuring Commonly-Used WordPress Widgets On The Blog Sidebar Area: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial, we are going to add, configure and reorder various commonly-used widgets, including:
- Add a clickable Contact Us button linking visitors to the support page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Adding a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of Pages.
- Display important Links on the sidebar navigation area.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add tag links with a Tag Cloud.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to the sidebar.
The Widgets area is located in the WP admin area and can easily be accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets section in your browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s start configuring some sidebar menu widgets …
Add A Text Widget To The Sidebar
Text widgets are incredibly useful …
(Text widget)
Rich Text Widget
From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …
(Rich Text Widget)
This lets you quickly and easily format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
Text widgets can be used to add lists, images, reviews and more to your site … just type in text or insert HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is very useful!)
Example: Add A Clickable Help Button To The Sidebar Navigation Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a support button on the sidebar that will take visitors to a page on your site (or an external site, e.g. a helpdesk) where they can contact you for help and support.
First, create or source a graphic image that you can use on your own site …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the image on your site, the image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the image to your server and note the URL pointing to your image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
In order for someone to go to the contact page when the help button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create the contact page.
Create a contact page on your site and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Create the HTML code for your text widget.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to your destination URL.
Your instructions can be typed in a plain text file and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code above with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows which sections of the above sample code you will need to replace with your actual web addresses …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of your text file content to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help figuring out basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets screen …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where the clickable button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag and drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your text widget.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget options. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click save …
Add a title to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Help”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the Content box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to check all links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text without formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: not required if you’re typing in code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box selected)
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Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
After adding the text widget and formatted content, go to the front end of your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then your support button will display at the top of your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The final step is to ensure that the destination link works. Test the button to make sure that visitors will go to your help page when they click on the graphic image. You should be taken directly to the support page …
(Test the clickable button to ensure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Tips:
If you want the support page to open in a new window when visitors click on the support (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the part containing target=”_blank” in the text widget code):
When adding images to your sidebar navigation menu, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As mentioned earlier, some themes can display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be too wide or too narrow. If the sidebar of your theme is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may need to either adjust the graphic size, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your sidebar.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want the button to be centered inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- Link the help button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the code in your widget.
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This is the end of section two of this tutorial.
Click here to access the rest of this tutorial series:
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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