As we have discussed in this article, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and rearrange various blocks of content on your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you are using) 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:
- nested page lists
- content categories
- archived blog post entries
- menus that display only selected pages
- links to resources
- your most read posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- clickable ads
- quotations
- surveys & polls
- RSS feed items
- newsletter registration form
- product catalog images
- Facebook feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial you will learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in your theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar navigation area, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also display in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widgetized areas)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated 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 the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active on your site.
In addition, the Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your widgetized sections by with drag & drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as they were arranged in the back-end widget area …
If we rearrange these widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping some things around …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar navigation area …
This immediately reorganizes the layout of your site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar menu, and the ‘contact us’ image banner (2) has been moved to the place above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout using widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar area …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar navigation menu. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many 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 data, 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 …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets offer little to no customizing options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no configurable options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon which WP theme you have installed on your site, you can also customize your widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything live 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 your widget content will appear before publishing changes (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes in the Customize section)
Wherever you are 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 many edits to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once your changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because the theme you use tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to see the site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s start configuring various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial series on using Widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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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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