As we’ve discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of using the WordPress CMS platform is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, and reorganize the layout of your website with no web programming skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily add, delete, and manage various blocks of content on your website’s sidebar menu (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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on the theme) like:
- website page list
- post categories
- archives
- menus that display only the pages you select
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- user comments
- clickable ad banners
- client testimonials
- survey questions & results
- content from RSS feeds
- opt-in subscription form
- video
- social media buttons
- 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 widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial we are going to show you how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s first explain some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on your theme, widgets can also get added inside the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget sections)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active and available for use on your site.
Your Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the order of your theme’s widgetized sections by dragging & dropping widgets.
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 banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your WordPress site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the backend widget area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area by dragging and dropping items …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
This immediately changes the order of items in the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar menu, and the support banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar elements using widgets can improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete 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 your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reactivate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets offer a number of settings that allow you to further customize your site features. 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.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, 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 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 customizing options)
Theme Customizer
Depending on which WordPress theme you have installed on your site, you’re also able to manage and customize widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
Widget management 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 prior to publishing it (and avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets 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 feature in the back-end.
You can do many edits, modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), 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 instantly become available on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After the changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This saves 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 commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials on using WordPress widgets.
Click here to keep reading:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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