How to Add WordPress Widgets to Your Site
Widgets play a very important role in WordPress. These incredibly useful tools help us customize our WordPress website without having to dabble around with the code. This is, obviously, very helpful for those who don’t possess advanced coding knowledge, or any coding knowledge, for that matter.
WordPress widgets bring additional features and content and are generally added in widget-ready areas, which are parts of the sidebar dedicated to these functional blocks. Each website theme has a collection of default widgets you can use like popular WordPress social icons widget. But, there also are some amazing plugins that provide us with amazing additional options. My Calendar WordPress plugin is the good example. It will not only help you organize your events professionally, but keep you share all the relevant info with your customers. As you see WordPress widgets, together with plugins, are practical on many levels. The great news is that adding WordPress widgets is easy as it gets.
If you are a beginner or an intermediate WordPress user thanks to widgets, you can quickly and effortlessly add useful things like galleries, quotes, Facebook Like boxes and other dynamic items.
Now that we’ve established what widgets are and why they are useful, let’s take a closer look at how to add them.
Method 1
Log into your Dashboard and go to Appearance.
From there, click on Widgets.
Your widgets will be displayed to your left, while your widget areas will be located to the right of the screen.
Simply click on the on the desired widget, drag it to the widget area and drop it.
Method 2
The other way to add widgets in this panel is to click on the widget itself, which will open a dropdown menu with the available widget areas.
Simply select an area and click on the Add Widget button. Your widget will now appear in the selected area.
Whichever of these methods you pick, you can drag widgets through the widget area to rearrange their position anytime you want.
Keep in mind that, in case you edit anything about your widgets, for example if you add some text to it, you have to click on Save before refreshing your live website.
Removing Widgets
If you want to remove a widget, click on the little arrow next to the widget name.
This will open a card with options for that widget, and in the left corner, you will see the Delete option.
Additional Options
Here you can also add the title for your widget or find additional options, for example, the number of posts you wish to display, and so on.
To make this area appear tidier, you can close widget cards or even the cards for the entire widget area, by clicking again on the arrow next to the name of the widget or widget area you want to edit.
Adding Widgets in the Accessibility mode
Some users find it easier to add their widgets through the Accessibility mode. If this is what you prefer, click on the Screen Options card in the top right corner of your screen.
Next, click on Enable accessibility mode.
You will now have the Add option next to each of your widgets, as well as the Edit option next to your widget areas.
Clicking on Add will take you to this screen. Here you have all the widget options displayed together with the widget area you wish to add to, as well as its position.
Once you’ve set everything the way you want it, click on the Save widget button.
You will be redirected back to the Widget panel, where your new widget will appear.
To exit the Accessibility mode, click on the Screen options card again and click Disable accessibility mode.
This will restore the previous appearance of the widget area.
Adding widgets through the Customize option
Go to Appearance and click on Customize.
Click on Widgets.
This will open a list of your widget areas.
Click on the widget you want to edit. You will see the list of widgets that you have already added. To add a new one, simply click on Add a Widget.
On the right side of the screen, you will see a panel with available widgets.
You can type the name of the widget in the search box or you can scroll down until you find the one you wish to add.
Once you’ve found the widget, just click on it and it will be added to your widget area.
Here you can edit the widget you’ve just added. To rearrange widgets, click on Reorder.
You can now move the widgets up and down by clicking on these tiny arrows.
You can also move them to another widget area.
Once you’ve finished rearranging your widgets, click on Done.
If you need to go back to edit more widget areas, click on the arrow pointing to the left next to the widget area name.
Once you’ve finished editing all the widget areas, click on Publish in the top right corner. All the changes you have made will become visible on your live website.
In case you need to go back to your backend editor in this tab, just click on the x button in the top left corner.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are several methods you can use to add WordPress widgets to your website and work with them. You can easily edit your widget areas and arrange and rearrange everything to fit your needs perfectly. This is yet another field in which WordPress dominates with its user-friendliness and intuitive interface to allow users to customize their website and make it functional and efficient.
WordPress widgets represent an excellent way to improve your website in a quick and easy way, without writing a single line of code. As such, their use is highly recommended. Now that you know just how to add and edit widgets, make good use of this powerful tool to add almost anything you can imagine to your WordPress website.
We hope that you found this article to be helpful. If you liked it, please feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
