As we’ve explained in this post, one of the many benefits of using the WordPress web publishing software to manage and grow your web site is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, or reconfigure the layout of your site without code editing skills required.
WordPress allows you to easily add, delete, and manage various blocks of content on your website’s sidebar menu (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 the theme) like:
- site pages
- content categories
- archived content posts
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- comments
- text ads
- testimonials
- poll results
- RSS feed items
- opt-in subscription form
- product images
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we will show you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
Widgets – The Basics
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation section, header area, and footer. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also be used below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active and can be used for their purpose.
The Widgets area also 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 pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets with drag & drop in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your WordPress site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site’s sidebar menu in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget section …
Let’s now change the order these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This immediately changes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar navigation area, and the ‘contact us’ image banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for that widget …
(Toggling expands/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 may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customization)
Theme Customizer
Depending on which theme you have installed, you’re also able to preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything 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 your widget content will appear before publishing changes (and avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do a number of edits, modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting 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 the changes will instantly become available on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as your changes have been saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the latest configuration to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar navigation section.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial series on using WordPress widgets.
To keep reading, 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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