As discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and redesign the layout of your website with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and rearrange content on your blog’s sidebar section (or header and footer sections too, 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:
- page lists
- blog categories
- archive
- menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- advertising
- user testimonials
- surveys & polls
- RSS feed items
- customers login section
- video
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s cover some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can also be found in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widgetized layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets 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 the sidebar, footer, etc. become activated for use on your site.
In addition, the 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.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- A newsletter opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)
Looking inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site’s sidebar menu in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the back-end widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar menu …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar navigation section …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your WP widget)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to your 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 toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, remove your 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 offer little to no customization)
Widget Previews
Depending on the theme you use, you can also preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything to your website.
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 (to avoid making errors), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer area in the back-end.
You can do lots of edits and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and it’s all done in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become visible on the site’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as the changes are saved, your new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work 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 a number of commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial.
Click here to continue:
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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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