As we have explained in this article, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your website or blog is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, or change the layout of your site with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to easily add, remove, and rearrange content in your blog’s sidebar (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme is installed on your 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:
- index of pages
- post categories
- blog post archive
- menus
- links to resources
- your most popular posts
- comments
- clickable ad banners
- testimonials
- survey results
- content from RSS feeds
- shopping cart forms
- video thumbnails
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, go here:
In this tutorial we teach you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we begin configuring and using widgets, let’s first go over some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in your theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be added inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget sections)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
The right-hand section of the window displays your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & 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 immediately active and can be used for their purpose.
In addition, your Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets using drag and drop inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout using drag & drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site in the same order as they were arranged in the back-end widget area …
If we change the order these widgets in the Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar navigation section …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the support image button (2) has been moved to the spot above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar Section
Deleting widgets from the sidebar navigation area is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar navigation area …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access 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 settings for that widget …
(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 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 customizing options)
Widget Previews
Depending upon the theme you have installed on your site, you can also manage and customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything live to your site.
The ability to manage widgets inside your own dashboard 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 it (and avoid making errors), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do many things to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and moving widgets around), and everything is done 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 on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar area.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to see your site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
***
This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials.
To continue reading, click this link:
***
"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)
***