As we’ve discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of using the WordPress CMS platform is that you can easily add content, enhance your site, or reconfigure the site’s layout with no code editing skills or knowledge required.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, remove, and control various blocks of content on your site’s sidebar section (and header and footer sections, 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 like:
- index of pages
- blog categories
- archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to resources
- links to recent posts
- comments
- text ads
- client testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS content
- subscriber form
- video thumbnails
- social media share buttons
- add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets can make managing your site easier, see this article:
In this tutorial we are going to show you how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.
Using Widgets
The Basics
Before configuring and using widgets, let’s make sure that you understand some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where widgets can be used, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and the footer area. Depending on the theme, widgets can sometimes also display in the content area …
(Many themes provide a number of widget sections)
These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets that you currently have available.
The right-hand section of the screen displays your “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag-and-drop)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag & drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become activated for use on your site.
The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want actively displayed on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their pre-configured settings.
Reorganize Widgets With Drag And Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete things using widgets by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-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 subscription form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
Looking inside the Widget area, you would see that the front end features appear on the site’s sidebar menu in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the backend widget section …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag-and-drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widgets have now been reorganized in the sidebar …
As you can see, this immediately changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience)
Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar Navigation Section
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar navigation area is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from your sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your WP widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing your widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always reactivate 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 (but allowing access 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 toggles between expanding and collapsing the item and displays the widget’s settings …
(Toggling expands/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 give you little to no customization)
Preview Widgets
Depending upon the WP theme you choose, you can also 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 website or blog.
The ability to manage widgets inside your own 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 before publishing it (to avoid making mistakes), or change your 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 your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do plenty of things to widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you are happy with what you have done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible on your site.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as your changes are saved, WordPress will automatically update the widget settings and display your new configuration to your site visitors.
Because the WordPress theme you use affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing your theme first before configuring widgets.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This saves you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial (one to work in and one to see the site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to begin configuring a number of frequently-used sidebar widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this series of tutorials on how to use Widgets.
Click on this link to view Part Two:
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"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
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