In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial, we explained the basics of how to use widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure various widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled active widgets, such as widgets that let you display links to your site’s pages, recent posts, news items, adding tag clouds, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with a number of built-in widgets)
How To Set Up Widgets On The Blog Sidebar Navigation Section: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial, we are going to add, configure and reorder various widgets, including:
- Adding a Support Contact graphic button linking to your contact page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Adding a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of your site’s main Pages.
- Display Links on the sidebar section.
- Display news items using an RSS Feed section.
- Adding a Tag Cloud section.
- Adding and configuring an Archives section to the sidebar section.
The Widgets section is located in the WP administration area and can be easily accessed by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This brings up the Widgets section in your web browser …
(Widgets Screen)
Let’s get started …
Adding Text Widgets
Text widgets are quite 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, maps and directions, forms and more to your site … just by typing in text or adding 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 Help Button To Your Sidebar Menu Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a support button on the 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 visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of your sidebar section 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 path to your server’s image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will need this information in Step 3.
For someone to go to your contact page when they click on the help button, you must either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button graphic to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add the contact page.
Create a contact page on your site and note its URL …
Step 3 – Create the 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, we just need to create the instructions for your clickable image.
Your instructions can be composed 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 screenshot below shows which sections of the above sample code you 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, see this tutorial:
Next, go back into your Widgets section …
(Widgets Panel)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you would like the button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, select the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the 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 settings.
Click on the widget title bar to configure its 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 the widget if you want (e.g. “Need Help?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct URLs into the Content box, then click the save button …
Note: Remember to check all links before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or the button will not 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 paste in code like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option not selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box not selected)
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh your browser.
After adding your text widget and code, go to your site and refresh your web browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the clickable support button will display in your site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on sidebar)
The above screenshot shows the support contact button in the sidebar section of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The last step is to ensure that the destination URL works. Test the button to make sure that visitors will go to your support page when they click on the button. If you are taken to the contact page, then your text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test your clickable button)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like a new browser window to open up when visitors go to your support page (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. add the section containing target=”_blank” in the text widget code):
When adding images to your sidebar navigation area, make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As mentioned earlier, some themes may display elements differently 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 your graphic image, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make graphics display correctly on your sidebar.
(Make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the sidebar column width)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want your button image 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 be aligned to its default settings (normally left-aligned).
- Link the support button to any destination you like (e.g. to an external link, contact form, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content inside your text widget.
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This is the end of part two of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now