As we explain in this article, there are loads of benefits in using the WordPress CMS platform to build and manage your business online. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site without web coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, delete, and control content on your website’s sidebar navigation section (or header and footer sections, 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:
- site pages
- site categories
- blog post archive
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- comments
- advertising
- user testimonials
- survey results
- RSS feed items
- opt-in subscription form
- video thumbnails
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other 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 widgets are, how they work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series you will learn how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
What You Need To Know First
Before we explain how to configure widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also display below or above the content area …
(Many WP themes provide multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
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 the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active.
The Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order of your website’s widget-ready areas 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:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If we look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget screen …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar navigation area …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support graphic button (2) has been moved to the place above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar area …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets offer various options that allow you to further configure things. This can include things like 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 settings for the widget …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, remove the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets offer little to no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on which theme you are using, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you see before making any permanent changes to your site.
The ability to manage widgets inside 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 your widget content will appear prior to publishing it (to avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do a number of edits to widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and everything is done in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly applied and made visible on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving the changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since the theme you choose tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar menu.
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, let’s configure various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this series of tutorials on how to use Widgets.
Click here to continue:
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