Congratulations, you’ve made it – you’ve successfully created your WordPress powered website. Once you’ve found a suitable WordPress theme, you’ve probably installed a few WordPress plugins and made sure to include some of the most useful WordPress widgets in the mix. You may even have created a few custom widget areas to put your widgets to good use and create a visually appealing and overall user-friendly website.
What if we told you that there is a way to create an even more unique browsing experience for your users? creating and using different sidebars for any page or post on your website? With the help of a suitable plugin, this is actually possible – and quite easy.
Today we will talk about how to add a different sidebar to each WordPress page, post, category or custom post type you choose.
Why Should You Use Different Sidebars for Different Pages on Your WordPress Site?
Whatever type of website you have, the content you view will inevitably differ from page to page. For example, your About page will certainly have its own unique structure and will likely present different types of information compared to your blog, products, or category pages, for example.
WordPress now includes several widget-ready fields (your footer area, header, etc.) that are defined by the WordPress theme you are using. But usually all your pages, posts, categories, and archive pages have the same blog sidebar displayed.
If you add a custom sidebar to each of these page types, you’ll have a chance to add widgets that will be more complementary to the content you’re sharing on those pages. By doing this, you can Personalize your sidebar to better suit your visitors’ needs and interests and so on make it more user-friendly, functional and relatable to the page in question comprehensive.
For example, you can add widgets to your sidebar that provide links to related posts on a particular blog post or to posts in the same category as the article itself. Or add your navigation links, social media buttons, etc. to your About page. You can add a widget that displays it. If you have products to sell, add search bar widget to your products pages, product categories, and so on.
In short, once you start using specially designed sidebars, your options are endless. Not only will your audience appreciate it, but you’ll be able to create a more unique website that stands out from your competitors.
Without further ado, let’s see how you can add different sidebars to every page or post of your WordPress site.
Adding Different Sidebars to Posts and Pages in WordPress
To add a different sidebar to every page or post on your site, you can install a WordPress plugin called Custom Sidebars – Dynamic Widget Area Manager.
When it comes to sidebar plugins, this is easily one of the best. With the Custom Sidebars plugin you can: Dynamically display custom widget configurations on any post, page, category, archive page, and any custom post type.
After installing and activating the plugin, navigate to: Appearance >> Widgets in your admin control panel. As soon as you enter the Widgets screen, you will notice that the Widgets section now has a slightly different structure than before. For example, there is now an option to create custom sidebars that appear in the middle of the screen and all your theme sidebars are located on the far right of the screen.
To start, Create a new sidebar button.
Name your custom sidebar and give it a description. Make sure your sidebar name is unique and named according to the page, post, or other area of your site you want to add your sidebar to.
Click Create Sidebar After giving the button a name and description.
When you return to the Widgets screen, your new sidebar Custom Sidebars domain.
Now you have to find the widget you want to display and select the sidebar for it, then Add Widgets button.
If you’re having trouble adding a widget to your custom sidebar, refresh the page and try again.
Now, if you want to replace a particular sidebar area with your own custom sidebar, you have to make sure that “Allow this sidebar to be modified” is checked just below that particular sidebar area. Unchecking this option will make this field visible on all posts or pages.
Next click Sidebar Position and define the area where you want your sidebar to appeari.e. for the sidebar area that needs to be replaced with your custom sidebar and for what category, archive or post type.
if you choose FontYou will have the option to select pages, posts or both.
Save your changes when you’re done.
This action will include all posts/pages, custom post types and/or specific categories you selected, the sidebar you created (as well as the area you selected).
To see your sidebar in action, you can go to your page, post, or any custom post type you’ve added your custom sidebar to.
If you want to add your sidebar to a specific page or post, go to that page/post (or go to: Pages/Posts >> Add New).
You can also go Sidebar Position inside you widgets screen and access your page/post by clicking one of these two links:
When you find the page or post you’re looking for, Sidebars collapse on the right side of your screen. Here you will be able to add your own custom sidebars to the existing sidebar area(s). Of course, make sure you hit Publish/Update Press the button.
Finally, we should mention that the Sidebar option is the same for both the Classic editor and Gutenberg.
Wrapping Things
If you want to make your website design more unique and user-friendly for your visitors, we recommend using different sidebars for various pages or posts on your website. As you can see from the steps we presented above, It is quite easy to create and add different sidebars with the Custom Sidebars plugin. This plugin allows you to convert every available page, post, category or custom post type according to your users’ specific needs. Go ahead and try it.
