As discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage your web presence is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, and change the layout of your website with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, remove, and reorganize various types of content in your blog’s sidebar (and 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 like:
- nested list of pages
- site categories
- blog post archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- user comments
- advertising
- quotations
- survey results
- RSS feed content
- opt-in form
- image galleries
- Facebook feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:
In this tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using WordPress Widgets
The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s first explain some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also show up in the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become active and can be used for their purpose.
Your Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout using drag-and-drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the backend widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the support banner (2) is placed above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout using widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Deleting widgets from your sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting a WP widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for that widget …
(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 settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets give you little to no customizable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no configurable options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending on the theme you choose, you’re also able to preview any changes live 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 or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from your WP dashboard 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 any changes you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live 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 many edits in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and this will all be done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly updated and made visible to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving the changes, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the latest changes to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar menu.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how your site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial series.
To view Part 2, click here:
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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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