As we’ve discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your website with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and control various types of content in your site’s sidebar (or 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 the WordPress theme you have installed) like:
- nested list of your web pages
- post categories
- blog post archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to recent posts
- recent comments
- text ads
- quotations
- survey questions & results
- content from RSS feeds
- opt-in form
- product images
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how widgets work and how using widgets can help you expand the functionality of your website, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we explain how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using WordPress Widgets
The Basics
Before we show you how to configure widgets, it helps to first make sure that you understand some of the basic concepts of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready sections in the theme’s layout where widgets can appear, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also be added below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widget sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated 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. automatically become activated for use on your site.
In addition, the Widgets area includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets using simple drag and drop in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange the order and layout of your theme’s widget-ready layout with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A contact support button, and
- A ‘click to call’ function from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your WordPress site)
If we take a peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site’s sidebar area in exactly the same order as they were arranged in the active widget area …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of your sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help 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, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) is now located above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar layout using widgets to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from your sidebar. You can always restore widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, delete your widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(Widget settings)
Some widgets give you little to no customizable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no configurable options)
Theme Customizer
Depending on which WordPress 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 your customizations before committing anything to your website.
The ability to manage widgets from within your WP 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 any changes you’ve made (to avoid making mistakes), or configure 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 …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the back-end.
You can do several things to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), 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 – configure widgets on the fly!)
After saving the changes, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display the new changes to your site visitors.
Since the theme you choose affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save 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 sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials about how to use WordPress widgets.
To continue reading, click here:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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