As we explain in this article, one of the many benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your web presence is that you can easily add content, enhance your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your site without web coding knowledge required.

WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, remove, and reconfigure various blocks of content from your blog’s sidebar (and header and footer sections, 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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on your theme) like:

• site pages
• site categories
• archive
• customized menus
• links to resources
• posts that you want to promote
• post comments
• advertising banners
• testimonials
• survey questions & results
• content from RSS feeds
• opt-in subscription form
• product images
• social media buttons
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)

To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, see this article:

• Using WordPress: All You Need To Know About WP Widgets

In this tutorial we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.

Using Widgets

The Basics

Before we begin configuring and using widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:

Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts

Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in your theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also show up below or above the content area …

(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widget-enabled areas)

These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …

(Widget Areas)

Widgets Panel

The Widgets screen displays all the widgets that you currently have available.

The right-hand section of the window displays the “active” widgets …

(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag and drop)

Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. become active and can be used for their purpose.

The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets retain their settings.

Reorganize WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop

You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets area …

(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag & drop)

You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout by using drag-and-drop.

For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:

1. A subscription form,
2. A click for support banner, and
3. ’Click to call’ feature 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 we look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the active widget screen …

If we reorganize these 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 menu …

This instantly changes the layout of your 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’ function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar menu, and the support image banner (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …

(Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)

Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar

Removing widgets from the sidebar area is very easy.

For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from the sidebar …

(Search widget)

To remove an active widget, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …

(Deleting your WordPress widgets)

Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …

(How to remove widgets)

Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Most widgets offer additional options that allow you to further configure things. 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.

Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the settings for that widget …

(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 …

(Widget settings)

Some widgets may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …

(Some widgets give you little to no customizable options)

Customize Widgets Section

Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, you’re also able to preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything live to your website or blog.

The ability to manage widgets from within your WordPress 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 changes (and avoid making mistakes), or change your 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 link in the toolbar)

This brings you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.

You can do several edits and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly applied and made visible to your site visitors.

(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)

After saving changes, the new updates will automatically show on your site.

Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently 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 saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.

Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.

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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials on using Widgets.

To continue reading, click this link:

• How To Add Widgets To The WordPress Blog Sidebar – Part Two

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