As we discuss in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reorganize the layout of your site without requiring coding skills or knowledge.
WordPress allows you to easily add, delete, and rearrange various types of content from your site’s sidebar (and header and footer sections too, 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 like:
- index of pages
- categories
- archive
- custom page menus
- links to resources
- your most popular posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- clickable images
- testimonials
- poll results
- content from RSS feeds
- shopping cart forms
- product catalog images
- social media sharing buttons
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series you will learn how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using WordPress Widgets
The Basics
Before we start configuring and using widgets, it helps to first go over some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar section, header area, and footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be found inside the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widgetized areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated 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. become active and available for use on your site.
The Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder the order of your site’s widget-ready sections using drag and drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- A newsletter opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons 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)
If you were to peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site’s sidebar section in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the back-end widget area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar …
This immediately changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar, and the support banner (2) has been moved to the location above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Deleting widgets from the sidebar menu is really easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar navigation section …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete a widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from your sidebar menu. You can always restore widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access 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 display the widget’s settings …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to delete the 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 configuration options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizing options)
WP Theme Customizer
Depending upon the WordPress theme you use, you can also customize and manage widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything live to your website.
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 your widget content will appear before publishing changes (and avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(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 will bring you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do several modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After the changes are saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display your latest configuration to your site visitors.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how the site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to begin configuring a number of commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial series on using WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue reading:
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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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