As we discuss 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 redesign the layout of your site with no web coding skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily add, remove, and reconfigure various types of content from your site’s sidebar section (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 like:
- index of pages
- blog categories
- blog post archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- post comments
- advertisements
- testimonials
- survey results
- RSS feed items
- newsletter registration form
- video thumbnails
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress 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:
In this tutorial series we teach you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s first review some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also be added inside the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widget areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget management screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active.
In addition, the Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout using drag and drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things on your site like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for 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 display on your site)
Looking inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features display on the site in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the backend widget area …
Let’s now change the order these widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of these widgets around …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar area …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Section
Deleting widgets from your sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from your sidebar area. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to delete 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 configuration options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets give you little to no customization)
Previewing Widgets
Depending upon which theme you use, you’re also able to preview any changes live without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets inside your own dashboard is a great 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 it (and avoid making errors), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do a number of edits, modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and this will all be done in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly applied and made visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving the changes, the new settings will automatically be displayed on your site.
Since the WordPress theme you choose determines 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 saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial series on how to use WordPress widgets.
Click here to continue:
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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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