Setting up SIDEBARS

Many blogs have hot links to all sorts of different resources on the "Sidebar".

If you look at the far right side of this blog, you will see headings with links under them as follows:

Blog Basics
Getting Started
Adding Content

This is there so that readers of this blog can pick and choose which posts they want to read in what order.

Here is how that is done:

1)  From public front page of your blog choose whatever post you want to link to.  For example, let's say I wanted to make a link to the post about Privacy and Permissions.   You scroll down to the bottom of that post and click on the time stamp that appears at there:



When you click on that, it will put the URL for that specific post in the address bar:

                                       

Highlight and COPY that full URL.

2)   Next, click on the word DESIGN up in the top right corner of your blog.

From the Design page, click on the word LAYOUT from the menu on the left hand side

3) LAYOUT is the area where you can customize what appears in each section of your blog. Scroll down to the place where it says Sidebar and click on the words "Add a gadget".   NOTE:  Different patterns or "templates" may put the sidebar on the left rather than the right.  For the purpose of this example I am using THIS blog, so my sidebar is on the right.  Depending on which template you choose, your sidebar may be on the other side.

Understanding "Gadgets"  

A "Gadget" is a name for the HTML code that creates different features.   Common gadgets are things like "image" if you want to add a picture or "Link List" if you want to have a list of different links on your side bar.

A Link List can be used to keep an easy reference to resources from OTHER blogs or websites, or it can be used to create short cuts to specific posts from your own blog.
In this blog I have used link lists to make it easy for readers to see what posts are available and to choose to read them whenever they like simply by clicking on the sidebar titles.

These are created by selecting "Link List" from the Add a Gadget menu and then proceeding as follows.

4) When you click on the Link List option, you will see a configure box that you will fill out.

Every gadget MUST have a title.  Sometimes I want to add something like a photo or other feature without a title showing.  In that case, I put a single period in the title field.  There has to be SOMETHING there, but you can choose what it is.

In the box that says "New Site Name" you will type the words you want to show.  On this blog I have put the titles for the various blog posts I am linking to.    In other blogs I might put something more descriptive,  such as "Recipes"  or "Directions" or "Homework".   The names can be anything you want, but they should correspond to whatever you are linking to in order to be most useful.

In the box that says New Site URL you will PASTE the full web address or URL of whatever it is you want to link to.   In the example I began earlier I was describing linking to the Privacy and Permissions post,  so in that case I would past the full URL I had copied earlier which looks like this:
http://how2blogforbeginners.blogspot.com/2016/12/privacy-and-permissons.html

What will appear on the sidebar will be whatever name I put in the "New Site Name Box"  (In this case "Privacy and Permissions" and the URL points the blog where to go when those words are clicked.

You can make a single link or a long list of different links by continuing to repeat the process, adding new links to different URLS.

Take some time to explore the various gadgets you have to choose from and explore how you might use them to make your blog more content rich.

If this is unclear to you, here  is a video from YouTube showing how this is done.