As we discuss 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, enhance your site’s functionality, and redesign the layout of your site without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily add, remove, and reorganize content from your site’s sidebar menu (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you use) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- website page list
- post categories
- archive
- custom page menus
- links to resources
- links to recent posts
- recent comments
- clickable text ads
- testimonials
- surveys & polls
- content from RSS feeds
- subscription form
- product images
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets 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, go here:
In this tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using WordPress Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also appear below or above the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users multiple widget areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order and layout of your website’s widgetized layout by dragging & dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your WordPress site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site’s sidebar section in exactly the same order as they were arranged in the active widget section …
Let’s now rearrange the order of the above widgets in the Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar menu, and the support section (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar Navigation Section
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar area is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar section …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing a WordPress widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for that widget …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customization)
WP Theme Customizer
Depending upon which WordPress theme you are using, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes 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 prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live 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 will bring you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do plenty of edits and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and everything is done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will then be instantly applied and reflected on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After your changes have been saved, your new updates will automatically be displayed on your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s start configuring a number of frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial series on using Widgets.
Click on this link to view Part Two:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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