As we have explained in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reconfigure your site’s layout without requiring web coding skills.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, delete, and reconfigure content from your site’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you have installed) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- list of your web pages
- blog post categories
- post archives
- custom page menus
- links to resources
- most read posts
- post comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- polls
- RSS feed items
- opt-in subscription form
- video galleries
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and why they make managing your site easier, go here:
In this tutorial series we teach you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we show you how to configure widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar navigation area, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also be added inside the content area …
(Many WP themes provide multiple widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately available for use on your site.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, reorder and remove things using widgets by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)
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 area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar section …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the layout of the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar section, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar menu is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar menu. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets offer additional settings that allow you to further customize things. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or data, 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 widget’s settings …
(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 provide users with little to 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 on the theme you are using, you’re also able to manage and customize your widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before committing anything to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from within your WP dashboard 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 before publishing any changes (to avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do many edits to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because the theme you use can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar menu.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all 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 check how your changes are coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click here:
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
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