In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained how to use widgets in WordPress and in Part Two, we explained how to configure a text widget.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other WordPress widgets.
How To Add A Categories Widget To Your Sidebar Section
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a help button, let’s configure a widget for Categories.
The Categories widget displays on the sidebar section by default. Place this widget wherever you want your categories to display by clicking and dragging it on your sidebar widget area …
(Post Categories widget)
your your WordPress categories …
(WordPress Categories Screen)
Note: Configuring and using categories in WordPress will be explained in other tutorials.
Configure the Categories settings for your widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that visitors will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you plan to have several categories (this significantly reduces the length 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 the sidebar. (2)
- Leave the remaining options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring this widget below.
- Click Save when finished …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Load the site in your web browser or reload the page to see how your sidebar categories will display to site 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 option, otherwise leave this box unchecked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category on your site, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts To The Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget typically shows in the 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 is 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’re happy 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 …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will be listed on your sidebar navigation menu …
(Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar area)
For a step-by-step tutorial about how to create a WordPress Post, go here: How To Create A New WordPress Post
Adding A Pages Widget To The Blog Sidebar
Next, we’ll add a widget to your sidebar navigation area to display your site’s main pages.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(WordPress Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget section …
(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar)
The Pages widget lets you configure the following settings:
- 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 selected pages on the sidebar (3) …
(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 …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent certain pages from displaying in the widget, type or paste in the Page Ids for the pages you would like excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field of the Pages widget …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
A step-by-step tutorial is provided on finding a page ID in WordPress here: How To Find Post And Page IDs In WordPress
Click the Save button when finished and click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize the widget.
Links to the pages will now show in the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on blog sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar navigation menu. This is handy if you would like to display different page groups on the sidebar navigation section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget
Next, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar.
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend configuring the Links section inside your WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress Links screen)
Note: We plan to create separate tutorials on how to set up WordPress Links.
To add the widget, select 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 the sidebar …
(WordPress Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar menu 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 Navigation Menu)
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 …
( WordPress Links widget: ‘Select Link Category’ drop-down menu)
When you have finished configuring the Links Widget, click the Save button. Your links will become immediately visible on your sidebar …
(External links added to sidebar)
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 navigation area.
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This is the end of section three of this tutorial series.
To continue, click this link:
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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