In Part One of this tutorial, we explained the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this tutorial you will learn how to configure several widgets in WordPress.
Sidebar Widget Configuration
By default, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration required, such as widgets that let you display links to your pages, filter posts by categories, text or HTML banners, filter content by publish dates, etc.
(In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets)
Adding Sidebar Widgets In WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this tutorial, we are going to add, configure and reorder s number of widgets, including:
- Add a Contact Us button linking to your support page.
- Adding a Categories section.
- Add a Recent Posts section.
- Adding a list of the site’s Pages.
- Display useful Links on your sidebar navigation section.
- Displaying news items using an RSS Feed section.
- Add a Tag Cloud.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar section.
The Widgets area is located in your WP administration area and can be easily accessed from the dashboard menu by choosing Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets screen in your browser …
(Widgets Area)
Let’s configure WordPress text widgets …
Adding Text Widgets To Your Sidebar Section
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)
Text widgets let you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as lists of favorite items, images, news and updates and more to your site … simply by typing in text or pasting HTML into the widget content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are very useful!)
Example: Add A Support Button To The Sidebar Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, let’s set up a clickable support button on the sidebar menu 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 your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up the clickable button to display at the top of the sidebar section like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the image on your site, first you must upload the button image to your server and note down the path to your image location.
For example …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
You will use this information in Step 3.
In order for someone to be taken to the contact page when the graphic button gets clicked, either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link the button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Create your contact page.
Create a contact page on your site and note its URL …
Step 3 – Compose your text widget code.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, you just need to create the instructions for your clickable image.
Your instructions can be typed in a plain text file and should 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 with the URL of your image location.
The screenshot below shows the sections of the above sample code that you 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 figuring out basic HTML code, refer to this tutorial:
Now, go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Screen)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar where you want the button to display.
In the Available Widgets area, find the Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag the Text widget to your Active Widgets section and release it at the top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure its options. 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?”, “Get Support”, etc.) and paste the code with the correct destination links into the large text box, then click the save button …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and image links before pasting scripts into your Text Widget, or your button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If you’re adding text without formatting tags, you may want to tick the Automatically add paragraphs box to wrap each block of text in paragraphs (note: not required if you paste in HTML content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box not checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not ticked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option selected)
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Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
Once you have added your widget and HTML content, go to the front-end of your site and refresh your web browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then the support button should display at the top of your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows the contact button in the sidebar of a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your widget.
The final step is to make sure that the destination URL works. Test this by clicking on the graphic button. You should be taken to your support page …
(Test the text widget)
Tips:
If you would like the support page to open in a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re in), then change the button code from this:
To this (i.e. include the part that says: target=”_blank” in the html code):
When choosing images for your sidebar 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 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 button images, then you may need to either adjust the size of your images, or the width of your sidebar column to make the images 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 to center your image inside the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the code. The image will then align to the left.
- You can link your support button to any URL you want (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the links inside the text widget.
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This is the end of part 2 of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to continue:
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