As we’ve discussed in this post, there are loads of benefits in choosing the WordPress CMS platform for building and managing a website or blog. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your site, or reconfigure the layout of your website without requiring any code editing skills or knowledge.
WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, remove, and reorganize various blocks of content from your site’s sidebar navigation menu (and header and footer sections, depending on your theme) 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 your theme) like:
- nested list of your web pages
- post categories
- archived posts
- customized menus
- links to resources
- most read posts
- excerpts of recent comments added to posts
- advertising banners
- testimonials
- polls & surveys
- RSS content
- subscription form
- video galleries
- social media sharing buttons
- display widgets from external sites (e.g. Twitter)
- administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)
(WP widgets make managing and using WordPress easier)
To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and why they make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial series we are going to show you how to use and configure a number of frequently-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we get into configuring and using widgets, let’s first review some of the basics of how to use widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Areas
Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide sections in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar navigation menu, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme installed on your site, widgets can also show up in the content area …
(Many themes offer users a number of widget areas)
These widget-ready areas correspond to a feature inside the Widget administration panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Widgets Panel
The Widgets area 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 the “active” widgets …
(Widgets can be activated or deactivated by dragging & dropping)
Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive by dragging-and-dropping items to different areas of the widgets panel.
Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become available for use.
Your Widgets area also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.
Rearrange Widgets With Drag & Drop
You can easily add new functionality to your site, and activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove things using widgets by dragging and dropping items in the Widgets section …
(Rearrange your site’s widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reconfigure the layout and order of your widget-enabled areas by with drag & drop ease.
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:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized WP plugin (i.e. a plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how 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 area in the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget section …
Let’s now reorganize the above widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping items …
(Drag and drop to rearrange widgets in the widget area)
The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar …
This instantly reorganizes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can help improve user experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ feature (3) is now first the sidebar, and the support image banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve your site’s user experience)
Removing Widgets From Your WordPress Blog Sidebar
Removing widgets from the sidebar area is very easy.
For example, let’s remove the Search widget from the sidebar …
(Search widget)
To delete a widget from an active Widget area, either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Deleting WordPress widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets area and drop it into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Remove your WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any other widgets you want removed from your sidebar navigation menu. You can always restore a widget by dragging it back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Most widgets can be customized. This can include things like hiding information from 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 settings for that widget …
(Toggling expands/collapse widget settings)
When the widget expands, you can change and save your settings, remove 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)
Widget Customizer Section
Depending on the theme you are using, you’re also able to customize 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 website.
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 before publishing it (and avoid making mistakes), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize feature)
If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize your site quickly)
This brings you to the Customizer feature in the backend.
You can do several edits in preview mode (like inserting, removing and moving widgets around), and see all changes in real time. If you like what you’ve done, click the “Save and Publish” button and your changes will be instantly updated and made visible on your site to visitors.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
After saving the changes, the new configuration will automatically be displayed on your site.
Because the WordPress theme you choose affect how elements display on your site, we recommend installing the theme first before configuring widgets on the sidebar navigation area.
Also, remember to use the Customizer feature to preview all changes. This will save you from having to keep two browsers open while you go through this tutorial.
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, let’s configure various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of section one of this tutorial about using WordPress widgets.
To keep reading, click here:
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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