As discussed in this article, there are many benefits in choosing the WordPress CMS platform for building, managing and growing a business online. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your website with no code editing skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, delete, and manage various blocks of content from your website’s sidebar (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:
- page lists
- post categories
- post archives
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- most read posts
- recent comments
- advertisements
- testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS content excerpts
- subscriber form
- image galleries
- Facebook feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we teach you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s review some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also be added below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
In addition, the Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order of your site’s widgetized layout with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your site)
Looking inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site’s sidebar area in the same order as they have been arranged in the back-end widget area …
If we change the order these widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar menu …
This instantly reorganizes the order of items in your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar navigation menu, and the support section (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar section …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible 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 …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets give you little to no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no configuration options)
Previewing Your Widgets
Depending on which WP theme you are using, you’re also able to manage and customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything live 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 before publishing it (and avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do several edits to the widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and moving widgets around), and it will all be done in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, the new updates will automatically be added to your site.
Because the theme you choose can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your 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 go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how the changes are coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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