As we have discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, improve your site’s functionality, and redesign the layout of your website with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress lets you quickly and easily insert, remove, and reconfigure content in your website’s sidebar navigation area (or header and footer sections too, depending on what theme you use) 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:
- website page list
- site categories
- post archives
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to external sites
- most popular posts
- comments
- advertisements
- client testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS content
- shopping cart forms
- image galleries
- twitter feeds
- display 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 WordPress widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you are going to learn how to use and configure a number of frequently-used WordPress widgets.
How To Use Widgets In WordPress
The Basics
Before we begin configuring and using widgets, let’s explain some of the basic concepts about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide built-in widget-ready areas in your theme’s layout where you can use widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer. Depending on the theme, widgets can also get added inside the content area …
(Many WordPress themes provide a number of widget areas)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside your Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets panel displays a list of all the widgets that can be used on your site.
On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated using drag and drop)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. instantly become active and can be used to perform their function on your site.
In addition, your Widgets screen 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 settings.
Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, or activate, deactivate, rearrange and delete widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout of your theme’s widgetized areas with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display things like:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized WordPress plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control the order certain features on your site appear)
If you look inside the example site’s Widget area, you will see that these features correspond to the order of widgets inside the active widget area …
If we reorganize the above widgets in the Widget Area using drag-and-drop …
(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)
The widgets have now been reordered in the sidebar navigation area …
As you can see, this immediately reorganizes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Reorganizing sidebar layout with widgets can help to improve your site’s visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ graphic banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Rearrange sidebar layout using widgets to improve visitor experience)
Removing Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar
Deleting widgets from your WordPress sidebar is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from your sidebar section …
(WordPress Search widget)
To remove a widget from an active Widget area, you can either expand the widget and click the Delete link …
(Deleting widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets section …
(Removing a WordPress widget)
Repeat this process for all widgets you want to remove from your sidebar navigation section. You can always restore widgets by dragging them 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 toggle between expanding and collapsing the item …
(Toggles 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 an optional title …
(Some widgets offer little to no configuration options)
Customize Widgets Section
Depending on which WP 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 are happy with your customizations before committing anything to your website or blog.
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 your widget content will appear prior to publishing any changes (to avoid making mistakes), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(preview widget changes live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This will bring you to the Customizer screen in the backend.
You can do a number of edits and adjustments to the widgets in preview mode (like adding, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will instantly become visible to your site visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
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 that you install the theme first before configuring widgets on your sidebar navigation menu.
Also, remember to use the WordPress Customizer to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you work through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to configure a number of commonly-used WordPress widgets.
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This is the end of section 1 of this series of tutorials on using Widgets.
To continue, click this link:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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