As we’ve explained in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage your website or blog is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your site with no web coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, delete, and manage various blocks of content in your website’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you are using) using widgets.
Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:
- list of pages
- post categories
- blog post archive
- menus
- links to resources
- most read posts
- comments
- advertising
- client testimonials
- surveys
- RSS feed items
- opt-in form
- image galleries
- Facebook feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, go here:
In this tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, it helps to first make sure that you understand some of the basic concepts of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also get added below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets area 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 using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become available for use on your site.
Your Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If you take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget section …
Let’s now rearrange the above widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar …
This immediately reorganizes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support graphic button (2) has been moved to the location above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your Sidebar Navigation Area
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar navigation area …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove your widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide additional options that allow you to further configure your site features. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access 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 toggles between expanding and collapsing 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 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 customization)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending upon which theme you are using, you can also customize your widgets without actually making 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 the 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 your widget content will appear before publishing changes (and avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets 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 will bring you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do many edits and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After the changes are saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display your new changes to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s start configuring various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial series.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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