As we’ve discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your website’s functionality, and reorganize your site’s layout with no web programming skills and knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, remove, and reconfigure content on your site’s sidebar (and header and footer sections, depending on your theme) 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 the theme) like:
- nested list of your web pages
- blog post categories
- archive
- menus that display only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- advertising banners
- client testimonials
- poll results
- RSS feed content
- opt-in form
- product catalog images
- social media share buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why they make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s first explain some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also be found in the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)
These widgetized layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets section displays all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become activated for use.
Your Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets with drag & drop in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout and order of your widgetized areas using drag & drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- A newsletter opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the back-end widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the order of items in your sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar section, and the support section (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar Area
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar menu is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete a widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar section. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to your 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 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, remove the 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 customizing options)
Widget Previews
Depending on the theme you are using, you’re also able to preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you see before making any permanent changes to your website.
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 your widget content will appear before publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize feature)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do many things in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly updated and reflected to your site visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since the theme you use can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how the site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to start configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
***
This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial.
Click on this link to continue reading:
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
***