As we’ve explained in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, or reorganize the layout of your site with no web coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and reconfigure various types of content from your website’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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on the WordPress theme you have installed) like:
- site pages
- site categories
- archives
- menus that display only selected pages
- links to resources
- your most read posts
- user comments
- clickable images
- quotations
- polls & surveys
- content from RSS feeds
- shopping cart information
- video galleries
- Facebook feeds
- display widgets from external 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 capabilities, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we teach you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets In WordPress
What You Need To Know First
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar navigation section, header area, and footer. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also be used below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that can be used on your site.
The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag and drop ease)
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.
In addition, your Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order and layout of your website’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 contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site’s sidebar menu in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the backend widget area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now at the top of the sidebar navigation menu, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Section
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your WordPress widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from your sidebar area. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete your 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 configuration options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending on the WordPress theme you use, you’re also able to 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.
The ability to manage widgets from 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 your widget content will appear prior to publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do many edits, modifications and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and it will all be done in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will then be instantly applied and made visible on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display your new changes to your site visitors.
Because the theme you use determines how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all 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 configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series about using WordPress widgets.
Click here to view the rest of this tutorial series:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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