As we explain in this article, there are loads of great things about choosing the WordPress CMS platform to manage and grow your business online. One of these is that you can easily add content, expand your website’s functionality, or reconfigure your site’s layout without requiring any coding skills.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, delete, and manage various types of content in your website’s sidebar (or 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 theme) like:
- page lists
- blog post categories
- archived blog post entries
- custom menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- user comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- surveys & polls
- content from RSS feeds
- newsletter subscription form
- videos
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress 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, see this article:
In this tutorial series we show you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
Widgets – The Basics
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s cover some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar area, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can also show up inside the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget-ready sections)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become activated for use on your site.
In addition, your Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets using simple drag & drop inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout by using drag-and-drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, 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 WordPress site)
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 reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to 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 ‘contact us’ banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove widgets)
Repeat this process for any 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 can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to 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 toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the settings for the 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 settings …
(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 customizable options)
WP Theme Customizer
Depending upon which theme you choose, you’re also able to customize widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like what you see before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
Widget management is a valuable 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 changes (and avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do several edits in preview mode (like adding, 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 applied and made visible on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, the new updates will automatically be added to your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete 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, the next step is to configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial about how to use Widgets.
To continue, click here:
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