As we explain in this post, there are many great benefits in choosing WordPress to build, manage and grow a website or blog. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, or rearrange the layout of your website with no coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, delete, and control various blocks of content from your site’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, 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:
- website page list
- blog post categories
- archive
- menus that display only the pages you choose
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- poll questions & results
- RSS content excerpts
- customers login section
- image galleries
- social media buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, go here:
In this tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, it helps to first review some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar section, header area, and footer. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be found in the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widgetized sections)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the window displays all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag & drop ease)
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. become immediately active and can be used for their purpose.
The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A 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 appear on your WordPress site)
If we take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site in the same order as they are arranged in the active widget area …
If we rearrange the above widgets in the Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of these elements around …
(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar section …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) has been moved to the spot above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar Menu
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WP widget)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide a number of settings that allow you to further customize them. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to expand the item …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete your widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no configurable options)
Preview Your Widgets
Depending on which theme you have installed on your site, 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 committing anything to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets inside your WordPress dashboard 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 before publishing it (to avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do a number of things to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and this will all be done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become visible on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving 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 your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through 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, the next step is to configure various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials on using Widgets.
Click on this link to read the rest of this tutorial:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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