Following on from the basic, initial foray into what WordPress widgets do (nutshell: they add things to your sidebar), now let’s take a look at what we can do with the Text Box widget.

This can be very useful! You can add several text boxes and include images, links, any kind of html (and more) in each.

Let’s start with a simple text box that can include your contact information, such as we have on the Blogmistress.

Go to Appearance, Widgets and drag across a Text Box to your sidebar.

This opens a box in which you can add anything – test it out and have a play – just add some text, then save, and have a look at the result on your blog/website to see what happens.

Click on the image to see it full size

For the contact information in the Blogmistress sidebar, we added the following:

Email: <a href=”mailto: hello@blogmistress.com“>hello@blogmistress.com</a>Call: 0845 644 0709Skype: barbarasaul<a href=”http://www.twitter.com/blogmistress”>The Blogmistress on Twitter</a><a href=”http://www.facebook.com/blogmistress”>Join the Facebook fan page</a>

This is the actual “code” so that you can copy, paste and edit to suit you, if that’s useful.

The thing to remember is that whatever you do, you can immediately delete or move out of your sidebar – so don’t be afraid to test things out.

Have fun!

Related posts:

1. Adding a link and/or image to your WordPress sidebar
2. What, Why, How – WordPress Plugins