When you're dealing with long articles or pieces of content, the page will often extend past your traditional sidebar length and waste valuable real estate on your website. The best way to counter this is to break long articles into several pages or simply install a plugin to allow your sidebar (or select sidebar widgets) to “stick” to the page and float alongside your content even when you scroll past the normal sidebar length (see sample video below).
I'm going to give you a brief step-by-step guide on how to achieve this with your sidebar widgets below, but keep in mind this method is not compatible with all themes.
1. Install & Activate Q2W3 Fixed Widget (Sticky Widget) Plugin
2. Go To Appearance >> Widgets & Locate The Widget(s) You Want To Make “Sticky”
3. View The Widget's Settings, Check The “Fixed Widget” Box, & Save Your Changes
4. Repeat Step 3 On All Widgets You Wish To Make “Sticky”
At this point, your sidebar should now be sticky, but those of you running plugins like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache will want to empty their existing cache for these changes to go live.
Here are a few things you'll want to keep in mind with this method:
- Unless you make your entire sidebar “sticky”, you'll want to stick to the bottom widgets for use with this method as making a top widget sticky and leaving normal widgets below it can cause visual problems.
- You can tinker with the plugin settings under Appearance >> Fixed Widget Options if you're experiencing any display issues or you want to disable the plugin for mobile devices.
Did this method work for you? Feel free to leave your experience in the comments or suggest an alternative method that worked better for you.
