As we’ve explained in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, and change the layout of your site with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily add, delete, and reconfigure content from your site’s sidebar navigation menu (or header and footer sections, depending on your theme) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- pages on your site
- post categories
- archives
- customized menus
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- comments
- advertising banners
- quotations
- survey results
- content from RSS feeds
- subscription form
- image galleries
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, go here:
In this tutorial we explain how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets
The Basics
Before we explain how to configure widgets, it helps to first review some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also display inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widgetized areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget management screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately active and available for use.
In addition, the Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets just by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout using drag and drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear 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 their corresponding widgets were arranged in the backend widget section …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of these widgets around …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar area …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the order of items in your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar area, and the support section (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar Menu
Deleting widgets from the sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar section …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, either expand 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 …
(Remove a WP widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar navigation section. You can always reinstate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to 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 settings for that widget …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets offer little to no customizing options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no configuration options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon the 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 what you have done before committing anything to your site.
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 prior to publishing any changes (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do lots of edits, modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and it will all be done in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly applied and made visible on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved the changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display the new changes to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
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, the next step is to learn how to configure a number of commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials.
To continue reading, click here:
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