In Part 1 of this tutorial series, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure other sidebar widgets.
How To Add A Categories Widget To The Blog Sidebar
Now that you know how to set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on your sidebar area.
The Categories widget already displays on your sidebar navigation menu by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(Categories widget)
your your WordPress post categories …
(WordPress Post Categories Panel)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on setting up and using WordPress post categories.
Configure your categories widget settings as described below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to use several categories (this significantly reduces the length of your 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 section. (2)
- You can leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or reload your page to see how your content will look to blog readers …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar navigation area)
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 box, 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
The Recent Posts widget displays in the sidebar navigation section by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on your Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There is really very little to set up. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you want 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)
Your most recent posts will appear on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget displayed on blog sidebar)
To learn how to create WordPress Posts, see this step-by-step tutorial: How To Create A New WP Post
Add Links To Your Site’s Pages In The Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation area linking visitors to your site’s pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your widget area …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar menu)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Pages“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing on your sidebar (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 choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sort options)
To exclude certain pages from displaying in your sidebar, simply paste in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
Finding a WordPress post or page ID is explained in this step-by-step tutorial: How To Find The Unique ID Of WordPress Pages And Posts
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your blog’s main pages will now display in your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is helpful if you need to display separate page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, let’s add a Links widget to your sidebar.
Before adding the Links widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring the Links section inside your WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to create tutorials about how to configure and use Links.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your sidebar …
(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 your sidebar navigation section …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your 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 Links Widgets To Your Sidebar)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(WordPress 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 …
(Links added to sidebar navigation area)
As the above example shows, you can display specific links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to your sidebar.
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This is the end of part 3 of this tutorial series about how to use WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now