As discussed in this article, there are loads of great benefits in choosing WordPress for managing and growing your website or blog. One of these is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your website’s functionality, and reconfigure the site’s layout without coding skills required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily add, delete, and rearrange various types of content in your website’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme is installed on your site) 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 you have installed) like:
- index of pages
- blog post categories
- archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- comments
- clickable text ads
- testimonials
- surveys
- RSS feed items
- shopping cart forms
- image galleries
- social media buttons
- display widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial series we show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets
The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, it helps to first review some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide areas in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also display below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget areas)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping items to different sections of the screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active.
The Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout with drag and drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)
If you look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget screen …
If we rearrange the order of the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar …
This immediately reorganizes the layout of your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) is now located above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve user experience)
Deleting Widgets From The Sidebar
Removing widgets from your sidebar navigation section is really easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from the sidebar navigation area …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove your WordPress widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from your sidebar menu. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing 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 may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customizing options)
WordPress Theme Customizer
Depending upon which WordPress theme you are using, you’re also able to manage your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes 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 prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (to avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer area in the back-end.
You can do plenty of things 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 your changes will be instantly applied and reflected on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
Once you have saved the changes, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the new changes to your site visitors.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer 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 the site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to start configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial about how to use WordPress widgets.
Click on this link to continue reading:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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