In Part One of this tutorial, we explained how to use WordPress widgets and in Part Two, you learned how to configure text widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to configure other commonly-used sidebar widgets.
Add A Categories Section To Your Blog Sidebar
Now that you have configure a text widget containing a clickable support button, let’s configure your Post Categories.
By default, the Categories widget already displays on your sidebar. All you have to do, therefore, is place the widget wherever you want your post categories to display by clicking and dragging it in your sidebar area …
(Categories widget)
Before adding a Categories widget to your sidebar, we recommend configuring your categories inside your WP dashboard …
(Categories)
Note: We plan to provide step-by-step tutorials that show you how to configure and use WordPress post categories.
Let’s configure the Categories widget settings as shown below:
- In Title: type something that your visitors will understand, for example, “Choose A Topic…” (1)
- If you have too many categories, check Display as dropdown (this significantly reduces the length of the widget content by displaying all categories in a drop-down menu). Leave the box unticked if you want a list of all categories to display on the sidebar navigation section. (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 …
(Configuring a Categories widget)
Click Visit Site or reload your page to see how the sidebar categories will display to your 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 option 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 Widget
The Recent Posts widget typically displays on your sidebar navigation menu by default. All you need to do is configure your widget.
Click on its widget title bar to display the configuration settings …
(Recent Posts widget)
There is really not much to configure. You can add a widget title, select the number of posts to display and opt to 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 when done …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget settings)
Your most recent posts will now display to visitors on your sidebar …
(Recent Posts WordPress widget added to sidebar)
For a step-by-step tutorial on how to create and edit WordPress Posts, go here: How To Create A Post In WordPress
Add A Pages Widget To Your Blog Sidebar
Next, let’s add a widget to your sidebar section showing links to 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 …
(Dragging and dropping a Pages widget into the sidebar navigation section)
The Pages widget allows you to configure the following options:
- Title: Add a title to display above your links (e.g. “Useful 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 your sidebar (3) …
(WordPress Pages Widget settings)
By default, pages are displayed 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 …
(Pages Widget settings – sorting options)
To prevent pages from displaying on the sidebar, type or paste in the Page Ids for the pages you want excluded separated by commas into the Exclude field …
(Pages Widget settings – exclude pages)
Finding a post or page ID in WordPress is covered here: How To Find The ID Of Pages And Posts In Your WP Blog
Click the Save button when finished 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 your sidebar navigation section …
(WordPress Pages Widget on sidebar)
Tip: You can add multiple Pages widgets to your sidebar navigation section. This is useful if you want to display different page groups on the sidebar navigation section (e.g. “Products”, “Legal Pages” etc.)
Add Links To Your Sidebar Navigation Section
Now, let’s add a widget to your sidebar menu for displaying external links (e.g. to useful resources, affiliate links, etc).
Before adding a Links widget to the sidebar menu, you will first need to configure your Links section inside the WP dashboard …
(WordPress Links section)
Note: We plan to provide a separate step-by-step tutorial that explains how to configure and use the Links feature in WordPress.
To add the widget, find a Links widget in the Available Widgets section …
(Links Widget)
Drag the widget to your sidebar 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 …
(Links Widget Settings)
You can add as many separate ‘Link Widgets’ to the sidebar navigation 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 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 the Links Widget, click the Save button …
(External links added to WordPress sidebar navigation area)
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 the sidebar.
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This is the end of section 3 of this tutorial.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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