As we have explained in this article, there are lots of great things about using the WordPress CMS platform for building and growing your web site. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, or rearrange the layout of your website without having programming skills and knowledge.
WordPress allows you to easily insert, delete, and reorganize various blocks of content in your site’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, 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 your theme) like:
- list of your web pages
- categories
- archived published posts
- menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- clickable text ads
- testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS content excerpts
- subscriber form
- image galleries
- social media buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Amazon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure various frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar area, header area, and footer. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also get added in the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the widgets screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active and available for use.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items from the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout with drag & drop ease.
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 WP plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your site)
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 area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar …
This immediately changes the order of items in your sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the support graphic button (2) is now placed above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Removing widgets from your sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove a widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from the sidebar menu. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to display the widget’s settings …
(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 customizable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizable options)
Previewing Your Widgets
Depending upon the theme you have installed, you can also customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
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 (to avoid making mistakes), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do many edits in preview mode (like adding, deleting 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 instantly become available on the site’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as the changes are saved, your new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Since the theme you choose tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete 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 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.
Click here to keep reading:
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