As discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your website or blog is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and redesign the layout of your website without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and manage content in your website’s sidebar section (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you are using) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- pages on your website
- site categories
- archive
- menus that display only selected pages
- links to external sites
- most popular posts
- post comments
- text ads
- customer testimonials
- polls & surveys
- content from RSS feeds
- subscription form
- image galleries
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(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, see this article:
In this tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s go over some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also get added inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget sections)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets you have available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become available for use.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)
If we took a look inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the back-end widget area …
Let’s now rearrange the order of the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar area …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar navigation menu, and the support graphic banner (2) has been moved to the location above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar
Removing widgets from your sidebar navigation menu is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar area …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always restore widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets provide a number of options that allow you to further configure your site features. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the settings for the widget …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to remove your 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 provide users with little to no customizing options)
Previewing Your Widgets
Depending on which theme you choose, you’re also able to customize widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from within your own 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 prior to publishing changes (and avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer area in the backend.
You can do several modifications and adjustments to the widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will then be instantly applied and reflected on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as the changes have been saved, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display the new changes to your site visitors.
Since the WordPress theme you choose determines how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to start configuring a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials about using Widgets.
To view Part 2, click here:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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