As we discuss in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site with no web coding skills required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, delete, and reorganize content on your website’s sidebar (and header and footer sections, 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 your theme) like:
- website page list
- post categories
- archive
- custom page menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- image banners
- customer testimonials
- poll results
- RSS content
- registration box
- image galleries
- Facebook feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, go here:
In this tutorial series we teach you how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also appear below or above the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget-enabled areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets you have available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop)
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. automatically become active and can be used for their purpose.
Your Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets with drag and drop in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your WordPress site)
Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site’s sidebar area in the same order as they were arranged in the backend widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar navigation area …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar section, and the ‘contact us’ image button (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your Sidebar
Removing widgets from your sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WordPress widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove 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. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to expand the item …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to 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 an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no configurable options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending upon the theme you choose, you can also preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before committing anything live to your site.
The ability to manage widgets inside the dashboard is a great 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 any changes you’ve made (to 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 the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do many modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done 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 reflected on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved the changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display your new changes to your site visitors.
Because the theme you use can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar section.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your 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 learn how to begin configuring various frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial on how to use Widgets.
Click on this link to continue:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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