As we explain in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and change the layout of your website without web coding knowledge required.

WordPress lets you quickly and easily add, remove, and reorganize various types of content from your website’s sidebar navigation menu (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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on your theme) like:

• website page list
• post categories
• archives
• menus that display only the pages you select
• links to external sites
• your most read posts
• comments
• clickable ad banners
• quotations
• survey results
• content from RSS feeds
• registration box
• video
• twitter feeds
• add widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)

To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, see this article:

• Using WordPress: All You Need To Know About WP Widgets

In this tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.

Using WordPress Widgets

Widgets – Basic Concepts

Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s go over some of the basics about using 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 the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be added in the content area …

(Many WP themes offer users multiple widget-ready sections)

These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …

(Widget Areas)

Your Widgets Panel

The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.

The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …

(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop)

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. become activated for use on your site.

In addition, the Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.

Reorganize WordPress Widgets With Drag And Drop

You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …

(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)

You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your theme’s widget-ready layout using drag and drop.

For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:

1. An opt-in form,
2. A contact support button, and
3. A ‘click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …

(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)

Inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site in the same order as they were arranged in the backend widget section …

If we reorganize the above widgets in the Widget Area using drag and drop …

(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)

The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar navigation section …

As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in the sidebar.

Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor 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) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …

(Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience)

Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar

Deleting widgets from your sidebar is very easy.

For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar menu …

(Search widget)

To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …

(How to delete widgets)

Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …

(How to remove your WP widget)

Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Many widgets can be customized. 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.

Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …

(Toggles 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 provide users with little to no configurable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …

(Some widgets provide users with little to no customization)

Theme Customizer

Depending on the WP theme you choose, you can also preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.

Widget management 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 before publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making errors), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.

(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)

Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …

(Customize link in the toolbar)

This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.

You can do many modifications and adjustments to the widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and it’s all done in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly updated and reflected on your site.

(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)

Once you have saved your 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 the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar section.

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 (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, it’s time to learn how to configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.

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This is the end of part one of this tutorial on using WordPress widgets.

Click here to read the rest of this tutorial series:

• How To Add Widgets To The Sidebar – Part Two

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