As we explain in this post, there are many great things about using the WordPress CMS platform to build and grow a website or blog. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, or rearrange your site’s layout with no web programming skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, remove, and control various blocks of content in your blog’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 your theme) like:
- page lists
- site categories
- blog post archive
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- links to your recent posts
- user comments
- advertisements
- testimonials
- poll results
- RSS feed items
- registration box
- video galleries
- Facebook feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, see this article:
In this tutorial series we will show you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
Widgets – The Basics
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar navigation section, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also display below or above the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays all the widgets that can be used on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “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 widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
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 settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets using drag and drop inside your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag & drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your widget-enabled layout by dragging and dropping widgets.
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 click for support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your site)
If we take a 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 back-end widget area …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar, and the support section (2) is now found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar Navigation Menu
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove your WordPress widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always restore widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide a number of options that allow you to further customize them. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access 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 settings for the widget …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to 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 offer little to no configuration options)
Preview Widgets
Depending on which theme you have installed on your site, 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 your customizations before committing anything live to your website.
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 before publishing any changes you’ve made (to avoid making errors), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer area in the backend.
You can do many things to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved the changes, the new settings will automatically be displayed on your site.
Because the theme you use affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to see your site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to begin configuring various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series.
To continue, click here:
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