As we discuss in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing WordPress is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the site’s layout with no code editing skills required.

WordPress allows you to quickly and easily add, delete, and reconfigure content in your site’s sidebar navigation area (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 WordPress theme you have installed) like:

• website page list
• content categories
• post archives
• customized menus
• links to resources
• your most read posts
• recent comments
• advertising
• quotations
• survey results
• RSS content excerpts
• shopping cart information
• videos
• social media share buttons
• display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)

To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:

• Understanding Widgets

In this tutorial series we show you how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.

How To Use WordPress Widgets

Basic Concepts

Before configuring and using widgets, let’s go over some of the basics of how to use widgets:

Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas

Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar navigation section, header area, and the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also display below or above the content area …

(Many themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)

These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …

(Widget Areas)

Widgets Screen

The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.

On the right-hand side of the window, you can see your “active” widgets …

(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping)

Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active.

The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.

Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop

You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets area …

(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)

You can also easily rearrange the order and layout of your widgetized areas using drag and drop.

For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:

1. An opt-in form,
2. A click for support button, and
3. ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …

(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)

If we take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget area …

If we reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements …

(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)

The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar menu …

This immediately reorganizes the layout of the sidebar.

Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help improve your site’s user experience.

Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …

(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)

Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar Area

Removing widgets from your sidebar is very easy.

For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar …

(WordPress Search widget)

To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …

(How to delete your WordPress widgets)

Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …

(How to remove WordPress widgets)

Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always reactivate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Many widgets provide additional options that allow you to further configure them. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.

Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for that widget …

(Toggle to expand/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 settings …

(Widget settings)

Some widgets give you little to no customizable options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …

(Some widgets provide users with little to no configuration options)

Widget Customizer Section

Depending on the theme you are using, you can also manage widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website.

Widget management 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 prior to publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.

(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)

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 section in the back-end.

You can do several edits to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly applied and reflected on your site.

(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)

After your changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.

Because the WordPress theme you choose can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar menu.

Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.

Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to begin configuring a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.

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This is the end of section one of this series of tutorials on how to use WordPress widgets.

To keep reading, click this link:

• How To Add WordPress Widgets To Your Website – Part Two

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