Using WordPress Widgets

Often, people get terms confused with Plugins and Widgets as the same. Although they possess the similar characteristics, they are not same. In fact, widgets are a part of the plugin. For example, all dogs are animals but all animals are not dogs. Do you get the point here? Similarly, Plugin is a whole, whereas widgets fall into plugin category.

WordPress Widgets tend to add extra features and contents to the site’s sidebars. You can see default archives, post categories, search bars, etc. appearing on the sidebar after the fresh installation of WordPress. They are the widgets.

One of the amazing things about WordPress widgets is that they require no coding expertise or experience. Thanks to WordPress, they can simply be added, removed and rearranged within a few clicks.

The new release of WordPress 4.8 has made even easier to use widgets for non-programmers.

It depends on your theme feature

The location of widgets on your site entirely depends on your WordPress theme. That means the themes are built differently accordance with the blog posts, page templates. Therefore, the theme decides where your widgets should be located.

Using WordPress Widgets

In order to see how widgets work in sites, log in to your WordPress Dashboard and go to Appearance -> Widgets menu. You’ll now be redirected to the widgets page. On the left side of the page, you can see all the available widgets. On the right side, you will see the widget locations of the site.

In order to add a widget to your site, simply drag widgets from its position on the left to the right section. This will activate the widget by itself. Remember, there is no Update option in order to activate the widgets.

To delete or remove them, just click delete link of the particular widget.

For example, let’s say you want to add a search bar on your site. Our current theme here is Twenty Seventeen. Locate the Search widget on the left and simply drag over to the right. If you reload your website, you’ll see a search bar appearing to the side.

That’s all. If you go through the widget section by yourself, you’ll get to know even more.