As we’ve discussed in this article, there are loads of benefits in choosing WordPress for building, managing and growing a website or blog. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, and rearrange the layout of your website without coding skills and knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, delete, and reconfigure various types of content from your site’s sidebar area (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you are using) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- index of pages
- site categories
- post archives
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- your most read posts
- recent comments from users
- advertising
- testimonials
- surveys & polls
- RSS content excerpts
- newsletter subscription form
- video
- Facebook feeds
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress 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 series we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
The Basics
Before we explain how to configure widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widgetized areas in your theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also show up below or above the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Screen
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated 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. immediately become activated for use.
In addition, your Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag & drop)
You can also easily reorder the order and layout of your theme’s widget-ready layout by with drag & drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, 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 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 section …
Let’s now rearrange the order of the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
This immediately changes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar navigation area, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) is now found above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Menu
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar navigation section is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your WP widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. 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 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, click Delete to delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizable options)
Preview Your Widgets
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, 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 your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from within the 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 the widget content will appear prior to publishing it (to avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do several edits and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and this will all be done in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available on the site’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
Once you have saved the changes, the new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Because the WordPress theme you choose determines how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete 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 start configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial on how to use WordPress widgets.
To continue, click here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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