In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part 2, you learned how to configure a text widget.
In this section you are going to configure other frequently-used blog widgets.
How To Add Categories
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable contact button, let’s configure a widget to display Categories on the sidebar.
By default, the Categories widget displays on your sidebar area. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in the sidebar area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to the sidebar area, we recommend setting up your post categories first …
(WordPress Categories Screen)
Note: We plan to create separate tutorials about configuring and using categories in WordPress.
Configure the Categories settings for this widget as shown below:
- In Title: type something that blog readers will understand, like “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- Check Display as dropdown if you have too many categories (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 menu. (2)
- Leave the other options unticked, or see the additional notes on configuring the Categories widget below.
- Click Save to update your settings …
(Configuring a WordPress Categories widget)
Load the site in your browser or reload your page to see how your content will look to your visitors …
(WordPress 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 unticked.
- To display the number of posts published in each category, enable the Show post counts check box …
(Category widget options – Post Count Enabled vs Post Count Disabled)
Add Recent Posts To Your Sidebar
The Recent Posts widget displays on your sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.
Click on your Recent Posts title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget)
There’s really not much to set up in this widget. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 …
(Recent Posts widget settings)
The number of posts you have specified will now display to visitors on the sidebar …
(Recent Posts widget displayed on sidebar)
To learn how to create a WordPress Post, see this tutorial: How To Create A WP Post
Adding A Pages Widget
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar to display the pages on your site.
Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Pages Widget)
Drag the Pages widget to your sidebar widget area …
(Inserting a Pages widget into your sidebar navigation area)
The Pages widget allows you to 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 page ID. (2)
- Exclude: Hide selected pages on your sidebar menu (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed by title in alphabetical order. If you want to display pages using one of the other options, then choose a different method in the Sort by: drop-down menu …
(Pages Widget settings – item sorting options)
To exclude certain pages from displaying on your sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for the pages you would like excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings – exclude pages by ID)
To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this step-by-step tutorial: Finding WordPress Page And Post IDs
Click the Save button when done and then click Close at the bottom of the widget box to minimize your widget.
Links to the main pages will now appear on the sidebar …
(Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to the sidebar. This is useful if you want to display separate page groups on your sidebar (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add A Links Widget To The Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your WordPress sidebar area that displays external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar, we recommend setting up the Links section first …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: Setting up and using WordPress Links will be covered in other tutorials.
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 section …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to your sidebar area 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 …
(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 navigation menu)
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 lists of links to the sidebar section.
***
This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial series on using Widgets.
Click on this link to read the rest of this tutorial:
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org