In Part 1 of this step-by-step tutorial series, we cover the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this section you will learn how to configure a number of commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with little to no configuration required, such as widgets that let you display links to your site’s pages, recent posts, text or HTML banners, adding site search features, etc.
(By default, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets)
How To Add Frequently-Used WordPress Widgets To Your Blog Sidebar Navigation Section: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you are going to add, configure and reorder a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets to display in your site’s sidebar navigation menu, including:
- Add a clickable Support graphic linking to your contact page.
- Add a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Adding a list of Pages.
- Display useful Links on your sidebar navigation menu.
- Displaying news items using an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to your sidebar.
The Widgets area is located in your WP admin area and can be easily accessed from the WordPress dashboard menu by choosing Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets screen 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)
A text widget can be used to add instructions, social media buttons, tips and more to your site … just by typing in text or inserting HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings …
(Text widgets are versatile!)
Example: Add A Clickable Help Button To The Sidebar Section Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a clickable support 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, create or source a graphic image that you can use on your own site …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the image on your site, you must first upload the button image to your server’s images folder and note down the address of your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will need this information in Step 3.
In order for visitors to go to your contact page when they click on the graphic 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 a destination page.
Create a contact page and note its URL …
Step 3 – Compose your text widget code.
If you’re not a technical-minded person, don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. Basically, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable button.
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 above with the URL of your image location.
The image below shows which sections of the above code you need to replace with the actual contact page and image URLs …
Replace the above URLs and then copy the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help understanding basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want the clickable button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find a Text widget …
(WordPress text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your WordPress text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the 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 heading to the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the Content box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to check all links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or the button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text without formatting tags like paragraph breaks, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: this is not necessary if you type in formatted HTML code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not checked)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box ticked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the browser.
Once you have added the text widget and HTML content, go to the front end of your site and refresh your browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button will display at the top of your site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows a clickable button added to a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that the clickable button works. Test this by clicking on the button. You should be taken to your support page …
(Test your text widget to make sure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like a new window to open up when visitors click on the help button (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the part containing target=”_blank” in your html code):
When inserting images into 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. Note that some themes can display different column widths depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars are wide and some are narrow. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of the graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the column width to make graphics display correctly on your sidebar.
(Adjust column width or reduce image size)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the image inside the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- You can link your support button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links in your widget.
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This is the end of section two of this series of tutorials about using Widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com