As we discuss in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress web publishing application for building, managing and growing your website or blog is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, and reconfigure the layout of your site with no web coding skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, remove, and rearrange content on your website’s sidebar (and header and footer sections too, 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 you have installed) like:
- pages on your website
- categories
- archived blog post entries
- custom menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- recent comments from users
- image banners
- testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS content
- registration box
- video
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you are going to learn how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can also get added inside the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widgetized sections)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately active and available for use.
The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order and layout of your theme’s widget-enabled sections by dragging & dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)
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 back-end widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging and dropping some things around …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This instantly changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from your sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar navigation section …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete your WP widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widget)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar navigation area. You can always reactivate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be further customized. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered 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 …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, 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 give you little to no configuration options)
Theme Customizer
Depending upon which WP theme you have installed on your site, you can also manage and customize widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like what you see before committing anything live 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 errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer area in the back-end.
You can do many modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and it’s all done in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display your new configuration to your site visitors.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through 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, the next step is to learn how to begin configuring a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial about how to use WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to keep reading:
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