Tag: WordPress Widgets

In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, we explained how to configure a text widget.

In this section we will continue configuring other widgets.

Adding Post Categories

Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable help button, let’s configure a widget to display your Categories.

The Categories widget already displays on the sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …

(Post Categories widget)

your your WordPress categories …

(WordPress Categories Panel)

Note: We plan to provide tutorials about how to set up categories.

Configure your categories widget settings as described below:

• In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
• If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of your 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 the sidebar. (2)
• Leave the remaining options as the default, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
• Click Save to update your settings …

(WordPress Categories widget settings)

Load the site in your web browser or refresh the page to see how your content will display to blog readers …

(Categories widget added to sidebar menu)

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 option as is.
• To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, tick the Show post counts check box …

(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)

Add Recent Posts

The Recent Posts widget is typically added to your sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.

Click on its widget title bar to configure its settings …

(Recent Posts WordPress widget)

There’s not much to set up here. You can add a title, 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 change the number of posts and click Save when done …

(Recent Posts widget settings)

The most recent number of posts you have specified will be listed on your sidebar …

(Recent Posts widget added to sidebar section)

We provide a tutorial that shows you how to create and edit posts in WordPress here: How To Create A New WP Post

Adding A Pages Widget To Your Sidebar

Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar to display your site’s main pages.

Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …

(Pages Widget)

Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …

(Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar)

The Pages widget allows you to 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: Hide pages on the sidebar navigation 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 choose a different method from the Sort by: drop-down menu …

(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)

To prevent certain pages from showing on the widget, enter their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …

(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)

We provide a step-by-step tutorial on how to find a WordPress post or page ID here: Finding WordPress Post And Page IDs

Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.

Links to the main pages will now appear on your sidebar navigation section …

(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)

Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar. This is handy if you would like to display different page groups on the sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)

Add A Links Widget To Your WordPress Sidebar Area

Now, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar for displaying external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).

Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar menu, we recommend configuring the Links section inside the dashboard first …

(WordPress Links section)

Note: Using WordPress Links will be explained in other tutorials.

To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …

(WordPress Links Widget)

Drag it to your active area …

(Making Links Widget active)

The Links 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 the sidebar …

(WordPress Links Widget Settings)

You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar section 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 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 your Links Widget, click the Save button …

(Links added to sidebar section)

As the above example shows, you can display specific external links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple link lists to the sidebar navigation menu.

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This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial on using WordPress widgets.

Click here to continue reading:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu – Part Four

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