As we’ve explained in this post, there are many great benefits in using the WordPress CMS platform to build, manage and grow a web site. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, and rearrange the layout of your site without programming skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and reconfigure content on your website’s sidebar menu (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme is installed on your site) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- nested list of pages
- post categories
- blog post archive
- custom menus
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- post comments
- clickable ads
- testimonials
- survey results
- RSS content excerpts
- member login section
- videos
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Pinterest)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we teach you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
Widgets – The Basics
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s first review some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar menu, header area, and footer. Depending on your theme, widgets can also appear inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active.
In addition, the Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets using simple drag & drop inside the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout and order of your website’s widgetized layout by with drag and drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- A subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
If we take a peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site in the same order as they were arranged in the active widget area …
Let’s now change these widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the items around …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar navigation area …
This immediately changes the order of items in the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar menu, and the support graphic button (2) has been moved to the place above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar Section
Removing widgets from your sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar menu …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always restore widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. This can include things like hiding information from 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, click Delete to 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 give you little to no configuration options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizing options)
Widget Previews
Depending on which theme you use, you’re also able to preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you see before committing anything to your site.
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 the widget content will appear before publishing any changes (and avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize your site quickly)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do several modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and everything is done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved the changes, the new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Since the theme you use determines how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation area.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete 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, it’s time to learn how to configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial on how to use Widgets.
To view Part Two, click here:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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