As we explain in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that you can easily add content, expand your website’s functionality, and rearrange the layout of your site without web coding skills required.
WordPress allows you to easily insert, remove, and reorganize content on your site’s sidebar navigation menu (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme is installed on the site) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- page lists
- blog categories
- post archives
- custom menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- recent comments from users
- image banners
- quotations
- polls & surveys
- RSS feed content
- opt-in form
- image galleries
- social media share buttons
- add 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 make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
Widgets – The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s review some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also display below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and 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 activated for use.
Your Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the order of your theme’s widgetized areas with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your WordPress site)
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 area …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of these items around …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ graphic button (2) can now be found above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress 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 your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from your sidebar area. You can always restore widgets by dragging 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 expands the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggles 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 may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customization)
Preview Widgets
Depending on which WP theme you are using, you’re also able to manage and customize widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes to your site.
The ability to manage widgets from your own WordPress 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 it (and avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do plenty of edits, modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and it will all be done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly updated and made visible to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved the changes, the new updates will automatically show on your site.
Because the WordPress theme you use tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your 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 learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial on using Widgets.
To view Part Two, click here:
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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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