Written by Widgets along with Plugins are what give your WordPress life. They make your experience and the readers experience a lot more dramatic than if you were to never use them at all. This is why I am writing this short article, “Using Widgets” so that you can get the most benefit and mileage from them.
What are They
Widgets come in all shapes and sizes and can do many varied things to your blog. To a certain extent you are dictated as to what ones you have depending on the type of theme you have chosen. Although this is a slight deviation from the truth as there are many Plugins available that will enhance the Widgets you have.
First of all a widget is placed wherever you have a side bar on your site (theme). You may have chosen a theme that has one, two even four side bars meaning you have one, two or four specific areas to place your widgets in.
Within these areas your widgets can perform a multitude of tasks from placing simple ads, to putting a contact form in, to having photographs or a calender. One of the more popular ones is the category widget, which allows you put a list of topics that you placed certain articles or posts under enabling the reader to access more easily other relevant posts. Another would be the recent posts widget that, without stating the obvious, allows you to put links to your latest articles.
One that I use often is the Text Widget as it has many uses. It can be used just for placing extra text on your blog such as a welcome message or it can be used to place images or audio or video, contact forms, pictures etc. This particular widget allows all this because it accepts code, as in HTML or Java code.
Don’t worry if this now sounds to difficult, its not, its very easy to get these codes without ever knowing what it is. If you want to get the maximum out of this particular one then I suggest you read my article on How To Make Text Widgets Exciting.
Where Are They?
First log in to your WordPress admin panel and then scroll down the Dashboard on the far left of the page until you come across the “Appearance” tab then click on the Widgets link that will be within this tab.
The page you now see is all your available and inactive widgets with to the right of the page, the side bars you have available to put them in.
TIP: Depending on the theme you have installed you may have the option of a quick add link. (no problem if you have not) To see if this is available go to the top right of the page and click “Screen Options”. The top section of the page should now pop down revealing a link that says “Activate Accessibility mode” if so click on this. You should now see in the top right of each widget box an “Add ” link so that whenever you want that widget you just click on this.
How To Use Them
Very simple this bit. Decide what one your going to use, you want to be looking in the available widgets section and click on the add link, then to decide where your going to position that widget and in which side bar. This is just a matter of scrolling to the bottom of the box where you get to choose its side bar and numerical place. If this is your first widget in a particular side bar then obviously it can only go in 1st place.
Once your done and depending on whether you had to add any content or editing within the widget, just click on “Save Widget” and then your are finished. Now go to your site and marvel at the magic you have just created or if it needs editing go back to the widget page and click on the one that needs changing by hitting the edit link in the widget that is now in your side bar.
In Closing
As you progress you will gain more confidence and experience, the key is to just play around with them and get to know them. Using Widgets is certainly an integral part of a WordPress site and one that should be fun too.
If you liked this article and think it will help others then please use the Twitter or Facebook buttons found on this page to share this article with your friends, thank you, Nick Squires
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