In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this section you will learn how to configure other frequently-used blog widgets.
Adding Post Categories
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories on your sidebar navigation section.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar by default. Place this widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it on the sidebar widget area …
(Categories widget)
your post categories …
(WordPress Post Categories)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to configure and use WordPress post categories.
Let’s configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to use several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of the widget content by displaying all categories inside a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on your sidebar. (2)
- 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)
Load the site in your web browser or refresh your page to see how the content will display to your blog readers …
(WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar section)
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 unchecked.
- 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 Widget
The Recent Posts widget displays on the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s really not much to set up here. You can add a title if you want, select the number of posts to display and display post dates. If you’re happy with 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 WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on the sidebar navigation section …
(Recent Posts widget on sidebar area)
A tutorial is provided on creating posts in WordPress here: How To Create A New WordPress Post
Adding Links To Your Site’s Pages In The Blog Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar showing links to your site’s main pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Site Information“) (1)
- Sort by: Sort how your pages display: by title (i.e. alphabetically), by page order, or by page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide pages on your sidebar menu (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages will be listed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using another option, then select a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying to visitors, type in the Page Ids for the pages you would like excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on how to find a post or page ID in WordPress here: How To Locate The Unique ID Of A WordPress Page Or Post
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to your site’s pages will now show in your sidebar …
(WordPress Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation area. This is handy if you want to display different groups of pages on your sidebar navigation menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Now, we’ll add a widget to your WordPress sidebar to display links to external resources.
Before adding the Links widget to the sidebar, you should first configure the Links feature inside your dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on how to set up the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the Links widget to your sidebar area …
(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 …
(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 …
(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 …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar navigation section)
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 link lists to the WordPress sidebar.
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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials.
To continue, click this link:
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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