As discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of using the WordPress web publishing application for building, managing and growing a website is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reorganize your site’s layout without coding skills required.
WordPress lets you easily add, delete, and control various types of content from your website’s sidebar area (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme you use) 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 the WordPress theme you have installed) like:
- page lists
- blog post categories
- archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- your most read posts
- comments
- advertisements
- quotations
- survey results
- RSS feed content
- subscriber form
- video thumbnails
- social media buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we will show you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
The Basics
Before we show you how to configure widgets, it helps to first make sure that you understand some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also get added inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active on your site.
In addition, your Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout using drag & drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized 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 look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the items around …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
This immediately reorganizes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar area, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar navigation menu is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting a widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always reinstate widgets by moving them 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 information, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the widget’s 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 …
(Widget settings)
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 customizable options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon the theme you use, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you see before committing anything to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from within the WP dashboard 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 it (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do several edits and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and it’s all done in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly applied and made visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, the new settings will automatically show on your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete 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, the next step is to learn how to start configuring a number of commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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