In Part One of this step-by-step tutorial series, we explained the basics of using widgets in WordPress.
In this section you are going to begin configuring various widgets in WordPress.
How To Configure Frequently-Used WordPress Sidebar Widgets
In a default WordPress installation, your site comes with several preinstalled widgets that can be used out of the box with minimal to no configuration required, such as widgets for displaying links to your site’s pages, recent posts, RSS feed content, add a search box, etc.
(By default, your site comes with a number of preinstalled widgets)
Adding Widgets To The Sidebar Section: Step-By-Step Tutorial
In this step-by-step tutorial series, you are going to learn how to add, configure and reorder various commonly-used WordPress widgets, including:
- Adding a clickable Support button linking visitors to the help page.
- Add a Categories section with a drop down menu.
- Add a Recent Posts section to display your latest posts.
- Adding a list of Pages.
- Display Links on your sidebar navigation area.
- Display a newsfeed using an RSS Feed section.
- Add tag links through a Tag Cloud.
- Add and configure an Archives section to the sidebar section.
To access the Widgets section go to Appearance > Widgets …
(Widgets Menu)
This brings you to the Widgets screen into your web browser …
(Widgets Section)
Let’s get started …
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)
A text widget can be used to add article snippets, maps and directions, tips and more to your site … simply type in text or paste HTML into the content area. You can also give the widget a title. Remember to save your settings when done …
(A text widget is extremely versatile!)
Example: Use A Text Widget To Add A Help Button To Your Sidebar Section
For this example, we’ll set up a support 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, create or source a graphic image that your visitors can click on …
We’ll set up a clickable button to display at the top of your sidebar like in the example shown below …
Step 1 – Upload your image.
Upload the graphic image to a folder on your server and note the URL pointing 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 be taken to your contact page when they click on the graphic button, you will need to either create a contact page, or have an existing destination page already set up (e.g. a helpdesk). We will link your button image to this URL in Step 3 …
Step 2 – Add your support 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, you just need to create the instructions linking your graphic image to your contact page.
Your instructions can be typed in a simple text editor and will 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 will need to replace with your actual contact page and image URLs …
Replace the above URLs and then copy all of your text file content to your clipboard when finished.
If you need help understanding basic HTML code, see this tutorial:
Go back into your Widgets area …
(Widgets Panel)
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, select a Text widget …
(WordPress 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 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 the 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 large text box, then click Save when done …
Note: Make sure to check all URLs before pasting scripts into the Text Widget, or your clickable button will not 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 an HTML paragraph code (note: this is not necessary if you paste in HTML content like we’re doing in this tutorial).
Here is some text added to a Text widget with Automatically add paragraphs option unchecked …
(Automatically add paragraphs option not checked)
Here is some text with Automatically add paragraphs box selected …
(Automatically add paragraphs box ticked)
***
Step 6 – Refresh the web browser.
After adding the widget and code content, go to the front-end of your site and refresh your browser. If all links have been entered correctly, then your support button should display in your sidebar menu …
(Clickable button widget on blog sidebar)
The screenshot above shows ’click for help’ button in the sidebar of a brand new WordPress site.
Step 7 – Test the button.
The final step is to make sure that your destination link works. Test this by clicking on the graphic button. You should be taken to the support page …
(Test your text widget)
Text Widgets – Useful Tips:
If you would like your contact page to open in a new window when visitors click on the help (so they don’t leave the page they’re on), then change the code from this:
To this (i.e. add the section containing target=”_blank” in the code):
When choosing images for your sidebar area, 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 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 theme.
(Make sure that the width of the image does not exceed the width of the sidebar column)
Extra Tips:
- If you don’t want to center your image in the sidebar, delete the <center> and </center> tags from the beginning and end of the HTML code. The image will then align to the left.
- Link the help button to any destination you want (e.g. to an external site, contact form, FAQ page, etc.) and change this anytime by replacing the content in the text widget.
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This is the end of section two of this tutorial about using WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to continue:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)