How to Add a Blogroll to Your WordPress Site

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As you may have noticed, there is no “Blogroll” widget for self-hosted WordPress sites.

But that’s no problem!

A blogroll is essentially just a list of links, so there are numerous ways to create one without installing any new plugins.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn a method for creating blogrolls that is easy to use and update in the future.

How to create a blogroll widget

It may seem odd at first, but the best approach is to use a menu for the blogroll.

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Start by visiting the Live Customizer by clicking the Appearance > Customize link.

Visit Customizer

Then open up the Menus section near the bottom of the Customizer.

Menus Section

Create a new menu and name it “Blogroll,” and then click the Next button to continue.

Create Blogroll Menu

On the next panel, click the Add Items button and then click on the Custom Links section to open up the menu item options.

Add Custom Menu Links

This will allow you to add links to external websites in your menu. Enter the names and URLs of all the sites you want to link to in your blogroll and then click the Publish button at the top of the screen.

Now the menu is created with your blogroll links. The final step is to add the blogroll to your site.

To do this, start by opening the Widgets section.

Widgets Customizer Section

If you have multiple widget areas, you can select the widget area you want to add the blogroll to first. Then click on the Add a Widget button and select the Navigation Menu widget.

Add Navigation Menu Widget

Finally, you can use the menu select to choose the Blogroll menu you created.

Select Blogroll Menu

Now the blogroll will display in the widget area you selected.

Blogroll Live

The best part about this approach is that you can easily add and remove links whenever you want. You don’t need to edit any HTML or install any new plugins.

Creating blogrolls with WordPress

Now that you know about this technique, you can reuse it for other purposes beyond blogrolls.

You can use the Navigation Menu widget for linking to your most popular posts, important pages on your site, or products you recommend. Get creative!

If you want more ways to continue improving your site, check out this guide next:

31 Easy Ways to Customize Your WordPress Site →

Thanks for reading, and if this post helped you out today then please consider sharing it before you go.

Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley
This article was written by Ben Sibley. He is a WordPress theme designer & developer, and founder of Compete Themes.