As we’ve explained in this post, one of the many benefits of choosing the WordPress CMS platform is that WordPress makes it very easy to add content, enhance your website, and reorganize the layout of your site without code editing skills required.

WordPress allows you to easily insert, remove, and control various types of content in your site’s sidebar (or header and footer sections, depending on what theme you are using) using widgets.

Once you know how to use widgets, you can easily add things to your site like:

• page lists
• content categories
• post archives
• customized menus
• links to resources
• links to your recent posts
• comments
• clickable ads
• customer testimonials
• poll results
• RSS feed items
• newsletter registration form
• video galleries
• twitter feeds
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

(WP widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy)

To learn more about what WordPress widgets are, how they work and how using widgets can help you expand your site’s capabilities, go here:

• An Overview Of Widgets

In this step-by-step tutorial series we explain how to use and configure various frequently-used WordPress widgets.

Using Widgets

What You Need To Know First

Before we show you how to configure widgets, let’s explain some of the basic concepts of using widgets:

Most WordPress Themes Support Widget-Ready Areas

Many WordPress themes support widgets and provide widgetized sections in the theme’s layout where you can add widgets, such as the sidebar, header area, and footer sections. Depending on the theme, widgets can also be used in the content area …

(Many WordPress themes offer users multiple widget sections)

These widgetized areas correspond to a feature inside your Widget management area called “Widget Areas” …

(Widget Areas)

Widgets Panel

The Widgets panel displays 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 immediately active.

Your Widgets screen also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want to actively display on your site. Inactive widgets do not lose their settings.

Rearrange WordPress Widgets Using Drag And Drop

You can easily add, activate, deactivate, reorder and remove things using widgets using drag & drop inside your Widgets area …

(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)

You can also easily reconfigure your theme’s layout using drag-and-drop.

For example, in the image below, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:

1. An opt-in form,
2. A contact support banner, and
3. ’Click to call’ buttons from a widgetized plugin (i.e. a WordPress plugin with an accompanying widget) …

(Widgets control the order certain features on your site display)

If we 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 …

Let’s now rearrange these widgets in the Widget Area using drag-and-drop …

(Drag and drop widgets in the widget area to rearrange their order)

The widget features have now been reorganized in your sidebar menu …

This instantly reorganizes the layout of the sidebar.

Rearranging sidebar elements 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 at the top of the sidebar, and the ‘contact us’ section (2) has been moved to the location above the newsletter sign-up form (1) …

(Rearranging sidebar elements using widgets can improve your site’s user experience)

Deleting Widgets From The WordPress Sidebar

Deleting widgets from your sidebar is very easy.

For example, let’s show you how to delete the Search widget from the sidebar …

(WordPress 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 into the Inactive Widgets section …

(How to remove a widget)

Repeat this process for any widgets you want to remove from the sidebar. You can always restore widgets by moving them back into the active widgets area.

Widget Settings

Many widgets can be further customized. This can include things like hiding information from users (but allowing access to registered users), displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc.

Click on the little triangle in the corner of a widget to display the widget’s settings …

(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 offer little to no customizable options, or they may only allow you to add an optional title …

(Some widgets give you little to no configuration options)

Widget Previews

Depending upon the WP theme you have installed, you can also customize widgets without actually making changes to your site. This way, you can be sure that you like your customizations before committing anything live to your site.

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 the widget content will appear prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (and avoid making mistakes), or change your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen.

(Edit widgets in the Customize feature)

If you need to make changes to the site while viewing the front-end, just click on the Customize link …

(Toolbar Customize Link)

This brings you to the Customizer section in the back-end.

You can do several edits to widgets in preview mode (like inserting, 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 instantly become available to your site visitors.

(Widget management – work in preview mode)

Once your changes have been saved, all changes made to widgets will be automatically updated.

Since the theme you use tend to affect how elements display on your site, we recommend that you install the theme first before configuring widgets.

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 see your site the way your visitors will see it).

Now that you know the basics of using widgets, the next step is to learn how to configure various commonly-used WordPress widgets.

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This is the end of part 1 of this tutorial series on how to use Widgets.

Click on this link to continue reading:

• How To Add And Configure Widgets In The WordPress Blog Sidebar – Part Two

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