As we have discussed in this article, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your website or blog is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or change the layout of your website without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, delete, and control content on your blog’s sidebar navigation menu (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme is installed on your site) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- index of pages
- post categories
- archive
- menus that display only selected pages
- links to resources
- your most read posts
- post comments
- clickable images
- testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS content
- subscriber form
- images
- social media share buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- 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 why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we explain how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we start configuring and using widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar area, header area, and footer. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also get added in the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widgetized areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget management screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see all “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 the sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become available for use on your site.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)
You can also easily rearrange the layout and order of your widget-ready sections using drag and drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your WordPress site)
If we could peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the active widget area …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the elements around …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar navigation area …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar navigation area, and the support banner (2) has been moved to the location above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Section
Removing widgets from your sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your WP widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from your sidebar menu. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be further customized. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, 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 settings for that widget …
(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 …
(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 configuration options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon which theme you choose, you’re also able to preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes to your website.
Widget management is a valuable 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 your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This will bring you to the Customizer area in the backend.
You can do several edits and adjustments to the widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and everything is done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly applied and made visible on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving your changes, your new settings will automatically show on your site.
Because the WordPress theme you use determines how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation area.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This will save 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 start configuring various frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial series.
Click on this link to continue:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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