As we explain in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your website without web coding skills and knowledge required.

WordPress lets you easily add, delete, and control various blocks of content in your website’s sidebar (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you have installed) using widgets.

Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:

• list of your web pages
• site categories
• post archives
• menus
• links to resources
• links to recent posts
• excerpts of recent comments added to posts
• text ads
• quotations
• surveys & polls
• content from RSS feeds
• shopping cart information
• product catalog images
• social media buttons
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)

To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, see this article:

• Using WordPress: Understanding WP Widgets

In this tutorial you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

Using WordPress Widgets

Basic Concepts

Before configuring and using widgets, let’s first go over some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:

Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts

Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widgetized areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation area, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also display below or above the content area …

(Many WP themes provide multiple widgetized areas)

These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …

(Widget Areas)

The Widgets Panel

The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.

The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …

(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop)

Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the widgets screen.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.

Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.

Reorganize Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop

You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …

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

You can also easily rearrange the layout of your site’s widgetized areas using drag & drop.

For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:

1. An opt-in form,
2. A contact support banner, and
3. ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …

(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)

If you take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget screen …

Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of these elements around …

(Drag & drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)

The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar …

This instantly changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.

Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help improve your site’s user experience.

Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support section (2) is now located above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …

(Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve your site’s user experience)

Deleting Widgets From Your Sidebar Navigation Menu

Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar menu is very easy.

For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar navigation area …

(Search widget)

To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …

(How to delete a widget)

Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …

(How to remove widgets)

Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar navigation section. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Most widgets can be customized. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.

Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the settings for the widget …

(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)

When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to delete your widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …

(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 provide users with little to no configurable options)

Customize Widgets Section

Depending on the theme you choose, you can also customize and manage your widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website.

The ability to manage widgets from your dashboard 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 you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.

(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)

Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …

(Customize your site quickly)

This brings you to the Customizer area in the backend.

You can do plenty of edits in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.

(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)

Once your changes have been saved, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display your new changes to your site visitors.

Because the theme you choose determines how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar area.

Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.

Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials.

To view Part 2, click here:

• Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Site – Part Two

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