As we explain in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing WordPress is that you can easily add content, enhance your site, or reconfigure the layout of your site with no coding skills required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, delete, and reorganize content from your website’s sidebar navigation area (and 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 like:
- list of your web pages
- post categories
- archives
- menus that display only selected pages
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- comments
- clickable ad banners
- testimonials
- surveys & polls
- RSS content
- shopping cart forms
- video thumbnails
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, go here:
In this tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s first review some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide areas in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also get added below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widgetized areas)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that you currently have available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order and layout of your site’s widgetized areas with drag and drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If we look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget section …
If we rearrange these widgets in the Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar navigation section …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) is now placed above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar menu. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets offer a number of settings that allow you to further customize these. This can include things like 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 expand the item …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to remove your widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets offer little to 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)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on the theme you are using, you’re also able to customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything live to your website or blog.
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 before publishing any changes (to avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do lots of edits, modifications and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the latest configuration to your site visitors.
Since the theme you choose tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your 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 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 section one of this series of tutorials about using WordPress widgets.
To continue, click here:
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