In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we cover the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you are going to configure a number of commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
Configuring Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with several built-in widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration required, such as widgets for displaying external links, filter posts by categories, RSS feed content, adding tag clouds, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of active widgets)
How To Configure Frequently-Used WordPress Widgets On Your Blog Sidebar: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial series, you will learn how to add, configure and reorder various WordPress widgets, including:
- Adding a Support button linking to your contact details page.
- Adding a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar navigation menu.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add tags to your sidebar navigation area with a Tag Cloud section.
- Configure how Archived Posts display on your sidebar area.
The Widgets panel is located inside your WordPress admin area and can be easily accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets section in your web browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s configure a WordPress text widget …
Adding Text Widgets
Text widgets are quite useful …
(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)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar navigation menu or other widget sections, such as quotes, social media buttons, reviews and more to your site … simply type in text or insert HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings …
(Text widgets are very useful!)
Example: Add A Clickable Contact Button To Your Sidebar Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a clickable support button on your sidebar that will take 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 the clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable image on your site, the image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the button graphic to the images folder in your server and note the URL pointing to your image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be required in Step 3.
For visitors to go to the contact page when they click on the graphic button, 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 – Create a contact page.
Create a contact page and note the page 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. In simple terms, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to your contact page/helpdesk.
Your code 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 screenshot below shows which sections of the above code you will need to replace with the actual web addresses …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of the above code to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help with basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Next, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want your support button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find a Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Drag and drop your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure the text widget settings.
Click on the widget title bar to configure the widget settings. Paste the code with the links to your contact page and graphic button into your text widget content area and click save …
Add a title to your widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the text area, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to check all URLs before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your clickable button won’t work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text with no formatting tags, 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 code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box selected)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added your widget and code content, visit your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button should display in the sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows ’click for help’ button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the widget.
The final step is to make sure that your links work. Test the button to make sure that your visitors will go to your help page when they click on the graphic image. If you are taken to your contact page, then everything has been set up correctly …
(Test your text widget to make sure it works)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like your support page to display inside a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. insert the part containing target=”_blank” in the html code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar navigation section, make sure that the width of your image doesn’t exceed the width of your sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. Note that some themes may display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar is narrower than the width of your graphic images, then you may have to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make images display correctly on your sidebar section.
(Make sure the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
Additional Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your button inside your sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the line of code. The image will then be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- Link your help button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external link, contact form, support forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the code in the text widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this tutorial.
To view Part 3, click here:
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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)