As we discuss in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reorganize the layout of your site with no programming skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily add, delete, and control various types of content in your site’s sidebar (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme you have installed) 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:
- list of your web pages
- categories
- archives
- menus
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- post comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS feed content
- registration box
- video galleries
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we show you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets
The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, it helps to first make sure that you understand some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also appear below or above the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
The right-hand section of the window displays your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active on your site.
In addition, your Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets With Drag And Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ feature from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
If we could peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the backend widget section …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging and dropping items …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar …
This immediately changes the order of items in the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar menu, and the ‘contact us’ image banner (2) is now placed above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete a widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always reactivate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets provide a number of settings that allow you to further customize them. This includes making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to display the widget’s settings …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete 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 give you little to no customizing options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on the theme you have installed on your site, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before committing anything to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from within your WP 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 before publishing changes (and avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do many things in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and it will all be done in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly applied and reflected on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because the WordPress theme you use determines how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how the changes are coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s configure various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials.
To view Part Two, click here:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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