In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part 2, we explained how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial we are going to show you how to configure other default WordPress widgets.
Adding A Categories Section
Now that you have set up a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure a widget for Post Categories.
The Categories widget displays on your sidebar by default. Place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(WordPress Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, you should first configure the Post Categoriesfeature inside your dashboard …
(Categories Panel)
Note: Using categories in WordPress will be covered in other tutorials.
Let’s configure your categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that will make sense to your visitors, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you plan to use several categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the size of your 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)
- You can leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save when done …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or refresh the page to see how the Categories widget will look to your visitors …
(Categories widget added to sidebar)
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 section as is.
- 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 To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget is added to the sidebar by default. All you need to do is configure the widget.
Click on the Recent Posts widget title bar to configure its settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There’s really very little to configure in this widget. 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 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 widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on your sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts widget on blog sidebar)
To learn how to create a WordPress Post, see this tutorial: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Adding A Pages Widget To The Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar area linking visitors to pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to the widget (e.g. “Site Info“) (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 the sidebar navigation area (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 – item sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from showing in the widget, type in their Page Ids separated by commas into the Exclude field of the widget …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)
For a step-by-step tutorial about how to find a WordPress page ID, go here: How To Locate The Unique ID Of Pages And Posts In Your WordPress Website
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 appear 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 different page groups on your sidebar menu (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Display Links On Your Sidebar Section
Next, we’ll add a Links widget to display external links on your WordPress sidebar navigation section.
Before adding a Links widget to your sidebar menu, we recommend configuring the Links section inside the dashboard first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide a tutorial that shows you how to use the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, select a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your active 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 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 WordPress Links Widgets To The Sidebar)
You can sort links by Link title, Link rating, Link ID, or display links in Random order …
(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 …
( 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 links to your site visitors (e.g. a list for a specific link category only), and add multiple lists of links to your WordPress sidebar.
***
This is the end of section three of this series of tutorials about how to use Widgets.
Click on this link to access the rest of this tutorial:
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya