As discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing WordPress is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, and reorganize the layout of your site with no programming skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, remove, and manage content in your blog’s sidebar navigation menu (or 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 the WordPress theme you have installed) like:
- page lists
- blog post categories
- blog post archive
- custom menus
- links to resources
- your most read posts
- recent comments
- advertising banners
- customer testimonials
- poll results
- content from RSS feeds
- member login section
- videos
- Facebook feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Amazon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(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 your site’s functionality, go here:
In this tutorial series we explain how to use and configure a number of commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use Widgets
Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first go over some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar area, header area, and the footer area. Depending on your theme, widgets can also be used in the content area …
(Many themes provide multiple widget-ready sections)
These widgetized layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and available for use.
Your Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag And Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout using drag-and-drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If you take a look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget section …
Let’s now change these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of the widgets around …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This immediately reorganizes the layout of your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ graphic banner (2) now sits above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Removing widgets from your WordPress sidebar menu is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. This includes hiding information from 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 expand the item …
(Toggle to 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 …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets offer little to no customizing options, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customization)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending on the WP theme you have installed on your site, you’re also able to customize and manage widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything to your site.
The ability to manage widgets inside your WP dashboard 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 configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer area in the back-end.
You can do several things in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and it’s all done in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After your changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because the WordPress theme you use can affect 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 work 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, let’s configure various frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial.
To view Part 2, click this link:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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