As discussed in this article, there are loads of great benefits in choosing WordPress to build and grow a web site. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site without having code editing skills or knowledge.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily add, delete, and reorganize content in your site’s sidebar navigation area (or header and footer sections too, depending on your theme) 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 you have installed) like:
- list of pages
- blog post categories
- archived content posts
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- post comments
- advertising
- quotations
- surveys & polls
- RSS content
- registration box
- product images
- Facebook feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help 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, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we show you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
The Basics
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, let’s review some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also be used below or above the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users multiple widgetized sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active and available for use on your site.
In addition, the Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout with drag & drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features display on your site)
If you 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 are arranged in the active widget screen …
If we rearrange the order of these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar navigation menu …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar section, and the support image button (2) is located above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar elements using widgets can help improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your WP widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar 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 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.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(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 may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizing options)
WP Theme Customizer
Depending on which theme you use, you can also manage and customize widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from within your dashboard 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 prior to publishing any changes (to avoid making errors), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do lots of edits to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on the site’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display your latest configuration to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure a number of frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial series about using WordPress widgets.
To continue reading, click this link:
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