As we have explained in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reorganize the layout of your website without having programming skills or knowledge.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily add, remove, and reconfigure various blocks of content on your site’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you have installed) 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:
- list of pages
- site categories
- blog post archive
- customized menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- comments
- clickable text ads
- quotations
- surveys & polls
- RSS feed items
- customers login section
- video thumbnails
- Facebook feeds
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and why widgets make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial we teach you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use WordPress 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 Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar navigation area, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can also show up in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users a number of widget-enabled sections)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become available for use on your site.
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 pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets With Drag And Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets by dragging and dropping items from your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout by dragging & dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
If we take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site’s sidebar menu in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the active widget section …
Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar navigation section …
As you can see, this immediately changes the layout of the sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar section, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar Navigation Section
Deleting widgets from your sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar navigation menu. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to your site visitors but visible 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 …
(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 may require or offer no customization, or they may only allow you to add something like an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no customizable options)
Previewing Widgets
Depending upon the WordPress theme you have installed on your site, 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 dashboard 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 before publishing any changes (to avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets 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 brings you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do several things to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and everything is done in real time. If you like what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving the changes, the new updates will automatically be displayed on your site.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure various frequently-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial series on using Widgets.
To continue reading, click this link:
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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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