In Part 1 of this tutorial, we explained the basics of using WordPress widgets.
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to begin configuring various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
Configuring Sidebar Widgets
By default, your site comes with a number of pre-installed active widgets, such as widgets that let you display external links, filter posts by categories, text or HTML banners, add site search features, etc.
(By default, your site comes with several active widgets)
How To Set Up Sidebar Widgets In WordPress In WordPress: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial, you are going to add, configure and reorder s number of WordPress widgets, including:
- Add a Support button linking visitors to your support page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display the latest posts.
- Add a list of the site’s main Pages.
- Display a list of useful Links on the sidebar section.
- Adding an RSS Feed section.
- Add clickable tags using a Tag Cloud.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar.
The Widgets panel can be easily accessed inside the WordPress administration by going to Appearance > Widgets …
(WordPress Widgets Menu)
This loads the Widgets screen in your web browser …
(Widgets Section)
Let’s begin to configure your sidebar widgets …
Add A Text Widget
Text widgets are versatile …
(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 lets you insert just about anything you want into your sidebar or other widget sections, such as quotes, social media buttons, tips and more to your site … simply type in text or paste HTML into the content area. You can also add an optional title in the Title field. Remember to save your settings when done …
(Text widgets are really versatile!)
Example: Add A Help Button To The Sidebar Area Using A Text Widget
For this example, we’ll set up a contact button on the sidebar that takes 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, you will need to create or source a “help button” graphic image that you will want your your visitors to click on …
We’ll set up the clickable Help button to display at the top of the sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
To display the clickable image on your site, the graphic image must be uploaded to your server. Upload the button image to your server and note the address of your image location.
E.g. …
http://www.yourdomain.com/images/supportbutton.jpg
This information will be required in Step 3.
In order for someone to be taken to your 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 a contact page.
Create a contact page on your site and note down its URL …
Step 3 – Create your text widget code.
Don’t worry … this sounds a lot more technical than it is. In simple terms, we just need to create the instructions linking the graphic image to your destination URL.
Your instructions can be typed into a simple text file 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 your text file content to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help figuring out basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Go back to your Widgets panel …
(Widgets Area)
Step 4 – Add a Text widget.
Add a Text widget to your sidebar in the location where your clickable button should display.
In the Available Widgets area, select a Text widget …
(Text widget)
Drag your Text widget to the Active Widgets section and release the widget at the very top of the Widget Area …
(Dragging and dropping your Text widget)
Step 5 – Configure your widget settings.
Click on the Text widget title bar to configure the widget options. Paste the code with the URLs to your contact page and graphic button into your 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 URLs into the Content box, then click the save button …
Note: Make sure to test your contact page and image URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or your clickable button will not work.
*** If using WordPress version pre-4.8 ***
If 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 paragraphs (note: not required if you type in formatted HTML content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs box not ticked …
(Automatically add paragraphs box unchecked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs option checked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option checked)
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Step 6 – Refresh the browser.
Once you have added the widget and HTML code, go to your site and refresh your web browser. If you have entered all of the links correctly, then your clickable support button will display in your site’s sidebar menu …
(Clickable support button widget on sidebar)
The screenshot above shows a clickable button added to a newly-installed WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test your button.
The last step is to ensure that your links work. Test this by clicking the help button. If you are taken to the support page, then the text widget has been set up correctly …
(Test the text widget to make sure you’ve set up everything correctly)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you want the support page to display in a new browser window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the text widget code from this:
To this (i.e. include the part that says: target=”_blank” in your code):
When choosing images to add to your sidebar section, make sure that the width of your image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column, especially if you are using a non-responsive WordPress theme. As we’ve previously explained, some themes can display elements differently depending on their templates and layout. Some sidebars may be wider or narrower. If your theme’s sidebar width is narrower than the width of your 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.
(Make sure that the image width does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
More Tips:
- If you don’t want to center the image in 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 help button to any URL you like (e.g. to an external site, helpdesk, forum, etc.) and change this anytime by editing the links in the widget.
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This is the end of part two of this series of tutorials on using WordPress widgets.
To continue, click this link:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum