WordPress Widgets Explained

This tutorial explains what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work, and how widgets can help you customize and extend the functionality of your website or blog.

WordPressThere are loads of great things about using WordPress to build, manage and grow your website. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website and rearrange your site’s layout without web coding skills.

WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, delete, and rearrange various types of content in your site’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme is installed on your site) using widgets.

WordPress widgets

(WP widgets)

This post explains how widgets work, why they are great tools for non-technical users and how widgets can be used to add new functionality to your web site.

WordPress Widgets: An Introduction To WordPress Widgets For Newbies

WordPress widgets make managing and using WordPress easy

(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier!)

A WordPress widget is a self-contained module of code that performs a specific function, such as adding a functionality, or a script or list item to your site.

WordPress is written using a scripting language called PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). Normally, in order to add features and functions that will enhance the functionality of a website, you need to know how to program PHP code.

Now … don’t worry if the above sounds like geek speak. As will soon discover, widgets are perfect for non-technical users.

WP widgets don’t require you to know how to program or manipulate PHP code in order to expand the functionality of your website.

WordPress widgets help you manage technical features and functions on your website without the need to edit code

(Widgets help you control technical features and functions on your site without requiring coding skills)

Widgets were originally designed to provide an easy way to allow WordPress users to manage aspects of their WordPress theme’s layout and functionality.

Simply put, widgets allow you to:

  • Easily add, edit and delete content sections in parts of your WordPress site without touching any underlying code, and
  • Reconfigure how various elements display on widget-enabled areas of your site (e.g. the sidebar, header, footer and other areas) using drag-and-drop technology.

Here are just some of the many additional components you can add to your site’s sidebar section (and headers and footers and other areas, depending on the theme you have installed) using widgets:

  • nested page lists
  • blog post categories
  • archived posts
  • menus displaying only selected pages
  • links to external sites
  • your most read posts
  • excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
  • advertisements
  • testimonials
  • survey questions & results
  • content from RSS feeds
  • customers login section
  • videos
  • Facebook feeds
  • add widgets from other sites (e.g. Twitter)
  • administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

In other blog posts, we provide more detailed explanations of plugins and WP themes; what they are, what they do, how plugins and themes can easily add loads of new functionality to WordPress and change the whole design of your website or blog.

As you will soon learn, themes affect how widgets display on your website and many plugins also add accompanying widgets that will fine tune your website’s functionality.

Widget-Ready Areas

Most WP themes support widgets and provide widget-enabled areas on your site where widgets can appear.

Usually, functions powered by widgets can be found in your theme’s sidebar, but depending upon the theme, widgets can also be found in the header, the footer area, even above or below the content area.

It all depends on what theme you have installed.

For example, the WP theme shown in the screenshot below has only one widget area adding functionality to the theme’s sidebar area …

Some WordPress Themes only have one widget section

(Some WordPress themes have only one widget-ready section)

Below is the widget screen of the theme shown above, and you can see that the WordPress theme only contains one widget area …

An Overview Of WordPress For Business Users: Widgets - What Do They Do?

As you can see, the only place where users can add widgets to their site using the theme shown above is in the site’s sidebar section.

In contrast, the WP theme shown in the screenshot below includes a number of different widgetized areas …

Many themes provide multiple widget areas

(Many themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)

Below is an enlarged image of the widget screen of the theme shown above, so you can see how many widget areas the theme includes …

Multiple WordPress widget areas

(Multiple widgets areas)

As you can see, in the above theme, you can add widgets to the sidebar area of 2 different page templates (Main Sidebar and Showcase Sidebar) and three different Footer areas (Footer Area One, Footer Area Two, Footer Area Three) …

Some WordPress themes let you add widgets to your site's footer area

(Some themes let you add widgets to your site’s footer area)

How Can I See My Widgets?

To access the Widgets section log into your administration and go to Appearance > Widgets

Understanding WordPress For Business Owners: WordPress Widgets - What Are They?

This brings up the Widgets area in your web browser …

Widgets Panel

(Widgets Screen)

The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.

On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …

Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop

(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop)

Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become available for use.

The Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.

Useful Information

By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets (e.g. widgets for displaying your pages, links, posts, post categories, adding text, adding RSS feeds, adding tags, adding a search box, etc …) and active widgets.

These widgets are available right out of the box in your default WordPress theme and display items like Search, Archives, Meta, etc. to your visitors …

In a default WordPress installation, your site already comes with several pre-installed widgets

(In a default WordPress installation, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)

Sometimes, whenever new plugins are installed on your website or blog, you may find that new widgets are also added to your Widgets section …

Installing new WordPress plugins can sometimes add new widgets to your Widgets section!

(Installing new plugins can sometimes add new widgets to your Widgets admin area!)

WP Widgets Features: Drag & Drop

WordPress widgets are great because you can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete them from your Widgets area using drag and drop …

Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop

(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)

Use drag & drop to easily reconfigure the order and layout of your widgetized sections.

For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show:

  1. A subscription form,
  2. A contact support button, and
  3. Click to call sales buttons from a widgetized plugin …

Widgets control how certain features on your site appear

(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)

Looking inside the example site’s Widget area, you would see that these features display on the site in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget area …

Understanding WordPress For Business Owners: What Do Widgets Do?

Let’s now change the order the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements in the widget area …

Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area

(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)

The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …

How Do Widgets Work? An Overview Of WordPress Widgets For Business Users

This instantly changes the layout of the sidebar. Note in the screenshot below that the click to call function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar menu, and the contact us section (2) has been moved to the spot above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …

Widgets are really easy to use!

(Widgets are very easy to use!)

Pretty simple, huh?

Let’s go over some other things worth keeping in mind when using widgets:

Widget Management – Preview Widgets

Depending upon the theme that you have installed on your site, you can also manage your widgets without making actual changes to your site, so you can be sure that you like what you have done before committing these changes to your live website.

You can do several edits, modifications and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode, like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your active widgets to any widget areas that your theme makes available, and it’s all done in real time. If you like what you have done and click the “Save and Publish” button, your changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site.

Widget management - work in preview mode or configure widgets on the fly!

(Widget management – work in preview mode or configure widgets on the fly!)

The ability to manage widgets from your dashboard is a great feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how your widget content will appear prior to publishing any changes (and avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen as shown previously.

Widget Configuration

As we’ve shown you in an earlier example, with WordPress you can quickly reorganize how information is displayed in widgetized areas of your website or blog, like sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-&-drop technology …

Reorganizing sidebar elements using widgets can improve user experience

(Reorganizing sidebar elements using widgets can improve user experience)

In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have rearranged the sidebar area by switching the search and testimonial sections. As you now know, this was easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve your site’s user experience.

Now … what about the widgets themselves? Can the widgets be customized instead of simply added, removed and rearranged?

Absolutely!

With many static websites, you would need to edit code in your website’s templates to reorganize the order of elements, make unique customizations to features on page elements like an opt-in subscription form, or just add features like an index of your site pages, or a dropdown menu of your blog post categories, an archives section, custom page menus, links to recommended resources, a list of your most read posts, the latest comments, a section displaying advertising, client testimonials or survey results, content from RSS feeds, image galleries, social media share buttons, and more.

While some widgets are “fixed” in the sense that they provide little to no configurable options, other than to add something like an optional title to the widget as shown in the example below …

Some widgets offer little to no customization

(Some widgets provide users with little to no customizing options)

Many widgets offer additional settings that allow you to further configure your site features. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc. and more …

Most widgets give you customization

(Most widgets provide users with configuration options!)

Using WP Widgets

As you have seen, widgets require no coding experience or programming expertise to use. Most widgets can be added to your WP website simply by activating a plugin and then dragging and dropping the plugin’s related widget into your Active widgets area.

For useful tips and tricks to using widgets, see these great tutorials showing you how to use various widgets in WordPress to boost the effectiveness of your web site, plus lots of cool tips on how to get the most out of WordPress using widgets:

Related Posts

If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following related posts useful:

Hopefully, now you have a better understanding of issues that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress please see our related posts section.

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