As we have discussed in this article, there are lots of great things about choosing WordPress to build and manage a digital presence. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, and reconfigure the site’s layout with no code editing skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and reconfigure various blocks of content from your blog’s sidebar navigation menu (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you have installed) 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:
- site pages
- categories
- archive
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- user comments
- advertising
- testimonials
- polls
- RSS feed items
- shopping cart information
- videos
- social media buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- 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 widgets make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial you will learn how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first go over some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar navigation section, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme, widgets can also show up inside the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide a number of widget-enabled areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become active and available for use.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout and order of your site’s widgetized 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’ feature from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)
If we take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget area …
Let’s now rearrange these widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping items …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ image banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Section
Removing widgets from the sidebar section is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar navigation section …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove a widget)
Repeat this process for any other 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 things. 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggle to expand/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 something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no configurable options)
Preview Widgets
Depending upon which theme you have installed, you can also customize widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything live 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 your widget content will appear before publishing changes (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do lots of edits to widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
As soon as the changes are saved, the new settings will automatically be displayed on your site.
Because the WordPress theme you use determines how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the 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 work 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, it’s time to learn how to begin configuring a number of commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click here:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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