As discussed in this article, there are many benefits in choosing the WordPress CMS platform for building, managing and growing a web site. One of these is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your site without requiring any web coding skills.
WordPress allows you to easily add, remove, and reconfigure content in your blog’s sidebar navigation area (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme you are using) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on your theme) like:
- site pages
- content categories
- archive
- custom page menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- clickable ad banners
- user testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS content excerpts
- opt-in form
- image galleries
- social media share buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we explain how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using WordPress Widgets
The Basics
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s first review some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also be added in the content area …
(Many WP themes provide a number of widget-ready sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets you can use on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become active and can be used for their purpose.
The Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets using simple drag and drop in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your site)
Looking inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site’s sidebar menu in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the back-end widget area …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in the sidebar navigation area …
As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar navigation area, and the support banner (2) is located above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The Sidebar Navigation Area
Removing widgets from the sidebar section is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar area …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar area. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to display the settings for that widget …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, remove the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no configurable options)
Preview Your Widgets
Depending upon the WP theme you choose, you can also manage and customize your widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything to your site.
Widget management is a valuable 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 (to avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do many things in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and everything is done in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly updated and made visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as the changes have been saved, the new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how your site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to begin configuring various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
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