In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this section you are going to begin configuring various widgets in WordPress.
Sidebar Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration required, such as widgets that let you display links to your site’s pages, filter posts by categories, newsfeeds, adding search features, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several pre-installed widgets)
How To Configure Sidebar Widgets: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you are going to add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:
- Add a clickable Help image linking visitors to the help page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Adding a list of your site’s Pages.
- Display Links on the sidebar.
- Add an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud section.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on the sidebar.
The Widgets area is located inside the WP administration area and can easily be accessed from the dashboard menu by clicking on Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets panel in your web browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s get started …
Adding Text Widgets To The Blog Sidebar
Text widgets are 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 can be used to add instructions, maps and directions, news and updates and more to your site … simply type in text or add HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is really useful!)
Example: Add A Clickable Support Button To Your Sidebar Menu Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable support button on your sidebar that takes 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 a clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar navigation 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 your button graphic to your server and note the path to your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
In order for visitors to be taken to the contact page when they click on the support button, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link the button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add a destination page.
Create a contact page and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
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 button image to the contact page/helpdesk.
Your code 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 with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot below shows the sections of the above code that you 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 with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Go back to your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your support button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a 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 …
(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure its options. 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 your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination URLs into the large text box, then click Save when done …
Note: Remember to check your contact page and image links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If adding text without formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: this is not necessary if you type in HTML code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
After adding the text widget and code, go to the front end of your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the support button should display at the top of your sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the support contact button added to a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The last step is to make sure that your clickable button works. Test the button to make sure that your visitors will go to the contact page when clicking the graphic image. You should be taken directly to your contact page …
(Test your clickable button)
Useful Tips:
If you would like a new window to open up when visitors click on your help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the section containing target=”_blank” in your html code):
When choosing images for your sidebar section, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the graphic size, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Make sure that the image width does not exceed the sidebar column width)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want your image to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- You can link your contact button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content in the widget.
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This is the end of part two of this tutorial series.
To continue, click this link:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)