As we have discussed in this article, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress to manage your website or blog is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or redesign the layout of your site without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, remove, and reorganize various blocks of content in your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you have installed) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- website page list
- blog categories
- post archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to recent posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- advertising banners
- testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS content excerpts
- subscription form
- video
- Facebook feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and why they make managing your site easier, 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.
Using Widgets In WordPress
The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s first make sure that you understand some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar menu, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also get added in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users a number of widget-ready sections)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop)
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. instantly become available for use on your site.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout using drag-and-drop.
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 WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your WordPress site)
If you look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the active widget area …
Let’s now rearrange the above widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag & drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This instantly changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar navigation area, and the support section (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from your sidebar. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets offer a number of options that allow you to further configure your site features. This can include things like 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to remove the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets give you little to no customizing options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customizing options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending upon the theme you choose, you’re also able to customize and manage your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes 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 the widget content will appear prior to publishing changes (and avoid making mistakes), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do plenty of things to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving the changes, your new configuration will automatically show on your site.
Since the WordPress theme you choose determines how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets.
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 (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 start configuring various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials about using WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue reading:
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