As discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that you can easily add content, enhance your site, or reconfigure the layout of your site without web programming skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily add, delete, and manage content on your website’s sidebar navigation menu (or 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:
- website page list
- post categories
- archives
- custom page menus
- links to resources
- your most popular posts
- comments
- advertisements
- customer testimonials
- surveys
- content from RSS feeds
- newsletter registration form
- video galleries
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress 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 frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also display below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widget areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the window displays all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag and drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately available for use.
In addition, the Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets by dragging and dropping items from your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site 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 display the following to visitors:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If we could peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the backend widget area …
If we rearrange the order of the above widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar area …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar area, and the support banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar navigation section …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from your sidebar. You can always reactivate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This can include things like hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to display the settings for that widget …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete 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 an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customizing options)
WordPress Theme Customizer
Depending upon which theme you have installed, you’re also able to preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like what you have done before committing anything live to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets inside 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 the widget content will appear prior to publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize your site quickly)
This will bring you to the Customizer area in the back-end.
You can do several edits and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and everything is done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because the WordPress theme you use tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s configure a number of commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
***
This is the end of section one of this series of tutorials.
Click here to continue reading:
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***