How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 3

Learn how to add and configure a number of useful widgets on your WordPress sidebar …

How To Add And Configure Widgets On Your Blog Sidebar MenuIn 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 section you will learn how to configure other default WordPress blog widgets.

How To Add A Post Categories Section To The Sidebar

Now that you have configure a text widget containing a contact button, let’s configure a widget for displaying Categories on the sidebar navigation section.

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

WordPress Post Categories Widget

(Categories widget)

Practical Tip

your categories …

WordPress Categories Panel

(Categories)

Note: We are currently putting together tutorials on configuring and using WordPress categories.

Let’s configure the Categories widget settings as shown below:

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

WordPress Categories Widget settings

(Categories widget settings)

Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how your Categories widget will display to blog readers …

WordPress Categories widget added to sidebar

(Categories widget added to sidebar)

Tip

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

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

Add Recent Posts

The Recent Posts widget is typically added to the sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure this widget.

Click on the Recent Posts title bar to configure its settings …

Recent Posts widget

(Recent Posts widget)

There is really not much to configure. You can add a 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 enter the number of posts to show and click Save when done …

Recent Posts WordPress widget settings

(Recent Posts widget settings)

The most recent number of posts you have specified will appear on the sidebar navigation menu …

Recent Posts widget added to sidebar

(Recent Posts WordPress widget on sidebar)

How to create a post in WordPress is explained here: How To Create A New Post In WordPress

Adding Links To Your Site’s Main Pages In Your Sidebar Navigation Area

Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar navigation section for listing pages.

Find a Pages widget in the Available Widgets section …

Pages Widget

(Pages Widget)

Drag the Pages widget to your active widget section …

Adding a Pages widget to the sidebar

(Adding a Pages widget to your sidebar navigation menu)

The Pages widget lets you configure the following options:

  • 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: Use this setting to prevent pages from showing on your sidebar menu (3) …

WordPress Pages Widget settings

(WordPress Pages Widget settings)

By default, pages will be listed 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 …

WordPress Pages Widget settings - sort options

(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)

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

Pages Widget settings - exclude pages

(Pages Widget settings – excluding pages)

To learn how to find a WordPress post or page ID, see this tutorial: How To Locate A Page Or Post ID In WordPress

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

Links to the blog’s main pages will now display in the sidebar menu …

Pages Widget on blog sidebar

(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)

Useful Tip

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

Add A Links Widget

Next, we’ll add a Links widget to your sidebar navigation section.

Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar navigation menu, we recommend setting up the Links section inside your dashboard first …

WordPress Links screen

(WordPress Links section)

Note: How to set up Links will be explained in separate tutorials.

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

WordPress Links Widget

(Links Widget)

Drag the widget to your sidebar …

Making Links Widget active

(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 your sidebar navigation area …

WordPress Links Widget Settings

(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 Links Widgets To The Sidebar Navigation Menu

(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

(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

( 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 the WordPress sidebar menu …

Links added to WordPress sidebar section

(Links added to sidebar)

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 WordPress sidebar.

Adding Widgets To Your Sidebar Menu

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This is the end of section 3 of this series of tutorials about how to use Widgets.

Click here to view the rest of this tutorial series:

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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)