As we’ve discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your website or blog is that you can easily add content, enhance your site’s functionality, and change the layout of your site with no web coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, delete, and rearrange various types of content on your blog’s sidebar (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 your theme) like:
- list of your web pages
- content categories
- archived content posts
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- your most read posts
- recent comments
- clickable ad banners
- quotations
- poll results
- RSS content
- opt-in form
- product catalog images
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why they make managing your site easier, go here:
In this tutorial series we will show you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before configuring and using widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be used inside the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget areas)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active 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 pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout of your website’s widget-ready sections using drag & drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your WordPress site)
If you look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as their corresponding widgets are arranged in the active widget screen …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar navigation section …
This instantly changes the layout of your sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout using 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, and the support image button (2) is now found above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from your sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access 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 display the settings for that 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 …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customizing options)
Preview Widgets
Depending on which WP theme you have installed, you can also customize and manage widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets inside the dashboard is a valuable 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 it (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your 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 lots of modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and it’s all done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly updated and reflected on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving the changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display the new configuration to your site visitors.
Since the WordPress theme you choose affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar section.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how the site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to start configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial on how to use Widgets.
To continue, click this link:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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