As we have discussed in this article, there are so many great things about using the WordPress CMS platform to build and grow your web site. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your site, or rearrange the layout of your site without requiring any web coding skills and knowledge.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, delete, and manage various types of content in your blog’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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on the theme) like:
- website page list
- content categories
- archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- post comments
- clickable ads
- testimonials
- survey questions & results
- content from RSS feeds
- subscription form
- product images
- social media buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, see this article:
In this tutorial we will show you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we show you how to configure widgets, it helps to first cover some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also be found inside the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widget-ready areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different areas of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active and available for use on your site.
The Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily rearrange the layout of your website’s widgetized sections by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
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 screen …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar navigation area …
This instantly changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can 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 menu, and the support banner (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar Area
Removing widgets from your sidebar navigation section is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from the sidebar navigation menu …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove a widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets provide a number of settings that allow you to further customize them. This includes hiding information from users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, 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 …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, remove your 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 offer little to no configuration options)
Theme Customizer
Depending on which WP theme you use, 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 what you see before committing anything to your website or blog.
Widget management is a valuable 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 changes (and avoid making errors), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)
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 brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do plenty of edits, modifications and adjustments to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and everything is done in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display the latest configuration to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation menu.
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 (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, it’s time to learn how to configure a number of frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial series.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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