As discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress web publishing tool for building and managing your web site is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, and reorganize your site’s layout without having coding skills.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily add, delete, and rearrange various types of content on your website’s sidebar navigation section (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme is installed on the site) 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:
- pages on your website
- blog categories
- archives
- customized menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- recent comments from users
- advertising
- quotations
- surveys
- RSS feed items
- opt-in form
- images
- social media share buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Pinterest)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
What You Need To Know First
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar navigation section, header area, and the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be used below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become active.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout using drag and drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your WordPress site)
If you were to peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the active widget section …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar section …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the layout of your site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar menu, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar navigation area …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WP widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove a WP widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets offer additional settings that allow you to further customize your site features. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes 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, remove the 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 customizing options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customization)
Preview Widgets
Depending on the WP theme you use, 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 what you have done before making any permanent changes to your website.
Widget management 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 prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do many edits to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly updated and reflected to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After the changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since the theme you use affect how elements display 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 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, let’s start configuring a number of commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials.
Click here to access the rest of this tutorial series:
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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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