As we discuss in this post, one of the many benefits of using the WordPress CMS platform is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, or rearrange the layout of your site without coding skills and knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily add, remove, and reconfigure content in your website’s sidebar (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you have installed) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- website page list
- categories
- blog post archive
- custom page menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- comments
- advertising
- client testimonials
- poll results
- RSS content
- customers login section
- image galleries
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, see this article:
In this tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s go over some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in the 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 appear below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your 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 site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout and order of your theme’s widget-enabled layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site’s sidebar menu in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets were arranged in the back-end widget area …
If we reorganize these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging and dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag & drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
This immediately reorganizes the order of items in the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar, and the support section (2) has been moved to the location above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar
Deleting widgets from the sidebar area is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove a WordPress widget)
Repeat this process for all 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 can include things like making certain types of information hidden to your 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 widget’s settings …
(Toggling expands/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 offer little to no configurable options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending upon the theme you choose, you’re also able to manage and customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before committing anything live to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets from your WP 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 changes (and avoid making mistakes), 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 the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do many edits, modifications and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become visible on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since 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 saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials about using WordPress widgets.
To continue, click this link:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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