As we have explained in this article, there are many great things about using WordPress to build and grow a web site. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your site, and rearrange the layout of your website with no programming skills or knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily add, delete, and control content from your site’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, depending on your theme) 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 your theme) like:
- list of pages
- site categories
- post archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- post comments
- image banners
- user testimonials
- surveys & polls
- RSS feed content
- opt-in form
- product catalog images
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Pinterest)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we teach you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first make sure that you understand some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide 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 installed on your site, widgets can also get added below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag and drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
The Widgets area 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.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder 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 display things on your site like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your WordPress site)
If you look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget section …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping items …
(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar area …
This immediately changes the layout of the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar navigation area, and the support section (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar layout with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your Sidebar Menu
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar navigation section …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete a WP widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove your 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 further customized. This includes 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 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 offer little to no configuration options)
Theme Customizer
Depending on the theme you use, 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 to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from within your own WP dashboard 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 it (and avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your 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 backend.
You can do plenty of edits, modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
As soon as the changes are saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the new configuration to your site visitors.
Since the WordPress theme you choose can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to start configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series on using Widgets.
Click on this link to access the rest of this tutorial:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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