What is a Widget

WordPress Themes usually have at least 1 or more sidebars. Sidebars are the narrow columns to the left or right of your blog posts. You can configure your sidebar by going to Appearance > Widgets. Each section in the sidebar is known as a “widget” that you can add or remove, and move up or down. If you want to add images and text, such as links and more to your sidebars in WordPress you need to use Widgets.

Adding widgets is simple! From your WordPress Dashboard, click on the “Appearance” heading on the right by clicking on the little arrow. Then select “Widgets” as shown in the image to the left.

The next screen will be made up of three main areas. On the right you will have a list of the sidebars available in your current theme. The top left hand section is “Available Widgets.” These are all of the different widgets you can choose from at the moment, but certain plugins will create additional widgets for you to use.

Adding Widgets

Now, each of the sidebars on the right of the page can be accessed by clicking on the little dropdown arrow next to it’s name. Once you’ve chosen a sidebar and a widget to add, just drag the widget over to the sidebar. When you have the widget in the right spot a dotted rectangle will appear. Drop the widget in place by releasing the mouse button and the widget will be added, and it’s options will be displayed for you to configure.

Different widgets will have different options, particularly if they were created by a plugin. Some widgets (like the Search widget, for example) don’t have any options for you to configure.

Once you have all of your options set, just click the “Save” button at the bottom of the widget. In recent versions of WordPress, as you save each individual widget it gets added to your blog in real time (in the past you have to click a button to save all the changes.

Text Widgets

Text widgets are easily the simplest and also the most powerful widgets at your disposal. You can place any text or HTML code you want into a text widget to display on your sidebar. This means you can use them to display a message, add links or even display images and optin forms. Text widgets can take on almost any form, so let your imagination go nuts!

To use a text widget, just drag it onto the sidebar like you would anything else. Then a box like the one on the left will appear with two fields. One for the title and the other for the content. Enter whatever text or code you want and click save you’ll be good to go. If you are using the widget to display text with multiple paragraphs you will need to add the paragraph tags unless you check the box at the bottom to automatically add them!

Always remember to double check your text widget’s output once you save it. Pull up you blog, test any links, etc. to make sure everything works right.

Once you add your widget don’t forge to save changes” on the right hand side for your widget to publish.

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