As we’ve discussed in this article, there are loads of benefits in using the WordPress CMS platform for building, managing and growing your digital presence. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, or reconfigure the layout of your website with no programming skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily add, delete, and reconfigure various blocks of content from your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you are using) 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:
- page lists
- content categories
- archived blog posts
- menus
- links to external sites
- links to your recent posts
- comments
- clickable text ads
- customer testimonials
- surveys & polls
- RSS feed items
- shopping cart forms
- image galleries
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Amazon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial series we will show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before we explain how to configure widgets, let’s first make sure that you understand some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can also appear in the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the window displays your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active on your site.
The Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag And Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your website’s widget-enabled layout using drag & drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
If we 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 screen …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar area, and the support graphic banner (2) is located above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar layout with widgets to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar Menu
Removing widgets from the sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from the sidebar navigation menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from your sidebar section. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. 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 information, 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 settings for that widget …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, remove the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customizing options)
Preview Your Widgets
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 are happy with what you have done before committing anything live to your site.
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 your widget content will appear prior to publishing it (to avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do lots of edits and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will then be instantly applied and reflected on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, the new settings will automatically show on your site.
Since the theme you use affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
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, the next step is to configure various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial about using Widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click here:
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