In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we cover the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this section you are going to begin configuring a number of WordPress sidebar widgets.
Sidebar Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets, such as widgets for displaying external links, recent posts, news items, filter content by publish dates, etc.
(By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets)
How To Add Commonly-Used WordPress Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder various WordPress widgets, including:
- Add a Support image linking to your contact details page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display important Links on the sidebar.
- Add an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud section.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on the sidebar menu.
The Widgets panel can be accessed inside the WP admin by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets section in your browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s begin by learning how to configure text widgets …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are incredibly versatile …
(WordPress 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 let you insert just about anything you want into the sidebar navigation area or other widget sections, such as lists of favorite items, images, forms and more to your site … simply by typing in text or pasting HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings …
(A text widget is versatile!)
Example: Add A Clickable Contact Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a support button on your sidebar navigation section that will take your 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, you will need to create or source a graphic image that you will want your visitors to click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of your sidebar navigation area like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display an image on your site, first you must upload the graphic image to a folder on your server and write down the URL pointing to your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be used in Step 3.
In order for someone to be taken to the contact page when they click on the graphic button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create the destination page.
Create a contact page and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Create the code for your text widget.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
Your code can be typed into a simple text file and should 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 the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where the support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the widget.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure its settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a title to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the text area, then click Save when done …
Note: Remember to test your contact page and button image links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text with no formatting tags like paragraph breaks, 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 HTML content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs option selected)
***
Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
Once you have added your text widget and code content, go to the front end of your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the clickable support button will display at the top of the site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows ’click for help’ button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the button.
The final step is to ensure that the destination URL works. Test your button to make sure that visitors will go to the support page when they click on the graphic image. If you are taken to the contact page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test your text widget to make sure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Tips:
If you want your contact page to display in a new browser window when visitors click on the support (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. include the part that says: target=”_blank” in your code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation menu, make sure that the width of the image doesn’t exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes can display different column widths depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the button image, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make images display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your button inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then align to the left.
- Link your contact button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, contact form, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content inside the text widget.
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This is the end of part two of this tutorial on how to use Widgets.
To keep reading, click here:
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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