As we discuss in this article, there are lots of great benefits in using the WordPress CMS platform for building, managing and growing your website. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, or rearrange the layout of your site without web coding skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, delete, and control various types of content from your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme is installed on your site) 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 WordPress theme you have installed) like:
- index of pages
- content categories
- post archives
- custom menus
- links to resources
- your most popular posts
- recent comments
- advertising banners
- quotations
- poll results
- RSS content
- registration box
- product catalog images
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Pinterest)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and why they make managing your site easier, go here:
In this tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets In WordPress
The Basics
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s first review some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar menu, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can also appear inside the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widgetized sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets you can use on your site.
The right-hand section of the window displays all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active and available for use.
In addition, the Widgets screen 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 Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets by dragging and dropping items from your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)
If we look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget screen …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar area …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the order of items in your sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) is placed above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Deleting widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar navigation menu …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reactivate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This includes hiding information from 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 settings …
(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 customization)
Preview Widgets
Depending on the WP theme you have installed, 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 your customizations before committing anything to your website.
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 changes (and avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do many modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, removing 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 the changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved the changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation area.
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.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s configure a number of frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials.
Click on this link to continue:
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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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