As we have explained in this article, one of the many great benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, or reconfigure the layout of your website with no web coding skills required.
WordPress allows you to easily insert, delete, and reorganize various types of content from your blog’s sidebar (or header and footer sections too, 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:
- page lists
- post categories
- archived content posts
- menus
- links to resources
- most read posts
- comments
- image banners
- client testimonials
- survey questions & results
- RSS feed content
- newsletter registration form
- video galleries
- social media buttons
- add widgets from external sites (e.g. Facebook friends)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s functionality, see this article:
In this tutorial we explain how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets
Widgets – Basic Concepts
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first review some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and the footer area. Depending on what theme you are using, widgets can sometimes also be used inside the content area …
(Many WP themes provide a number of widget sections)
These widget-ready sections correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration area called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
The Widgets Panel
The Widgets area displays a list of all the widgets that are available.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets with drag & drop ease)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. automatically become available for use on your site.
Your Widgets screen 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 & Drop
You can easily insert, activate, deactivate, reorder and delete widgets by dragging and dropping items inside your Widgets area …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag and drop)
You can also easily rearrange 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 show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support button, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin with an accompanying widget) …
(Widgets control how certain features on your site display)
If we could peek inside the Widget area, you would see that the front-end features display on the site’s sidebar section in exactly the same order as their corresponding widgets have been arranged in the back-end widget area …
If we change these widgets in the Main Sidebar Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the layout of the site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now first the sidebar, and the support banner (2) is placed above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …
(Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar Menu
Removing widgets from the sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar section …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(How to delete your widget)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(How to remove WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar. You can always reactivate a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be further customized. This includes making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.
Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to expand the item …
(Toggle to expand/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, 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 offer little to no customization)
Previewing Widgets
Depending on the theme you have installed, you can also manage widgets without making actual changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before committing anything to your website or blog.
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 any changes (to avoid making mistakes), or configure widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live 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 will bring you to the Customizer feature in the back-end.
You can do lots of edits to your widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become available to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving your changes, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.
Since the theme you use can affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install your theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through 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, the next step is to learn how to configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial on using Widgets.
Click here to keep reading:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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