As discussed in this article, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress web publishing tool to build and manage your business online is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, expand your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your website without coding skills or knowledge required.
WordPress allows you to easily insert, delete, and manage content from your website’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 like:
- nested list of your web pages
- site categories
- archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to external sites
- posts that you want to promote
- comments
- image banners
- testimonials
- survey results
- RSS feed items
- shopping cart information
- image galleries
- social media buttons
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial series you are going to learn how to use and configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
Basic Concepts
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s cover some of the basics of using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation area, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can also be found in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users a number of widget-ready areas)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets you can use on your site.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag and drop ease)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like the sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become activated for use on your site.
In addition, the Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop
You can easily add functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets using simple drag & drop in your Widgets section …
(Rearrange widgets using drag & drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout using drag-and-drop.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to display the following to visitors:
- A newsletter subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- A ‘click to call’ section 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 were to 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 have been arranged in the back-end widget section …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag and drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reorganized in your sidebar navigation section …
This immediately changes the order of items in your site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar elements with widgets can improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support banner (2) now sits above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar layout with widgets can improve your site’s visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Delete WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your widget)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want to remove from your sidebar. You can always reactivate widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, click Delete to remove 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 configurable options)
Widget Previews
Depending on which WordPress theme you are using, 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 your customizations before making any permanent changes to your site.
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 the widget content will appear prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (to avoid making errors), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do several edits and adjustments to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – configure widgets on the fly!)
Once you have saved your changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since WordPress Themes can display elements differently on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation area.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview your changes. This saves 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 begin configuring a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click here:
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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