As we’ve explained in this post, there are lots of benefits in choosing the WordPress web publishing software to build, manage and grow a website. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, and reconfigure the site’s layout without requiring any code editing skills or knowledge.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, remove, and reconfigure various types of content on your site’s sidebar area (and header and footer sections, 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:
- index of pages
- categories
- blog post archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- image banners
- testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS content excerpts
- shopping cart forms
- image galleries
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why they make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you are going to learn how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s review some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in your theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar section, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also display below or above the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget-enabled areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “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 areas of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become available for use.
In addition, the Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag & drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout and order of your site’s widgetized layout with drag & 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
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)
If you could peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site’s sidebar section in the same order as they were arranged in the backend widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of these elements around …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the support graphic button (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar area is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar section …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your WordPress widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reactivate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying dimensions 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 …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, 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 provide users with little to no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customization)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on the theme you use, 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.
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 before publishing any changes (to avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do a number of edits and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
Once you have saved the changes, the new updates will automatically be displayed on your site.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how the site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to start configuring a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
***
This is the end of section one of this tutorial on using Widgets.
To continue, click this link:
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***