As we explain in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reorganize the site’s layout without requiring any programming skills or knowledge.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, delete, and control content from your site’s sidebar area (or 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 like:
- pages on your website
- post categories
- post archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- text ads
- testimonials
- survey questions & results
- content from RSS feeds
- shopping cart information
- video thumbnails
- social media buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we will show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s first go over some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also show up inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become available for use.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout using drag and drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If we look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget area …
Let’s now change the order the above widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag & 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 order of items in your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar navigation area, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Deleting widgets from the sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. 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 toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggling expands/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 …
(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 give you little to no customizing options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon the theme you have installed on your site, you’re also able to manage widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you have done before committing anything to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from your own 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 changes (to avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do a number of edits, modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving your changes, the new configuration will automatically be added to your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial about using WordPress widgets.
To view Part 2, click this link:
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"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
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