As discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress web publishing tool for building and managing a web site is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, or rearrange your site’s layout with no code editing skills and knowledge required.

WordPress allows you to easily add, delete, and manage content from your website’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme you use) 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:

• website page list
• site categories
• archive
• menus that display only the pages you choose
• links to external sites
• most popular posts
• comments
• clickable images
• user testimonials
• survey results
• RSS feed items
• shopping cart information
• product images
• social media sharing buttons
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)

To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, see this article:

• Using WordPress: A Basic Guide To Widgets

In this tutorial series we teach you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

How To Use Widgets In WordPress

Widgets – Basic Concepts

Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s explain some of the basics about how to use widgets:

Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts

Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide areas in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can also show up in the content area …

(Many WP themes provide multiple widget areas)

These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …

(Widget Areas)

The Widgets Panel

The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.

The right-hand section of the window displays your “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 the sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active and available for use.

In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets retain their settings.

Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop

You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …

(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag & drop)

You can also easily reorder the order of your theme’s widget-enabled areas using drag and drop.

For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:

1. A subscription form,
2. A click for support button, and
3. ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …

(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)

If you take a look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget section …

If we rearrange the order of these widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag-and-drop …

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

The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar …

As you can see, this instantly changes the layout of your sidebar.

Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.

Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar section, and the support image button (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …

(Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help improve your site’s user experience)

Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu

Deleting widgets from the sidebar is really easy.

For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …

(WordPress Search widget)

To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …

(Deleting your WP widget)

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

(Removing widgets)

Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from your sidebar menu. You can always reactivate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Most widgets can be customized. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.

Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the widget’s settings …

(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)

When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to remove 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 offer little to no customization)

Customize Widgets Section

Depending on which theme you have installed on your site, you’re also able to manage and customize widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything live to your website or blog.

The ability to manage widgets inside your own WordPress dashboard is a great feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how the widget content will appear before 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)

If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …

(Customize link in the toolbar)

This brings you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.

You can do a number of edits and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and it will all be done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on the site’s frontend.

(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)

Once the changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.

Since the WordPress theme you use affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation section.

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

Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to begin configuring various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.

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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial.

Click on this link to access Part Two:

• How To Use Widgets – Part Two

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