How To Use And Configure WordPress Widgets

Learn how to use and configure WordPress widgets on your sidebar. This tutorial explains the basic concepts of using Widgets to extend the functionality of your website and provides an overview of the Widgets area.

Using WidgetsAs we have explained in this post, there are so many great benefits in choosing WordPress to build and manage a website. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, or rearrange your site’s layout without coding skills or knowledge required.

WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, delete, and manage content on your blog’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections too, 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 pages
  • blog categories
  • archived posts
  • menus
  • links to resources
  • posts that you want to promote
  • comments
  • advertisements
  • testimonials
  • survey results
  • RSS feed content
  • customers login section
  • product images
  • Facebook feeds
  • add widgets from external sites (e.g. Pinterest)
  • administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

WP widgets make managing and using WordPress easier!

(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)

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

In this tutorial we explain how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

Using Widgets

What You Need To Know First

Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s first review some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:

Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas

Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also be added in the content area …

(Many themes offer users a number of widget sections)

(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widget areas)

These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …

Widget Areas

(Widget Areas)

Widgets Panel

The Widgets screen displays all the widgets you can use on your site.

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

Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop

(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)

Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.

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

Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.

Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop

You can easily add functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …

Rearrange your site's widgets using drag and drop

(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)

You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout with drag & drop ease.

For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:

  1. An opt-in form,
  2. A contact support banner, and
  3. ’Click to call’ buttons 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 display

(Widgets control the order certain features display on your site)

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

Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop

Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …

Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area

(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)

The widget features have now been reorganized in the sidebar area …

Rearrange your site's widgets using drag and drop

This immediately 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’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …

Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve user experience

(Reorganize sidebar layout with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)

Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Area

Deleting widgets from the sidebar is really easy.

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

WordPress Search widget

(Search widget)

To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …

Deleting WordPress widgets

(Delete your widget)

Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …

How to remove your WordPress widgets

(Remove your WordPress widget)

Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Most widgets can be further customized. This includes 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.

Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to display the settings for that widget …

Toggles expand/collapse widget 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 settings …

Widget settings

(Widget settings)

Important

Some widgets may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …

Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options

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

Customize Widgets Section

Depending on the theme you are using, you can also manage your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you see before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.

Widget management 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 any changes you’ve made (to avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.

Edit widgets in the Customize section

(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)

Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …

Customize link in the toolbar

(Customize link in the toolbar)

This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.

You can do many edits, modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly updated and reflected to your site visitors.

Widget management - work in preview mode

(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)

As soon as your changes have been saved, your new updates will automatically be added to your site.

Useful Tip

Because the WordPress theme you use tend to affect 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 saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.

Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to start configuring a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

Adding And Configuring WordPress Widgets In Your Sidebar

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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial series on using Widgets.

Click here to access the rest of this tutorial series:

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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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