As we discuss in this post, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, enhance your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site without web coding knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to easily insert, remove, and reorganize content in your site’s sidebar navigation menu (and header and footer sections too, depending on what theme is installed on your site) 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:
- pages on your site
- site categories
- archived blog post entries
- custom menus
- links to resources
- posts that you want to promote
- recent comments
- advertisements
- customer testimonials
- surveys
- content from RSS feeds
- registration box
- video
- social media share buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. StumbleUpon)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WP widgets are, how they work and why widgets make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this step-by-step tutorial you are going to learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using WordPress Widgets
Widgets – The Basics
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, it helps to first explain some of the basics about how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Layouts
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can also appear in the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide a number of widget sections)
These widgetized sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Screen
The Widgets area displays all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the window displays 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 panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become active.
The Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to use on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize Widgets Using Drag & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets with drag and drop in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily reorder the order of your theme’s widget-enabled areas by dragging and dropping widgets.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- A subscription form,
- A click for 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 on your site appear)
If we take a look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget section …
If we change these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag & drop …
(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar area …
This instantly changes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help improve your site’s user 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’ graphic button (2) is now located above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements using widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your Sidebar Area
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s delete the Search widget from your sidebar …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove an active widget, you can either expand the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want removed from the sidebar area. You can always reinstate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized further. This includes making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Clicking on the little triangle in the corner of a widget expands the item and displays 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 your 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 offer little to no customizable options)
Widget Previews
Depending on which WordPress theme you use, you’re also able to customize and manage your widgets without making actual 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 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 before publishing changes (to avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the frontend, just click on the Customize link …
(Toolbar Customize Link)
This brings you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do many edits and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and moving widgets around), and everything is done in real time. If you are happy with the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will instantly become available on the blog’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving your changes, your new settings will automatically be added to your site.
Since the WordPress theme you use tend to 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 your changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you complete this tutorial (one to work in and one to check how your site is coming along).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this series of tutorials.
Click here to continue reading:
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