As discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress web publishing tool for building, managing and growing a business online is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, or rearrange your site’s layout without web coding skills or knowledge required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, delete, and rearrange content from your website’s sidebar (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 like:
- website page list
- blog categories
- post archives
- menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- recent comments from users
- clickable ads
- quotations
- polls & surveys
- RSS content excerpts
- opt-in form
- product catalog images
- twitter feeds
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:
In this tutorial series you will learn how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
Using WordPress Widgets
The Basics
Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s first make sure that you understand some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be added below or above the content area …
(Many themes provide multiple widget-ready areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget screen called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets screen displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop)
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. immediately become active on your site.
In addition, your Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets using simple drag & drop in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the order of your site’s widget-enabled areas by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site appear)
If we look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget section …
If we change the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly reorganizes the order of items in the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve your site’s user 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 subscription form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve user experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Menu
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar navigation section …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(How to delete widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove your widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar area. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to site 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 display the settings for the widget …
(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 provide users with little to no customization)
Widget Previews
Depending upon which WP 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 are happy with your customizations before making any permanent changes to your website or blog.
Widget management 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 (to avoid making mistakes), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do a number of edits, modifications and adjustments to the widgets in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving changes, your site will automatically update the widget settings and display your latest configuration to your site visitors.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this tutorial.
Click here to continue:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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