As we have explained in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress to manage and grow your web presence is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site without web coding skills required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, delete, and manage various blocks of content on your blog’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections, depending on what theme you use) 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:
- nested list of your web pages
- blog post categories
- blog post archive
- customized menus
- links to external sites
- links to your recent posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- image banners
- customer testimonials
- surveys
- RSS feed content
- newsletter subscription form
- product catalog images
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Amazon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and why they make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets
The Basics
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can sometimes also be used below or above the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide multiple widget-ready areas)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Screen
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become activated for use on your site.
Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the layout of your widgetized 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 on your site like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)
If we 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 screen …
If we reorganize these widgets in the Active Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar …
This instantly changes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar navigation section, and the support section (2) has been moved to the spot above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar layout with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar is really easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar navigation section …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove your widget)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar section. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to your site visitors but visible 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 …
(Toggles expand/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 provide users with little to no customizing options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configuration options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending on which WordPress theme you use, you can also 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 to your website or blog.
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 the widget content will appear before publishing any changes (to avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer area in the backend.
You can do several edits to widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting 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 the changes will be instantly updated and made visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving the changes, the new updates will automatically be displayed on your site.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete 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, the next step is to begin configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series.
Click here to access Part Two:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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