As we’ve explained in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and change the layout of your site with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and rearrange various blocks of content in your blog’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections too, 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 pages
- categories
- blog post archive
- menus
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- user comments
- clickable ads
- customer testimonials
- survey questions & results
- content from RSS feeds
- opt-in form
- images
- social media share buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, go here:
In this tutorial series we teach you how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can be added, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can sometimes also display in the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget-ready sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets screen displays all the widgets that can be used on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active on your site.
The Widgets screen 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 Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets with drag & drop in the Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily rearrange your theme’s layout by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A click for support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features display on your site)
If you look inside this site’s Widget area, you will see that these features display on the site in the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the active widget area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area by dragging & dropping some things around …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in your sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar section, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar menu is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either open up the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your WordPress widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from the sidebar section. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to your site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to expand the item …
(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 give you little to no customization, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configurable options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending upon the 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 the customized edits before committing anything to your site.
The ability to manage widgets from the WordPress 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 prior to publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This will bring you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do several things in preview mode (like inserting, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes 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 your changes, your new configuration will automatically be added to your site.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently 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 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, let’s configure various commonly-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this series of tutorials about using Widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial series, click this link:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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