There are loads of benefits to choosing the WordPress web publishing software to manage and grow your web site. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website and rearrange the layout of your website with no coding skills required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, delete, and control various types of content from your blog’s sidebar menu (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you are using) using widgets.
(WP widgets)
In this post you will learn how widgets work, why they are great applications for non-technical users and how widgets can help you to supercharge your web site.
WordPress Widget: An Overview Of WordPress Widgets For Business Owners
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy!)
Widgets are small blocks of code that perform a specific function, such as adding a functionality, or a script or menu item to your website or blog.
WordPress is written using a web language called PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). Normally, in order to add features and functions that will enhance the functionality of a website, you have to know how to script PHP code.
Now … don’t worry if this sounds like geek speak. As you are about to learn, WP widgets are made for non-techies.
WP widgets help you control specific features and functions on your site without requiring knowledge of coding.
(WordPress widgets help you control many features and functions on your website without requiring knowledge of coding)
Widgets were originally developed to provide a simple way to give WordPress users to control aspects of their WordPress theme’s layout and functionality.
In plain English terms, a widget lets you do things like:
- Easily add, edit and remove features to certain parts of your website without touching any underlying code, and
- Reconfigure how various elements display on ”widgetized” 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 functions you can add to your WordPress site’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on your theme) using WP widgets:
- page lists
- categories
- archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to external sites
- links to your recent posts
- recent comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- surveys & polls
- RSS content
- newsletter registration form
- product catalog images
- social media buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
In other articles, we provide an overview of plugins and themes; what they are, what they do, how plugins and themes easily add loads of new features to WordPress and alter the whole design of your site.
As you will soon learn, WP themes affect where widgets display on your web site and a number of plugins add accompanying widgets that can fine-tune your website or blog’s functionality.
Widget-Ready Themes
Most themes support widgets and provide widgetized areas in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets to.
Typically, this is going to be in your theme’s sidebar, but depending upon the theme, these can also be found in the site’s header section, footer, and even below or above your content area.
It all depends on what theme that you have installed.
For example, the theme shown in the screenshot below has only one widget area adding functionality to the theme’s sidebar …
(Some themes only provide one widgetized area)
Below is the widget panel of the above theme, so you can see that this specific WP theme only includes one widgetized area …
As you can see from the above, the only location where you can add widgets to your site using the theme shown above is in the site’s sidebar area.
In contrast, the WordPress theme shown in the screenshot below includes various widget areas …
(Many WP themes provide multiple widget-ready sections)
Here is an enlarged image of the widget panel of the theme above, so you can see how many widget areas are included in this specific WordPress theme …
(Multiple widgets areas)
As you can see, with the above theme, you can add widgets to the sidebar area of two 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)
Where Can I See My WP Widgets?
To access the Widgets section go to Appearance > Widgets …
This loads the Widgets screen in your web browser …
(Widgets Panel)
The Widgets screen displays all the widgets you have available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop)
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 on your site.
In addition, your Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
In a default WordPress installation, 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 in your default WordPress theme right out of the box and display items like Search, Recent Comments, Categories, etc. to site visitors …
(By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)
Sometimes, you may find that new widgets appear in your Widgets area when new plugins are installed on your website or blog …
(Installing new plugins can sometimes add new widgets to your Widgets section!)
Widgets Features: Drag-And-Drop
WordPress widgets are great because you can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete them right inside your Widgets section using drag and drop …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag & drop)
Use drag & drop technology to easily reorder the order and layout of your website’s widget-enabled sections.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following:
- A subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A couple of click to phone sales buttons from a widgetized plugin …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
Inside the example site’s Widget area, you would see that these features appear on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the active widget section …
Let’s now rearrange the order these widgets in the Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the order of items in your sidebar. Note in the screenshot below that the click to call function (3) is now first the sidebar menu, and the contact us graphic banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Widgets are very easy to use!)
Cool, huh?
Let me just show you some other things about using WordPress widgets that are also worth keeping in mind about:
Widget Management – Widget Customizer Section
Depending on the actual WordPress theme that you have installed, you can also manage your widgets without making actual changes to your site, so you can be sure that you like what you see before committing your changes to your live website.
You can do several edits and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode, like adding, deleting and reorganizing the currently added widgets to any widget areas that your theme makes available, and see all changes in real time. If you like what you’ve done and click the “Save and Publish” button, your changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode or configure widgets on the fly!)
The ability to manage widgets from within your own WP 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 (to avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen shown previously.
Widget Configuration
As we’ve shown you previously, WordPress lets you completely rearrange how information is displayed in areas like your site’s sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-&-drop …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve visitor experience)
In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have rearranged the site’s sidebar by switching around the search and testimonial sections. As you now know, this was easily done by dragging and dropping the widget elements into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.
Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience.
Now … what about the widgets themselves? Can the widgets be customized instead of simply added, removed and rearranged?
Absolutely!
With many traditionally-designed websites, you would need to edit code in your site’s templates to reorganize the layout, customize features on page elements like shopping cart forms, or just add features like nested page lists, or a dropdown menu of your site categories, an archives section, custom menus, links to external sites, links to your recent posts, the latest excerpts of comments added to your posts, a section displaying clickable text ads, customer testimonials or polls, RSS content, image galleries, social media sharing buttons, and more.
While some widgets are “fixed” in the sense that they provide little to no customizing options, other than to add something like an optional title to the widget as shown in the example below …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configuration options)
Most widgets provide additional options that allow you to further customize 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 provide users with customization!)
Using WordPress Widgets
As we have seen, widgets require no coding experience or programming expertise to use. Most widgets can be easily added to your WP website simply by activating a plugin and then dragging and dropping the plugin’s widget into your Active widgets area.
For useful tips and tricks to using widgets, see these detailed step-by-step tutorials showing you how to use various widgets in WordPress to improve the effectiveness of your website or blog, plus many useful tips on how to get the most benefit out of WordPress with widgets:
- How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 1
- How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 2
- How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 3
- How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets – Part 4
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 problems that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you grow your business online. To learn more about the benefits of using the WordPress content management software please see other posts we have published on this site.
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