As we have explained in this article, there are lots of benefits in using the WordPress web publishing tool for building and growing your web site. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, and reconfigure the site’s layout with no programming skills required.
WordPress allows you to easily insert, delete, and reorganize content in your website’s sidebar (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 your theme) like:
- nested page lists
- content categories
- archived blog post entries
- custom menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- post comments
- clickable text ads
- quotations
- survey questions & results
- RSS content excerpts
- newsletter registration form
- videos
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:
In this tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets
The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s first go over some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widgetized sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation area, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can also get added below or above the content area …
(Many themes provide multiple widget sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become active.
Your Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items in your Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order of your site’s widget-enabled areas with drag and drop ease.
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 button, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)
If you were to peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the backend widget area …
If we reorganize these widgets in the Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar area …
As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) is placed above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can help improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The Sidebar Navigation Menu
Removing widgets from the sidebar navigation area is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove a WP widget)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered 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 expands the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggling expands/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 …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets offer 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)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending upon the WordPress theme you are using, 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 committing anything to your website.
Widget management 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 prior to publishing any changes (to avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do many things in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and everything is done in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly applied and made visible on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once the changes have been saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the latest configuration to your site visitors.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature 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 begin configuring a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial series on using WordPress widgets.
To view Part Two, click here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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