As we explain in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your website or blog is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or change the layout of your site without web coding skills required.
WordPress allows you to easily insert, delete, and reconfigure various blocks of content in your site’s sidebar (and 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 like:
- site pages
- site categories
- archives
- menus
- links to external sites
- your most popular posts
- post comments
- image banners
- client testimonials
- poll results
- RSS content excerpts
- subscriber form
- videos
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and why they make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
What You Need To Know First
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s go over some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready sections in your theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also be used in the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users multiple widget-ready areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately active.
The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete 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 reorder your theme’s layout by using drag-and-drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)
If you take a look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features appear on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the active widget screen …
If we reorganize these widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the support section (2) has been moved to the place above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Area
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar navigation section is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove a WP widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from the sidebar section. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide a number of options that allow you to further customize your site features. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to site 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 …
(Toggling expands/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 provide users with little to no configurable options)
Preview Your Widgets
Depending on which WordPress theme you are using, 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 what you have done before committing anything live to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from within the 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 you’ve made (to avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do lots of modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving the changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s begin configuring various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series.
Click on this link to continue:
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