As we’ve explained in this article, there are many great benefits in using the WordPress CMS platform for building and managing your website. One of these is that you can easily add content, expand your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site with no code editing skills and knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, delete, and reorganize content on your blog’s sidebar navigation section (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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on the theme you have installed) like:
- page lists
- post categories
- archive
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to your recent posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to your posts
- advertising
- quotations
- polls & surveys
- RSS content excerpts
- shopping cart forms
- video thumbnails
- Facebook feeds
- display 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 widgets work and why they make managing your site easier, go here:
In this tutorial series you will learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets In WordPress
What You Need To Know First
Before we show you how to configure widgets, it helps to first go over some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widgetized areas in the theme’s layout where widgets can be added to, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also be found inside the content area …
(Many WP themes offer users a number of widgetized areas)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that can be used 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 activated or deactivated by dragging-and-dropping items to different sections of the widgets screen.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and available for use.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete things using widgets using drag & drop inside the Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your widget-ready areas with drag & drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features appear on your WordPress site)
Looking inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features appear on the site in the same order as they have been arranged in the backend widget area …
Let’s now change the order these widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging & dropping some of these widgets around …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar navigation section …
This immediately changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar area, and the support graphic button (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Blog Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete your WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(How to remove your widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar area. You can always reinstate widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be further 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.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to expand the item …
(Toggles expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to delete the widget from the “Active Widgets” section, close the widget, or click on the triangle to collapse the widget settings …
(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 configuration options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on the WordPress theme you have installed, you’re also able to preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before committing anything to your website.
The ability to manage widgets inside the 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 prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (to avoid making mistakes), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
When viewing your site on the front-end just calick the Customize link in the toolbar …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the backend.
You can do many modifications and adjustments to widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and it will all be done in real time. If you are happy with what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once your changes are saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Because WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend that you install your 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 go through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to begin configuring a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part one of this series of tutorials.
To keep reading, 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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