Most WordPress themes in 2014 are widgitized where you go to “Appearance” >> “Widgets” and drag and drop various widgets on the left to your themes sidebar(s) on the right, creating a WordPress blog precisely how you want it. The simplest of WordPress themes have a single widget area: like a left sidebar where widgets can be dragged to and the 12 WordPress default widgets: Archives Widget Calendar Widget : HIGH SEO Damage Categories Widget Custom Menu Widget Meta Widget : LOW SEO Damage Pages Widget Recent Comments Widget : MEDIUM SEO Damage Recent Posts Widget RSS Widget Search Widget Tag Cloud Widget Text Widget The Stallion Responsive Theme includes no fewer than 21 additional custom WordPress widgets (Stallion also […]
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WordPress Tutorials for Beginners
Hello David,
A friend suggested I get this Talian 5 theme for it’s ease in working with Clickbank/ Adsense as well as for SEO.
David, I’m a Rookie, with a capitol ‘R’. I did as much as I could, but got stuck on the widgets area of the theme.
I came here and read up on it, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the tutorial (I’ve a lot to learn, no doubt about it.)
The question then, is can you direct me to where I can learn the minimum of what I need to know about that widget page? With the GAT this and that, and everything else, I’m kind of lost. Or where I can learn the prerequisites the I need?
I’m sorry- I know it must pain you to even think about trying to explain things to someone at my level, but please, can you take a shot at it?
Thanks in advance…Ralph G
WordPress Tutorials for Beginners
WordPress Widgets Tutorial for Beginners
WordPress Widgets aren’t that complicated.
Widgets allow you to build the sidebar menus as you want them not as the developer (me) thinks you want them.
Go to the widgets page and drag and drop a widget to Sidebar 1, that widget will ‘reset’ the sidebar and only show that one widget, drag and drop another widget and you’ll see two widgets. You keep doing this until you’ve added all the sidebar menu items you want on that sidebar.
Do the same for Sidebar 2 (you’ll have to click the Sidebar 2 to get access to it: there’s a down arrow at the side, click it).
You must add widgets to both sidebars as otherwise you’ll probably have some of the same widgets running on both sidebars.
The GAT widgets are widgets created specifically for the Talian theme. These are what you might consider safe to use widgets, they won’t cause any SEO damage and might be better formatted (look better) than the default widgets. The numbers represent roughly the order I use them, but there’s no hard rules build your sidebars as you want them.
Some of the non GAT widgets (these would be the default WordPress widgets every theme has access to) are similar to their corresponding GAT widgets, but some are SEO damaging like the default Calendar widget (awful SEO wise) and the default Meta widget (adds a link to WordPress and wastes link benefit on the login/register links).
There may also be widgets added by various plugins. For example I use a popular posts plugin that adds a widget to show the most popular posts based on the number of comments, it’s running on the left menu above, the first menu item with heading “SEO Articles”.
David
WordPress Widgets Tutorial for Beginners
How to Add Widgets?
Thanks. If I want to add a widget to the left side menu, below the adsense widget, how to i do that?
when i drag a widget to the left side menu and add it, it replaces the adsense widget.
i’d like ti to go below the adsense banner.
thanks!
How to use WordPress Widgets
This is how all WordPress widget themes work.
With widgets when you add your first widget the default widgets are removed so you can add exactly the widgets you want and only those widgets. Otherwise you’d be stuck with the widgets the theme developer added and would not be able to remove them without hacking the code.
So you’d add the “1GAT AdSense Content S1” widget to the left sidebar followed by whatever other widgets you want below it. do the same with the right sidebar and build the menus exactly how you want them.
There’s 9 widget areas with Stallion, not just sidebars. Can achieve a lot with these areas, add custom ads for example, will be adding tutorials on how to use these areas when I have the time (probably May 2015 :-))
David
How to use WordPress Widgets
WordPress Widget Title Colours
Hi,
love the templates
on my site the font colour for the widget titles is the same colour as the background. how do i change this?
Thansk
Tim
Broken WordPress Theme Installation
Looks like your Stallion theme install went wrong or something is blocking images on your site/server, since your header image is working looks like a broken install (missing files).
Use an FTP program to reupload the entire unzipped /stallion-seo-theme/ directory into /wp-content/themes/ so it uploads over your current Stallion folder.
When you extract the zip file make sure there are no errors (might be a corrupted download). If you do get an extraction error grab the latest Stallion zip file and use that.
What appears to be missing are the image files under /stallion-seo-theme/images/ which is why you are missing all the Stallion Grey colour scheme images including the image that goes behind the sidebar headers, comment link, search form and others: your footer lacks it’s background image so the text can’t be seen as well.
David
Broken WordPress Theme Installation
WordPress Theme RSS Feeds Widget
I just recently upgraded one of my websites from the Talian theme to the Stallion theme. In doing so I tried to change my rss feeds from the left sidebar to the right sidebar.
I’m apparently doing something wrong as I cannot get the feed to work at all. I still have a “feeds” folder located on my public_html/publicbeware.com/feeds area and it’s still full of the old feeds from the Talian theme. When I’m adding the feeds url I’m using , is this correct or do I need to include something else?
Thanks,
Randy
WordPress Theme RSS Feeds Widget
RSS Feeds Widget
David,
I’ve answered my own question because I was using the wrong rss feed widget. I forgot that with the Talian theme I used the 5GAT RSS Feeds widget and not the one where I would enter a url for the feed.
Sorry for my confusion.
Thanks,
Randy
WordPress Widgets Not Showing
David,
I’ve noticed that sometimes when I’m trying out different widgets with the stallion theme that they disappear?
Where can we go to retrieve those same widgets or get more for the stallion theme?
Do you have a comments widget that can display as many comments as you like?
Thanks,
Randy
WordPress Widgets Disappearing
WordPress widgets disappearing can refer to several things.
When you add your first widget to a sidebar all the default widgets for that sidebar vanish, that’s normal and a feature of WordPress core. The widget menu is designed so you can add only the widgets you want and not the ones the theme developer thinks you should use. If this is the problem after adding your first widget re-add the default widgets you like as you did the first one, build the sidebars exactly how you want them.
I can only add the GAT widgets once.
The GAT widgets are currently (Stallion 6.0.1) coded with old WordPress code (nothing wrong with the code, just lacks newer features like options and multiwidget capability). This code lacks multiwidget capabilities, you can only add a widget once. For almost all the GAT widgets this isn’t a problem, but for a few might be nice to have the option to add the widget two or more times.
In Stallion 6.1 I’ve updated the widget code so in a future release (not 6.1) can add options to some of the GAT widgets which may include multiwidget capabilities. For example the comments widget would work better with the option to set the number of comments, currently limited to either 12 or 18 comments. Next update will probably incorporate thumbnails into some of the widgets.
David
WordPress Widgets Disappearing
How to Remove WordPress Widgets?
Hi,
Two things.
1. My site is showing two skyscrapers on top of each other, and it appears that 1GAT AdSense Content S1 is to blame. I have turned all other ad units off, on, and any combination I could think of.
2. How do I get rid of all the stuff in the right bottom corner? I would like to get rid of the links and meta, but at this point I can’t even seem to find an option to remove them.
Thank you,
John
How to Remove WordPress Widgets?
Removing Default WordPress Widgets
Looks like you’ve added some widgets to the right sidebar widget area but not the left (or the other way around, I forget :-))
Go to Appearance >> Widgets
Drag and drop at least one widget to the Left Sidebar area and another to the Right sidebar area.
The left and right sidebars contain default widgets that are rest/removed when the first widget is added to those sidebars. The default widgets are there so for those new to WordPress have a site that works in full without having to understand how to use widgets, though the ideal setup is you build your own menus based on your site needs.
Only add the widgets to the sidebars to build the menu items you want, so if you don’t want RSS feeds on your menu don’t add the Meta Widget back to the sidebar.
You currently have the WordPress default links in your link widgets, really irritating WordPress adds so many default links (7 of them!), I suggest going to:
Links >> All Links
And delete them all and add your own via the Add Link menu so you aren’t wasting link benefit to WordPress.
David
Removing Default WordPress Widgets