As we explain in this article, there are many great things about using the WordPress web publishing tool to build and manage a website. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, and reconfigure your site’s layout without having web programming skills.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and control content from your website’s sidebar section (and header and footer sections too, depending on your theme) 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:
- website page list
- categories
- archived published posts
- menus
- links to external sites
- links to your recent posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- image banners
- client testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS feed items
- subscriber form
- image galleries
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial you will learn how to use and configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before we begin configuring and using widgets, let’s cover some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in your theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also be added in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide a number of widgetized areas)
These widgetized layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately activated for use.
In addition, your Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the order and layout of your widgetized sections by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- A subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)
Looking 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 were arranged in the back-end widget section …
Let’s now change the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging and dropping some things around …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This immediately reorganizes the order of items in your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements using widgets can improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar section, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) is now found above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Removing widgets from your sidebar section is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar navigation section …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets offer additional options that allow you to further configure them. This can include things like 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 widget’s settings …
(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 an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customization)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending on the theme you have installed on your site, you can also preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before making any permanent changes to your site.
The ability to manage widgets from within the 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 it (to avoid making errors), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do lots of 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 what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After your changes are saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This saves 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 section one of this series of tutorials on using Widgets.
Click on this link to view the rest of this tutorial:
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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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