As we’ve discussed in this post, one of the many benefits of using WordPress is that you can easily add content, enhance your site’s functionality, and reconfigure the layout of your site with no web coding knowledge required.
WordPress lets you easily insert, delete, and rearrange content on your site’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’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on the WordPress theme you have installed) like:
- pages on your website
- post categories
- archived blog posts
- menus displaying only selected pages
- links to external sites
- links to recent posts
- comments
- clickable ad banners
- customer testimonials
- survey results
- RSS feed content
- opt-in subscription form
- product catalog images
- twitter feeds
- display 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 widgets are, how widgets work and why widgets make managing your site easier, go here:
In this step-by-step tutorial you will learn how to use and configure various commonly-used widgets in WordPress.
Using Widgets
What You Need To Know First
Before we start learning how to configure widgets, it helps to first go over some of the basics about using widgets:
Most WordPress Themes Support Widgetized Layouts
Most WordPress themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar area, header area, and footer sections. Depending on your theme, widgets can also show up inside the content area …
(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widget-ready sections)
These widget-ready layouts correspond to a feature inside the Widget panel called “Widget Areas” …
(Widget Areas)
Your Widgets Panel
The Widgets section displays a list of all the widgets you can use on your site.
The right-hand section of the screen displays all “active” widgets …
(Activate or deactivate widgets 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. become active and can be used for their purpose.
In addition, your Widgets panel includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want on your website. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.
Reorganize WordPress Widgets Using Drag-And-Drop
You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove widgets just by dragging and dropping items inside the Widgets area …
(Rearrange widgets using drag-and-drop)
You can also easily reorder your theme’s layout with drag-and-drop ease.
For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:
- An opt-in form,
- A contact support banner, and
- ’Click to call’ feature from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin that adds an accompanying widget to your site) …
(Widgets control how certain features appear on your site)
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 they were arranged in the back-end widget area …
Let’s now rearrange the above widgets in the Active Widget Area by dragging and dropping elements …
(Drag & drop to rearrange widgets in your widget area)
The widget features have now been reordered in the sidebar …
As you can see, this instantly changes the order of items in the site’s sidebar.
Rearranging sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve visitor experience.
Note in the screenshot below that the ‘click to call’ function (3) is now the first item on the sidebar, and the support image button (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …
(Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help improve your site’s visitor experience)
Deleting Widgets From Your Sidebar Menu
Removing widgets from your sidebar section is very easy.
For example, let’s show you how to remove the Search widget from your sidebar navigation menu …
(WordPress Search widget)
To delete an active widget, you can either open up the widget settings and click the Delete link …
(Delete your widgets)
Or just drag the widget out of the Active Widgets section and into the Inactive Widgets area …
(Removing WordPress widgets)
Repeat this process for any widgets you want removed from your sidebar area. You can always restore widgets by dragging them back into the active widgets area.
Widget Settings
Many widgets can be further customized. This includes hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes 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 …
(Toggles expand/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 give you little to no customization)
Previewing Widgets
Depending on the theme you have installed on your site, you’re also able to preview any changes live without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you are happy with your customizations before making any permanent changes 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 the widget content will appear before publishing it (to avoid making errors), or manage widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area.
(Edit widgets live in the Customize section)
If you need to make changes to your site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …
(Customize link in the toolbar)
This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.
You can do many modifications and adjustments in preview mode (like adding, deleting and reorganizing your widgets), and see all changes in real time. If you like the results, click the “Save and Publish” button and the changes will be instantly updated and made visible on the site’s frontend.
(Widget management – work in preview mode)
As soon as your changes have been saved, your new settings will automatically show on your site.
Since the theme you use can 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 your site the way your visitors will see it).
Now that you know the basics of using widgets, it’s time to learn how to start configuring various commonly-used WordPress sidebar widgets.
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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial series on using WordPress widgets.
To view the rest of this tutorial, click this link:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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