How to Add and Use WordPress Widgets

WordPress widget can be a confusing topic for any WordPress beginner. If you are thinking that WordPress widgets are complicated, then this article will help you be familiar with WordPress widgets. We will be discussing about what widgets are and how to add and use WordPress widgets.

Introduction to WordPress Widgets

Widgets are stuff that has particular functionality inbuilt in it. WordPress widgets can be easily added in the widget ready areas like sidebars. With the help of widgets any general users can easily add various features like calendar, archives, recent comments, RSS and so on in their website without getting the hang of writing codes.

You can find the various widgets in the widget page of WordPress. If you go to Appearance > Widget from your admin dashboard, you can see available widgets list which can be used in the sidebar. Most lists of available widgets are default widgets provided by WordPress itself. Similarly, a lot of plugins and themes after installation add their widgets in this list.

Sidebars are the primary placeholder for widgets where the widgets are placed. Widgets can also be placed in any other widgetized area in various parts of your website.

How to Add and Use WordPress Widgets

There are number of ways you can add widget in your sidebar. Lets see each methods one by one.

Drag and Drop

This is the easiest way to add widget. Just drag the widget from the available widgets list and drop it to the sidebar box in the right. After the transfer is complete, you can enter the settings of the widget if you have any.

Add Widget button

Select the specific widget that you want to add among the list of available widgets. This should open a box. Simply select the area where you want to place in the box and click save.

From screen option

Many WordPress users are unaware of the fact that widgets can also be added by enabling the accessibility mode from the screen option. To enable accessibility mode select the Screen Options link in the top of page and then click the Enable accessibility mode.

After the Enable accessibility mode is enabled, you can see the add button on each widget. Simply click the add button to add it to desired location.

Theme Customizer

Theme customizer allows you to view the live preview while making your changes. To open customizer go to Appearance > Customize. From the customizer, selects the widgets options as shown in image.

Also Read: Creating WordPress Admin Pages : Custom Admin Menus

Now you can easily add or remove the widgets from your sidebar with the help of the customizer.

Although using customizer for adding widget is not the recommended to add widgets because all the widget-ready areas may not be displayed.

Remove widget

Removing widget is very simple. In the widget page, simply select the widget that you want to remove. That should open the widget. Click the delete the link. This will delete the widget along with its settings from the sidebar or any other widget area.

If you want to remove the widget without deleting its settings then you can drag and drop it from sidebar section to the Inactive widgets section. You can always install back the inactive widget from the inactive list when needed.

Beside the default built-in widgets, most of the plugins and themes also add their own widgets to your dashboard. WordPress widgets help the general users to use the features of the theme and plugin easily without writing any code. We hope the article helped you with using widgets in WordPress. You can also read our other article on “What is Plugin in WordPress and How does it work?”.

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Kantiman Bajracharya

Kantiman Bajracharya is a freelance web developer. He is a computer geek who has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering. He has earned lots of satisfied customers while working for numerous successful projects. He is also a WordPress theme creator and web article writer. On free time he likes reading philosophy books, traveling and playing chess.