As we explain in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress to manage your website or blog is that you can easily add content, enhance your site’s functionality, or redesign the layout of your site without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and reconfigure content from your website’s sidebar navigation menu (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you use) 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:
- website page list
- categories
- archive
- custom menus
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- user comments
- text ads
- quotations
- poll results
- RSS content
- newsletter subscription form
- images
- social media share buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, see this article:
In this tutorial you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s cover some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar section, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can also appear inside the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget sections)
These widgetized layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag and drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets using drag and drop inside your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout and order of your website’s widget-enabled sections with drag and drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget section …
If we reorganize these widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar navigation menu …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar menu, and the support graphic banner (2) is located above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Navigation Area
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete a widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar section. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide additional settings that allow you to further customize your site features. 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to delete your widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(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 Your Widgets
Depending upon the theme you have installed, you’re also able to manage and customize widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with what you have done before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from your own 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 the widget content will appear before publishing it (and avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do several edits in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done in real time. If you like the results, 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 your changes, the new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the 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 complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to start configuring a number of frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series about using Widgets.
To continue, 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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