What is a Sidebar in WordPress ?
Last Updated :
22 Jul, 2024
When you visit a website, have you ever noticed the sections on the side of the main content that often contain additional information, links, or advertisements? In WordPress, these sections are called sidebars. Let's dive into understanding what a sidebar in WordPress is, how it works, and how you can make the most of it.
Understanding the WordPress Sidebar
What is a Sidebar?
A sidebar in WordPress is an area of your website where you can display widgets. Widgets are small blocks that perform specific functions, like showing recent posts, a search bar, or social media links. Sidebars are typically found on the right or left side of your website’s main content area, but they can also appear in other areas, such as the header or footer, depending on your theme.
Why Use a Sidebar?
Sidebars are used to enhance the user experience and improve site navigation. They allow you to display additional information without cluttering the main content area. Here are some common uses for sidebars:
- Navigation: Provide links to popular posts, categories, or pages.
- Search: Include a search bar for easy access.
- Social Media: Add social media icons or feeds.
- Advertisements: Display ads for monetization.
- Email Signup: Add a newsletter signup form to grow your email list.
- Recent Posts: Highlight your latest content.
How to Add Sidebar on WordPress webpage?
We have learned about the sidebar and some of its benefits. Now we'll see how we can activate the Sidebar in our WordPress webpages and customize it. This is how Webpage looks like without a sidebar:
Now to add a sidebar, open Dashboard and go to the Appearance >> Customize. You can also open it from the webpage by simply clicking on the Customize option from the top menu bar. It will open the Customize window of your website listing all the options including Sidebar.
There you'll see options to enable the sidebar on the webpage and customize it. Like in the above image, we can change sidebar settings and enable it from no sidebar to anywhere between the left sidebar, or right sidebar, select the option where you want to display it on the webpage and click on Publish to make that change reflect onto the live website. Also, you can customize whether you want this setting to reflect on each webpage or on any particular kind.
Note: The options may vary from theme to theme and have more or less customization according to the theme support. You can check your theme's capability by reviewing it's documentation.
At this point, the sidebar must be enabled on your webpage but it may not show the appropriate information of features that you wanted to display. But there is no need to worry, we can easily customize that too and change the content of the sidebar explicitly. For that go to the Dashboard and then go to Appearance >> Widgets. Under the widgets panel, you'll an option with the heading Sidebar. You will find all the content of the sidebar over there and it can be customizable.
Change the comment, blogs, recent posts, ads, categories, or whatever you want to be displayed on your sidebar menu and click on Update to reflect it on the live. In my theme after doing all the steps and changing content I got the left sidebar with Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives, and Categories, shown in the below image:
Benefits of Using Sidebars
Sidebars can also have benefits. Here’s how:
Improved Navigation
By adding widgets like recent posts, popular posts, or category lists, you encourage visitors to explore more of your content. This can increase the time they spend on your site and reduce bounce rates, both of which are positive signals to search engines.
Enhanced User Experience
A well-organized sidebar can improve the user experience by making it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Search engines like Google take user experience into account when ranking websites.
Internal Linking
Sidebars are a great place to include internal links. Internal linking helps search engines understand the structure of your site and the relationship between different pages and posts. This can improve your site’s SEO.
Social Proof
Including widgets that show social proof, such as social media feeds or counters, can build trust with your audience. This can increase engagement and shares, indirectly boosting your SEO.
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