As we explain in this article, one of the many benefits of using the WordPress web publishing tool to manage and grow your web site is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, or reorganize the site’s layout without web programming skills and knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, delete, and reconfigure various types of content from your website’s sidebar area (or 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 you have installed) like:
- list of pages
- blog categories
- blog post archive
- customized menus
- links to resources
- most read posts
- post comments
- clickable ads
- testimonials
- poll results
- RSS content excerpts
- opt-in form
- video
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Amazon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP 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 series we teach you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s go over some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in your theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also be used in the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become available for use on your site.
Your Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the layout of your widget-ready layout by with drag and drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they were arranged in the back-end widget section …
If we change the order the above widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar navigation section …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar section, and the support graphic button (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Navigation Menu
Deleting widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets offer various options that allow you to further configure 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.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for the widget …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets give you little to no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customizing options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon which theme you are using, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before making any permanent changes to your site.
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 before publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or manage 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 front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do several edits and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly updated and made visible to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving your changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since the WordPress theme you choose can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to begin configuring various frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials on how to use WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to continue:
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