As we’ve explained in this article, there are lots of benefits in using WordPress for building, managing and growing a website or blog. One of these is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, or rearrange your site’s layout without coding skills or knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, remove, and control content in your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, depending on your theme) 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 theme) like:
- site pages
- categories
- archives
- menus
- links to resources
- links to recent posts
- post comments
- advertising banners
- client testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS feed items
- opt-in form
- product images
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what 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 we explain how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using WordPress Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before we begin configuring and using widgets, let’s go over some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar menu, header area, and footer. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also get added in the content area …
(Many themes provide multiple widget sections)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the widgets screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
In addition, the Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder the layout of your widget-ready layout by using drag-and-drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support button, 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 display on your WordPress site)
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 area …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly changes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using 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 navigation section, and the support section (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar Area
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete a WordPress widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar navigation section. You can always reactivate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets give you little to no customizable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no customizing options)
Widget Previews
Depending on which theme you choose, you’re also able to preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything live to your website.
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 change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
Wherever you are on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do a number of edits in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and this will all be done in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly updated and made visible on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving your changes, the new updates will automatically show on your site.
Because the WordPress theme you choose determines how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview your 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 the site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to configure various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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