In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained the basics of how to use WordPress widgets.
In this section we are going to show you how to configure various widgets in WordPress.
Configuring Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, recent posts, RSS feed content, adding a search box, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several active widgets)
How To Set Up Commonly-Used Sidebar Widgets: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will add, configure and reorder various WordPress widgets to display in the site’s sidebar area, including:
- Add a clickable Support graphic button linking to your contact page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Add a list of your site’s most important Pages.
- Display important Links on your sidebar.
- Display news items using an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a list of clickable tags with a Tag Cloud section.
- Configure how your Archived Posts display on your sidebar menu.
The Widgets section is located inside your WP dashboard by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets section in your browser …
(Widgets Section)
Let’s get started …
Adding Text Widgets
Text widgets are incredibly useful …
(Text widget)
Rich Text Widget
From version 4.8 onward, WordPress has added native rich-text editing capabilities to text widgets …
(Rich Text Widget)
This lets you quickly and easily format text, create lists, add emphasis, and insert links into your sidebar text …
(Format text easily with the new text widget)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as email and contact information, ads, messages and more to your site … just type in text or paste HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is really versatile!)
Example: Add A Clickable Support Button To The Sidebar Menu Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a clickable help button on your sidebar that takes visitors to a page on your site (or an external site, e.g. a helpdesk) where they can contact you for help and support.
First, you will need to create or source a “help button” graphic image that visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of your sidebar navigation menu like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the image to the images folder in your server and write down the URL pointing to your server’s image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be required in Step 3.
In order for someone to be taken to your contact page when the graphic button is clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link the button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your contact page.
Create a contact page and note the page URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to your contact page/helpdesk.
Your instructions can be composed in a plain text editor and should look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above code that you will need to replace with the actual contact page and image URLs …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help figuring out basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like your support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the top of the Widget Area …
(Drag and drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into the text widget content area and click the save button …
Add a title to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the large text box, then click Save when done …
Note: Remember to test your contact page and image URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text with no formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in an HTML paragraph code (note: not required if you’re pasting in HTML content like we’re using in the example for this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option ticked)
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Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
Once you have added your widget and formatted content, go to the front end of your site and refresh the web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then the clickable support button should display at the top of your site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on blog sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support contact button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The last step is to ensure that your destination URL works. Test the button to make sure that visitors will go to your support page when clicking the graphic image. If you are taken to your support page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test the clickable button)
Tips:
If you would like the support page to open inside a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the section containing target=”_blank” in your code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation menu, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As mentioned earlier, some themes may display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of your graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the image size, or the column width to make graphics display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Make sure the width of the image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want the image to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then be left-aligned.
- Link the support button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content inside your text widget.
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This is the end of section two of this tutorial.
Click here to continue:
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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)