As discussed in this post, there are lots of great benefits in choosing the WordPress CMS platform for managing and growing your website. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your website, and reconfigure the layout of your site with no code editing skills required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, delete, and rearrange various blocks of content in your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you are using) 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) like:
- site pages
- site categories
- blog post archive
- custom menus
- links to resources
- your most popular posts
- user comments
- advertising banners
- quotations
- surveys & polls
- RSS feed content
- subscription form
- video
- twitter feeds
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial we teach you how to use and configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use WordPress Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s go over some of the basic concepts about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most 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 footer sections. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also appear below or above the content area …
(Many themes offer users multiple widgetized sections)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays all the widgets you have available.
On the right-hand side of the window, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging and dropping)
Available widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. immediately become active.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets With Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets using drag & drop in your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag and drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your website’s widget-ready areas using drag-and-drop.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A click for support button, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your site)
If we were to peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the back-end widget section …
If we change the order the above widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar navigation menu …
As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in the sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with 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 support banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From The Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar navigation area …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Remove your WP widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from the sidebar. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be customized. This can include things like hiding information from 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 display the settings for the widget …
(Toggle to expand/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 an optional title …
(Some widgets provide users with little to no configuration options)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending upon the theme you are using, you’re also able to customize your widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like the customized edits before making any permanent changes to your site.
Widget management 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 errors), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(preview widget changes in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do many edits and adjustments to your 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 on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
Once you have saved your changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since the WordPress theme you use can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to begin configuring a number of commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial series.
Click here to access the rest of this tutorial series:
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
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