As we have discussed in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your web presence is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your website without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, delete, and reorganize various types of content on 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
- site categories
- post archives
- menus
- links to external sites
- your most popular posts
- recent comments from users
- clickable text ads
- quotations
- surveys
- RSS feed content
- subscriber form
- images
- social media buttons
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, see this article:
In this tutorial series you will learn how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before we explain how to configure widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also get added below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets section displays all the widgets you have available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag and drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
In addition, the Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets using drag & drop inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag & drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout of your theme’s widget-enabled sections by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your site)
If you take a look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget screen …
If we rearrange the above widgets in the Widget Area by dragging and dropping items …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar menu …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar menu, and the ‘contact us’ image banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar Section
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar navigation area is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar section. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for that widget …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete your widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customization)
Preview Widgets
Depending upon the theme you have installed, you’re also able to manage and customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you have done before committing anything to your site.
Widget management 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 prior to publishing it (and avoid making errors), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do many edits to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and everything is 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 visible on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
Once you have saved the changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because the WordPress theme you use can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to configure a number of frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials about how to use Widgets.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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