As discussed in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or change the layout of your site without web coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and rearrange various types of content from your website’s sidebar (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you use) 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:
- list of your web pages
- post categories
- archives
- custom menus
- links to external sites
- most popular posts
- recent comments
- advertising
- testimonials
- poll questions & results
- RSS content
- opt-in form
- image galleries
- social media sharing 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 WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, see this article:
In this tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
The Basics
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, let’s cover some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also get added in the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget-ready sections)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become activated for use.
Your Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets with drag and drop inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout and order of your widget-ready layout using drag and drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If we look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget screen …
If we rearrange the order of these widgets in the Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar section …
This immediately changes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing 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 support image button (2) has been moved to the spot above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout with widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Area
Deleting widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to 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 and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove a widget)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from your sidebar navigation area. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be 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 data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggle to expand/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 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 customizing options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on which theme you use, 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 or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from within your dashboard is a valuable feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how the widget content will appear before publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets 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 screen in the backend.
You can do several things to widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become visible to your site visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
Once the changes have been saved, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display the new configuration to your site visitors.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial (one to work in and one to see your site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s begin configuring a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series.
To continue, click here:
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