What is: Widgets

The term “widgets” is peculiar to WordPress, but widgets are an important part of customizing the WordPress experience for your users.

In effect, widgets are separate “blocks” that each performs a specific function. You won’t have to worry about coding or designing widgets as these come complete and ready to use, either as part of your original WordPress installation or else downloaded from WordPress.org and/or third-party websites.

Widgets are very easy to use and manage as WordPress designed them to be dragged and dropped exactly where you want them. To access your widgets, go to your WordPress dashboard and look on the left-hand column for “Appearance.” After clicking on “Appearance,” click on “Widgets.”

Depending on the theme that you’re using for your WordPress site, you will have several different areas that can use widgets. For instance, you can place widgets in the sidebar, the header, the footer, below every post, below a page, et cetera.

Keep in mind that every theme will have different areas where widgets can be used. Some themes, however, will have no areas where widgets can be used, so if you don’t see a place where you drag and drop widgets, this means that the theme that you’re using does not support widgets.

By default, WordPress comes with several widgets, including:

• Categories
• Tag cloud
• Calendar
• Search
• Recent posts

To activate a widget, simply drag it to the Widget area where you want it to be displayed on your website. You can then click on the widget to change its settings. If you have more than one widget in a given area, you can drag them to re-order them.

Note: If you delete a widget, it will just be removed from the area, not erased from your system.