As we explain in this article, there are many great things about using the WordPress web publishing software to build and manage your website. One of these is that you can easily add content, expand your website’s functionality, or rearrange the site’s layout with no coding skills required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, delete, and control various types of content in your site’s sidebar 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 like:
- page lists
- blog post categories
- archived posts
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- user comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- surveys
- RSS feed content
- newsletter subscription form
- image galleries
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we teach you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also appear in the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets you can use on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)
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 active and 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 actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder the order and layout of your website’s widget-ready sections by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A subscription 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 the order certain features appear on your site)
If we take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget screen …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar area …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout 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, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) is now located above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar Navigation Area
Removing widgets from the sidebar section is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing your widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar navigation menu. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide a number of options that allow you to further customize your site features. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible 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 expands the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(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 …
(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 offer little to no configuration options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending upon which WordPress theme you choose, you can also preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
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 prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do lots of edits in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and this will all be done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving your changes, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the new changes to your site visitors.
Because the WordPress theme you use determines how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature 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 see your site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to begin configuring various frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials.
To continue, click here:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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