In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this section you are going to learn how to configure several WordPress widgets.
How To Configure Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets, such as widgets that let you display external links, filter posts by categories, news items, adding search features, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)
How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Sidebar: Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, we will add, configure and reorder s number of widgets, including:
- Add a clickable Support button linking visitors to the help page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of Pages.
- Display a list of useful Links on the sidebar navigation area.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud section.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on your sidebar section.
The Widgets area is located inside the admin area by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets panel in your browser …
(Widgets Panel)
Let’s begin configuring some sidebar widgets …
Adding Text Widgets
Text widgets are versatile …
(WordPress 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)
A text widget can be used to add quotes, image links, forms and more to your site … simply by typing in text or inserting HTML into the widget content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings …
(Text widgets are really useful!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Contact Button To Your Sidebar Navigation Section
For this example, let’s set up a support button on the sidebar navigation area that will take your 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, create or source a graphic image that visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar navigation section like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the graphic image to your server and note down the address of your server’s image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
In order for visitors to go to the contact page when they click on the support button, you must either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will then link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create your destination page.
Create a contact page and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Compose the HTML code for your text widget.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, you just need to create the instructions linking the button image to the destination URL.
Your code can be typed in a simple text file and will look something like this …
- Replace “http://www.yourdomain.com/contact-us” in the code above with the URL of your contact page location.
- Replace “http://yourimagelocation.com/img/supportbutton.jpg” in the code above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows the sections of the above sample code that you will need to replace with your 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 understanding basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Next, go back to your Widgets section …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the clickable button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release it at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag-and-drop your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the text widget settings.
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 your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Help”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the large text box, then click the save button …
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 paste in code 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 ticked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box selected)
***
Step 6 – Refresh your web browser.
Once you have added the text widget and code, visit your site and refresh the web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your support button will display in the sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support button in the sidebar navigation menu of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the button.
The final step is to make sure that the destination link works. Test this by clicking the button. If you are taken to the contact page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget)
Useful Tips:
If you would like the support page to display inside a new browser window when visitors click on the support (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. add the part containing target=”_blank” in your text widget code):
When adding images to your sidebar section, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As mentioned earlier, some themes can display different column widths depending on their templates and their layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the button image, then you may have to either adjust the graphic size, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your sidebar area.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want your button to be centered in your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then align to the left.
- Link the help button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external link, helpdesk, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links inside your text widget.
***
This is the end of part two of this series of tutorials.
To keep reading, click here:
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum