As we explain in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your web presence is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and redesign the layout of your site with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to easily add, delete, and rearrange various blocks of content on your website’s sidebar navigation area (and header and footer sections too, 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 the theme) like:
- pages on your website
- blog categories
- blog post archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- your most popular posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- image banners
- quotations
- survey questions & results
- RSS content
- shopping cart information
- video
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Amazon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can also be used inside the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widgetized sections)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active on your site.
In addition, your Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they were arranged in the backend widget section …
If we reorganize these widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping items …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to 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 area, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The Sidebar Navigation Section
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s remove 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 WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always restore widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets provide a number of options that allow you to further configure these. This includes making certain types of information hidden to your site visitors but visible 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 toggles between expanding and collapsing 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 delete 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 an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizable options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending upon the theme you have installed on your site, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from within your WP dashboard 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 prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize feature)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do lots of modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and this will all be done in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly updated and made visible on the site’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After the changes have been saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the new configuration to your site visitors.
Because the theme you choose can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your 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 your site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s 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 on how to use WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue:
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