As discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress web publishing application to build, manage and grow a digital presence is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reorganize the layout of your website without requiring any code editing skills and knowledge.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, delete, and reorganize content on your site’s sidebar (or 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 pages
- categories
- blog post archive
- menus
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- clickable text ads
- client testimonials
- poll questions & results
- content from RSS feeds
- opt-in subscription form
- videos
- social media sharing buttons
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s first go over some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also display inside the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users multiple widgetized areas)
These widgetized layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays all the widgets that are currently available for use 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. become active and can be used for their purpose.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets with drag and drop in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag & drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout and order of your site’s widget-enabled layout with drag & drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A newsletter opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If you take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features appear on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets are arranged in the active widget screen …
Let’s now rearrange the order of these widgets in the Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar …
This instantly changes the layout of your sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar, and the support banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation section. You can always reactivate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to 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, 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 an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on which WordPress theme you choose, you can also preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from your WordPress dashboard is a valuable feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how the widget content will appear before publishing any changes (to avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do several edits, modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, the new updates will automatically be added to your site.
Because the theme you use affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series about how to use WordPress widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
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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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