- Register a sidebar in your functions.php using register_sidebar.
- Put some widgets in your sidebar from the dashboard (Appearance/Widgets).
- Show the sidebar on specific pages on your website by using dynamic_sidebar in your php code. Or you can create a sidebar-{your-sidebar-id}.php file and use get_sidebar to show the sidebar wherever you want.
- Use CSS / HTML to style your sidebar to appear on the left.
A working example:
functions.php
register_sidebar(array(
'name' => 'sidebar-left',
'before_widget' => '<div class="sidebar-box">',
'after_widget' => '</div>',
'before_title' => '<div class="widget-title">',
'after_title' => '</div>'
));
sidebar-left.php
<div id="sidebar-left">
<?php if ( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') ) dynamic_sidebar('sidebar-left');?>
</div>
style.css
#sidebar-left { float: left; width: 300px; }
// modify to your needs.
// Example to show sidebar on the homepage
index.php
<?php get_header();?>
// your code
// more of your code
<?php get_sidebar('left');?>
<?php get_footer();?>