How to Display a Featured Post in a WordPress Sidebar

A WordPress sidebar is an area or section located next to the main content area where you can add widgets and display all sorts of elements that can add to the look and function of your WordPress site, such as social media icons, banners, search box. , category list etc. view your featured posts i.e. some posts you want to bookmark.

Adding your featured posts to one of the available sidebar areas of your WordPress site is a great opportunity to get more people to find and read your best content. Just like displaying your most popular posts or latest posts in an easily recognizable place, Putting a list of some of your best articles as featured posts can only help drive user engagement and increase your page views.

There is Several different ways to add featured posts to your WordPress sidebar. This time, we’re going to show you three different methods to choose from, so be sure to read the following:

Display Featured Posts in Your Sidebar Using a Text Widget

Adding featured posts using the sidebar widget is one of the ways that doesn’t require any plugins, which makes it pretty easy to do. To use this method, to go Appearance >> Widgets and simply find and drag text Vehicle Go to the desired widget area (sidebar) on the right. Or, shoot Add Widgets Press the button after expanding the widget.

You will instantly see several additional fields on the screen. text Vehicle. You can give your widget a title and add your post titles as well (as regular text or a bulleted list).

then you can Select the post title you want and click “link” to add a link to your post.

shoot me Save When you’re done adding all the links, hit the button and continue to see how your featured posts appear in your sidebar.

Display Featured Posts as a Menu in Your Sidebar

Now, this next method takes a bit more work than the previous one, but it also allows you to add your featured posts by creating a menu that will display in the sidebar which will make your featured posts more effective overall. For example, you won’t have to edit a widget to add new posts, and you can easily sort your navigation using the default WordPress drag and drop functionality.

To create a navigation menu in WordPress, head View >> Menus and click on the link named “create a new menu”. Next, enter your menu name and click. Create Menu. This will create an entirely new menu that you can use to add any posts you want to feature on your site.

To do this, click posts screen (in the left column) and simply mark the posts you want to be included in your new menu. You can find and use these posts here. Latest, see allor Call tab (you can search for them manually).

After selecting the posts you want, Add to Menu Click the button and you will see all the selected posts are now displayed in the right column. You will be able to edit all their titles (by just clicking on them) and also easily rearrange them according to your preferences using the drag and drop functionality.

Once you’re done creating your new “featured posts” menu, Save Menu button and that’s it. You will be able to use your new menu immediately.

then you must access Appearance >> Widgets find it again and Navigation Menu Vehicle to your sidebar selection area. Once again, add the title to your widget and select the featured posts menu you created earlier. View >> Menus screen.

shoot me Save button, go ahead and see how your featured posts menu looks live.

Add Featured Posts Using Thumbnails

Finally, you can also add featured posts to your site using thumbnails. Using thumbnails will make your featured posts list overall pleasing to the eye and make it more likely for users to notice your featured posts the moment they reach your page. However, unlike the other methods we showed above, it also requires you to install an appropriate plugin.

we recommend that you use View Posts Plugin for this task. When you start using this plugin, you will be able to display your featured posts with shortcodes or a custom code anywhere on your site, including your sidebar.

After installing and activating the plugin, navigate to: Appearance >> Widgets and a simple addition text Widget to any of your widget areas – in our case, the blog sidebar. Next, add this shortcode:

[display-posts  image_size="thumbnail" include_excerpt="true" excerpt_length="10"]

Of course, you should change all id values ​​to match those of your posts. i.e. add the IDs of all the posts you want to feature on your site. shoot me Save Press the button and you’re all set.

Go ahead and see how your featured posts with thumbnails look live.

Now, if your featured posts aren’t looking the way you want right away, you can easily edit them using some custom CSS.

go Appearance >> Customize. At that time, shoot me Additional CSS button. This is where you can add your custom CSS.

Simply paste the following CSS into this box:

ul.display-posts-listing img { 
max-height:80px;
max-width:80px; 
float:left;
padding-right:4px;
}
ul.display-posts-listing li { 
margin-bottom:20px;
font-size:14px;
display:inline-block; 
}

Of course, this is just a general idea of ​​what you can use, but if you’re familiar with CSS, feel free to add your own values ​​and modify your CSS however you want.

The great thing about it is you will be able to see all your changes live and change your CSS accordingly.

shoot me Publish button at the top and that’s it. After adding custom CSS, visit your page/post again to see how your featured posts look.

Solution

By adding and displaying featured posts to your WordPress sidebar, you help people browsing your site or blog find your best articles quickly and effortlessly. In turn, this can only increase traffic on these articles and increase overall user engagement. Whether you decide to use a simple Text widget, use menus, or choose a plugin instead to add your featured posts, you can follow our instructions and follow our instructions. So, take your pick and start pointing out quality articles you’re proud of.