What You Need To Know About Widgets

There are loads of great things about using the WordPress web publishing software for building and managing a digital presence. One of these is that you can easily add content, expand your website’s functionality and rearrange the layout of your website with no web programming skills required.

WordPress gives you the ability to quickly and easily insert, delete, and rearrange various blocks of content in your blog’s sidebar menu (and header and footer sections, depending on your theme) using widgets.

(WP widgets)

This blog post explains how WordPress widgets work, why they are ideal applications for non-technical users and how widgets can help you to supercharge your site.

What Are WordPress Widgets? A Basic Guide To Widgets For Business Users

(Widgets help make managing and using WordPress easy!)

WordPress widgets are small blocks of code that perform a specific function, such as adding a feature, or a script or item to your WordPress site.

The WordPress software is written using a scripting language called PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). Normally, to add features and functions to a website, you have to learn how to program PHP code.

Now … don’t worry if this all sounds like geek speak. As you are about to see, widgets are perfect for non-technical users.

Widgets help you control many features and functions on your website without the need to touch code.

(WordPress widgets help you control technical features and functions on your site without requiring coding skills)

Widgets were originally designed to provide a simple way of giving WordPress users to control aspects of their WordPress theme’s layout and functionality.

Simply put, widgets let you do things like:

• Easily insert, edit and remove content sections to certain parts of your site without having to touch any code, and
• Rearrange how various elements display on widget-enabled areas of your site (e.g. the sidebar, header, footer and other areas) using drag-and-drop technology.

Here are just some of the features you can add to your site’s sidebar navigation area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on the theme you have installed) using WP widgets:

• site pages
• site categories
• archives
• custom page menus
• links to external sites
• links to recent posts
• post comments
• clickable images
• testimonials
• survey results
• RSS feed content
• subscription form
• product images
• social media share buttons
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. Amazon)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

In other blog posts, we write more extensively about plugins and WordPress themes; what they are, what they do, how these easily add new features to WordPress and even drastically change the entire look and feel of your site.

As you will see in a moment, themes affect where widgets work on your website and a number of plugins add accompanying widgets that can help further enhance your website’s features.

Widgetized Areas

Most themes support widgets and provide widget-ready sections on your site where widgets can show up in.

Normally, this is going to be in the sidebar, but depending upon the theme, widgets can also be located in your site’s header area, in the footer, even above or below your content.

It all depends on the theme that you have installed on your site.

For example, the theme in the screenshot below provides users with only one widget area for the theme’s sidebar area …

(Some WP themes have only a single widget enabled area)

Below is the widget section of the theme shown above, and you can see that this theme only contains one widgetized area …

As you can see from the above, the only place where you can add widgets to your website using the theme above is in the site’s sidebar area.

In contrast, the theme shown in the screenshot below includes a number of different widget areas …

(Many WP themes provide multiple widget-ready sections)

Below is an enlarged image of the widget screen of the above theme, where you can see how many widget areas this particular theme includes …

(Multiple WordPress widget areas)

As you can see, in the above theme, you can add widgets to the sidebar area of two different page templates (Main Sidebar and Showcase Sidebar) and three different Footer areas (Footer Area One, Footer Area Two, Footer Area Three) …

(Some themes let you add widgets to your site’s footer section)

Where Can I See My Widgets?

The Widgets panel can be easily accessed inside the dashboard by going to Appearance > Widgets …

This brings up the Widgets screen in your browser …

(Widgets Panel)

The Widgets screen displays all the widgets that are currently available for use on your site.

On the right-hand side of the window, you can see your “active” widgets …

(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop)

Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become active and available.

In addition, your Widgets screen includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove any widgets that you no longer want on your site. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.

By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets (e.g. widgets for displaying your pages, links, posts, post categories, adding text, adding RSS feeds, adding tags, adding a search box, etc …) and active widgets.

These widgets are available right out of the box in your default WordPress theme and display items like Recent Posts, Archives, Meta, etc. to visitors …

(In a default WordPress installation, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)

Sometimes, you may find that new widgets are added to your Widgets area whenever new plugins are installed on your site …

(Installing plugins can sometimes add new widgets to your Widgets admin area!)

WordPress Widgets Features: Drag & Drop

Widgets are great because you can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove them all right inside your Widgets section just by using drag & drop …

(Rearrange widgets on your WordPress site using drag-and-drop)

Using drag-and-drop lets you easily reconfigure the layout and order of your widget-enabled sections.

For example, take a look at the image below. In this site, the widgets have already been configured to display:

1. A newsletter subscription form,
2. A click for support banner, and
3. A couple of click to call sales buttons from a widgetized plugin …

(Widgets control the order certain features display on your site)

Looking inside the example site’s Widget area, you would see that these features appear on the site’s sidebar menu in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in their active widget area …

Let’s now change the order these widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements in the widget area …

(Drag-and-drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)

The widgets have now been reordered in your sidebar …

This instantly reorganizes the order of items in your site’s sidebar. Note in the screenshot below that the click to call feature (3) is now the first item on the sidebar menu, and the contact us banner (2) can now be found above the newsletter subscription form (1) …

(WordPress widgets are very easy to use!)

Pretty simple stuff, huh?

Let me show you some other things worth knowing about widgets:

Widget Management – Widget Previews

Depending upon the theme that you have installed, you can also manage widgets without making actual changes to your site, so you can be sure that you like what you have done before committing these changes to the live website.

You can do several things in preview mode, like adding, deleting and moving around your active widgets to any widget areas that your theme makes available, and everything is done in real time. If you like what you’ve done and click the “Save and Publish” button, your changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site.

(Widget management – work in preview mode or configure widgets on the fly!)

The ability to manage widgets from your own dashboard is a great feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how your widget content will appear before publishing changes (and avoid making mistakes), or manage your widgets on the fly using the Widget editor screen discussed previously.

Widget Configuration

As we have explained earlier, WordPress lets you completely rearrange how information is displayed in widgetized areas of your website or blog, like sidebars, footers and navigation menus with just a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-&-drop …

(Reorganize sidebar layout with widgets to improve visitor experience)

In the above screenshot, for example, you can see that we have quickly and easily reorganized the layout in the site’s sidebar by switching the search and testimonial sections. As you now know, this was easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

Reorganizing sidebar layout using widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience.

Now … what about the widgets themselves? Can the widgets be customized instead of simply added, removed and rearranged?

Absolutely!

With most traditionally-designed websites, you would need to edit code in the web templates to reorganize the layout, make unique customizations to features on page elements like newsletter subscription forms, or just add things like a list of your web pages, or a dropdown menu of your blog post categories, an archives section, custom menus, links to external sites, a list of your most read posts, the latest comments, a section displaying image banners, testimonials or surveys, RSS feed items, videos, social media buttons, and more.

While some widgets are “fixed” in the sense that they provide little to no customizable options, other than to add something like an optional title to the widget as shown in the example below …

(Some widgets give you little to no configurable options)

Most widgets provide various settings that allow you to further customize things. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to site visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or data, specifying dimensions of sidebar images, videos, etc. and more …

(Many widgets give you customizing options!)

How To Use WordPress Widgets

As you have seen, widgets require no coding experience or programming expertise to use. Most widgets can be added to your website or blog simply by activating a plugin and then dragging and dropping the plugin’s related widget into your Active widgets area.

There are some tips and tricks to using widgets, however, and we will be adding more detailed step-by-step tutorials showing you how to use various widgets in WordPress to improve the effectiveness of your site, plus many cool tips on how to get the most benefit out of WordPress using widgets, so remember to bookmark this site and come back soon!

Related Posts

If you are a new WordPress user, you may also find the following related posts useful:

• WordPress Explained – What Is A Plugin
• WordPress For Newbies – An Overview Of WP Themes

Hopefully this information has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website or blog please click on links to visit our related posts section.

Want more help with WordPress? Please add your thoughts below and feel free to share this article with your friends.

The post What You Need To Know About Widgets appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.

http://ift.tt/2jbwf0q

Apply These Website Planning Steps To Build A Better Website

This is Part One of a 3-part article series designed to help you understand the website planning process.

Are you considering the idea of taking your small business online?

One of the most important decisions you need to make is whether or not to build your web site yourself, or get someone to help build your site.

Both choices have pros and cons. Whichever option you pick will depend on many factors like:

• Your financial situation
• Time
• Your business priorities
• How soon you need your site to be up and running
• Your technical skills
• Your level of commitment to supervise and manage the project
• etc …

If your budget is limited and you want to save money, you could decide to build the site yourself, but it goes without saying that you will need to spend some time learning how to put your site together.

How To Plan Your Website – Understanding The Process

Whether you choose to build a website yourself or get someone else to build it for you, the first important step is to get some good planning done. In this blog post we explain in simple terms why better website planning can help your business and what to do before investing in web development.

Planning your website is regarded by many online business strategists as being the most important aspect of building a successful website. Careful planning in the early stages of your business development process will help you avoid costly errors later and create a better end product.

Below, you will find a comprehensive blueprint for non-technical users designed to help you better understand your website planning process. We will also cover the do’s and don’ts of planning a business website, and give you tips on how to brief your website designer to make sure that you end up with a website that will perfectly meet your budget, suit your needs and deliver you great results online.

Important: Before setting up a website or registering a domain name for your web site, it’s highly recommended that you first research your market.

Building a successful presence online requires more than just having a professional website or business blog built. It also requires in addition to a number of other things, a commitment to developing and implementing an ongoing web marketing strategy.

The Site Planning Process Made Simple

So … you need a website.

Let’s start, then, by understanding the website planning process.

Take a look at the diagram below, and let’s go through the information on this page together.

Note: Click on the image or the link below the image to enlarge the chart.

(click here to view larger image)

To make the process easy to follow, we recommend that you download and print the Website Planning Flowchart shown above.

Website Process Chart

Once you have downloaded and printed out the flowchart, grab some paper and a pen, or whatever you takes notes on, so you can write down your thoughts and ideas as we take you through the process. Also, make sure to shut out all distractions over the next 30-45 minutes.

Step 1 – Website Goals

No matter what type of website you want to build, the first step is to define clear goals for your web site and make these as specific as possible.

Ask yourself the following:

• What kind of website am I planning to build? Will it be a business website, an e-commerce site, a sales blog, or some other kind of site?
• What do you want this site to help you achieve?

For example, your goal could be to:

• Sell products or services online – you may want an online web store. Depending on your goals, this could also require adding a private product download area that only customers can access.
• Build a list of subscribers – you might want a simple site built with a “squeeze” page (landing page), or an information page and a lead capture form where all of youronline traffic get directed towards,
• Have a portfolio site that will help build credibility and trust for your brand or organization, post news, announcements or updates, etc.
• Get more exposure online for your existing business – you might need a business blog built on a separate domain, or added to an existing website to engage with users and keep customers informed about your latest product updates, or help your authority and expertise in your target market.
• Or something else …

List whatever it is that you want your website to help you achieve on your Website Planning worksheet, a blank sheet of paper, or wherever you are recording this information.

After your goals have been written down, go through the list and pick the goal that is most important to your business.

Write this goal on your worksheet (in “Your Website Goals” section) as “Goal 1“.

Now, return to your list and repeat this process to find two more goals and record these in your planning chart as “Goal 2” and “Goal 3“.

You’ve probably heard the old business saying “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

But, what if you already can’t manage?

Owning a website is going to to add a ton of additional things you will need to manage.

Your website planning process is a subset of your business marketing planning process. It’s important, therefore, that you continue to refer to your marketing plan to make sure that you will have the resources and capabilities to implement the strategies that will help you achieve your goals.

So, with this in mind, take a moment to complete the following right now:

After listing at least 1-3 goals and written these in your process chart, go back to “Goal 1” and ask yourself this question: “how will I measure this goal?”

In other words, what benchmarks will you use to evaluate your website’s performance? How will you know if your website is helping your business achieve your goals?

For example, your web site’s goal could be to help you get a specific number of leads each week through your site’s contact form, or getting “X” number of new newsletter subscribers per quarter, etc …

Also, think about the resources and costs associated with managing the process of measuring your goals. If you need to, revise your business plan to accommodate your findings.

Note: Keep your goals as flexible as possible at this stage, so you can adjust these once more feedback is gathered from visitors.

Step 2 – Name Your Web Site

Once you have clearly identified your goals, the next step is to come up with an appropriate name for your website.

This is another important step of the website planning process, so take your time to think carefully about coming up with a good name for your site.

Brainstorm ideas with others. Call a few customers (or potential customers if you haven’t launched your business yet) and get their input.

Try to think beyond the obvious (i.e. your company name), especially if your business name isn’t something that immediately brings up your products or services to mind. Remember, most online users have probably never heard of you.

Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer. Who would be searching online for the very thing you sell? What would they be typing into a search engine or browser to find you? Once you know this, try to come up with a name that would entice your potential clients.

Note: You can be creative and clever with your name, but it’s best to avoid being “too clever”. This also can be said about choosing a catchy, memorable or a stand out name. It can be a fun or quirky site name, but it’s best to try and avoid website names that may sound offensive (and definitely stay away from trademarked or registered names or phrases – you’ll just be inviting trouble!)

Go online and do a little research to find out what other companies in your industry or niche have named their sites. Study your competition, especially those who occupy the search results that you would like to own.

For example, if you are thinking of starting a blog related to food, a quick search online for “cooking blog” reveals a number of memorable site names like: “Smitten Kitchen”, “Cooking With Amy”, “Shockingly Delicious”, “The Rambling Spoon” and more …

So … now is the time to get inspired. Make a huge list of possible names and then narrow this list down.

After narrowing the list of names down to the most likely candidates, repeat the same process as above to craft a description, tagline or unique value proposition for your web site.

Your description should be concise and inform the reader with as few words as possible what your website is all about. For example, in one of the food sites we came across while searching online, the blog’s description was “Fast, Fresh, and Simple Recipes Easy Enough for Tonight’s dinner.”

Include keywords in your site’s name and description.

Once you have completed this step, the next step is to look at your domain name. If you plan to add a blog to your existing website and feel that this blog should be its own entity, go ahead register a new domain name for your site.

There are different strategies you can use to register domains for your site. For example, you can register keyword-rich domain names (i.e. domains that contain the key phrase you want to rank well for in search engines), expired domain names (domain names that the previous owners have decided not to renew and that can be registered once more, different top level domains and domain name extensions, etc.)

Tip: Subscribe to this site to learn more about practical strategies on registering domains and tips on how to develop your website marketing strategy.

Step 3 – Managing Your Technology

After choosing a name and description for your web site, the next step is to develop a clear plan specifying how you are going to manage the technology that is going to host, support and help you power your website.

We strongly recommend building your site with WordPress.

WordPress is not only a robust and secure platform to build a website with, but it is also easy-to-manage and great for non-technical users.

WordPress is also the world’s most popular CMS platform, and, as you can see from the screenshot below, WordPress powers almost half of the world’s CMS-driven websites.

A WordPress website is ideal for publishing your content and communicating information about your business to your existing and potential clients.

A website or blog powered by the WordPress platform allows you to interact better with online users, and makes things like posting content, special offers, promotions, news and announcements about your products, company or industry very easy, even if you have little to no technical web skills. In fact, no coding is required to publish content on a WordPress site, and managing tasks like backups and software upgrades can easily be automated.

In fact, many businesses no longer use static websites built using traditional website building tools. More websites are now being powered with WordPress, which can provide businesses and their users with all of the features and capabilities of a regular website.

If you would like to have better management and control of your business online and don’t have the time, need or desire to learn technical “web coding” languages such as HTML, then you should consider choosing a WordPress-powered business website or blog.

Hosting And Management

In addition to using to build your site with the WordPress CMS platform, you should also think about where you are going to host your site, and if to let others manage your web site, or manage your own site.

We use and recommend WordPress for many business uses, and we also provide more information about WordPress and information on areas like how to register domain names, what to look for in a good webhost and website management in other articles on this site.

If you need more help or advice with this step, don’t hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Step 4 – Your Website Target Audience

After you have gone through the basic planning steps above, then it’s time to define who is your site’s target audience.

Key information about your target audience includes:

• Audience demographics
• Their needs and wants
• What kind of problems they are experiencing, or will face in the future
• How prefer to consume digital information
• How they see themselves
• What they can expect from you or your business

It’s very important that you try and create as accurate a profile of your target audience as possible. Try to picture the actual person that you will be communicating directly with when presenting your information to.

Begin this process by asking lots of questions, such as:

• Who will your site’s content be addressed towards?
• What kind of information will visitors be looking for on your website or blog?
• What problems and challenges are your visitors going to face that your site can help them solve online? What types of solutions are people searching online for similar issues?
• Are your visitors technology-savvy? How does your audience consume digital information? Does your audience prefer videos to visual content like images or graphics and text? Will they need downloadable content (e.g. price lists, schedules, timetables)? Will you need to create content like videos, audios or multimedia presentations regularly in order to keep your site users engaged?
• Where are they located? Is geographical location or factors like occupation, relationship status or income level, significant to the success of your website? If so, what segments of the population will your website be marketing to and how will you find these demographics online?
• How do your site users see themselves? Who does your target audience engage online with? What music do they listen to? What else do they buy, or consume online?
• What will your site users expect from your site? What kind of information are you willing to provide to them for free or for a fee? What kind of information will you not be providing online for free?

Being able to accurately define your website’s target users is an important step in the website planning process and it will help you communicate better with your web developer and everyone else assisting you with your website, which will then ensure that you get a better end product.

If you don’t have access to accurate research information about your target audience, then start with a “best guess” based on your experience and research.

Also, try not to limit your criteria too much. You could end up investing too much time pursuing a niche that is just too small, or an online opportunity that may not be sustainable.

Finally, unless you plan to build a portal website and have the resources to do so, don’t try to make your website or blog appeal to an audience that is just too broad, or you’ll just end up creating a ton of extra work for yourself when it comes to populating your website with content, as you will see when we continue exploring the website planning process in another section.

***

This is the end of Section 1

To read Part 2 of this article, click here:

Comin Soon

Please subscribe to this blog, as we will be posting lots of great content, resources and practical business tips on developing and implementing your web site marketing strategy.

Disclaimer: We are not associated with WordPress or any of the WP products written about on this site. We may derive a financial benefit from sales of products advertised, reviewed or linked to from this site. All information on this page have been supplied from the plugin’s own website and websites that provide Premium WordPress Services

The post Apply These Website Planning Steps To Build A Better Website appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.

http://ift.tt/1Uk75ag

Using WordPress: A Basic Guide To WP Widgets

There are lots of great things about using WordPress to build and grow a web site. One of these is that you can easily add content, enhance your site and reconfigure the layout of your website without code editing skills.

WordPress allows you to quickly and easily insert, remove, and manage various blocks of content from your site’s sidebar menu (or header and footer sections too, depending on your theme) using widgets.

(WP widgets)

In this article you will learn what widgets are, why they are great for non-technical users and how widgets can add new functionality to your web site.

Widgets – What Do They Do? Understanding WordPress Widgets For Newbies

(WordPress widgets help make managing and using WordPress easier!)

Widgets are small modules of code that perform a specific function, such as adding a form, or a text box or list item to your website.

The WordPress software is written using a scripting language called PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor). Normally, in order to add features and functions that will enhance the functionality of a website, you need to know how to write code.

Now … don’t worry if the above sounds too technical. As will soon see, WP widgets are perfect for non-techie website owners.

WordPress widgets help you control specific features and functions on your website without the need to edit code.

(Widgets help you manage many features and functions on your website without the need to edit code!)

Widgets were originally designed to provide a simple way to give WordPress users to control aspects of their WordPress theme’s layout and functionality.

In simple terms, widgets let you do things like:

• Easily add, edit and remove features in parts of your website without touching any code, and
• Reconfigure the functional layout of your WP theme on “widgetized” areas of your site (e.g. the sidebar, header, footer and other areas) using drag-and-drop technology.

Here are just some of the many functions you can add to your site’s sidebar area (plus headers and footers and other areas, depending on your theme) using WP widgets:

• website page list
• content categories
• blog post archive
• custom page menus
• links to external sites
• links to your recent posts
• recent comments
• clickable text ads
• testimonials
• surveys
• RSS feed items
• shopping cart information
• image galleries
• Facebook feeds
• add widgets from other sites (e.g. affiliate programs)
• administrative forms (e.g. login, register, etc.)

In other blog posts, we provide an overview of WordPress plugins and WP themes; what they are, what they do, how these easily add loads of new functionality to WordPress and even drastically change the entire design of your website or blog.

As you will soon discover, WordPress themes affect how widgets work on your website and some plugins also add accompanying widgets that can help further fine-tune your site’s capabilities.

Widget-Ready Themes

Most themes support widgets and provide widget-ready areas on your site where widgets can display.

Typically, widget-powered features can be found in the sidebar, but depending upon the theme, these can also be located in your site’s header, in the footer, and even below or above the content area.

It all depends on what theme you have installed.

For example, the WP theme shown in the screenshot below provides users with only one widget area displaying items in the theme’s sidebar …

(Some WordPress themes have only a single widgetized area)

Here is an enlarged image of the widget screen of the theme above, and you can see that this particular theme only contains one widgetized area …

As you can see from the above, the only place where users can add widgets to their site using the theme above is in the site’s sidebar area.

In contrast, the theme shown in the screenshot below contains a number of widget-enabled areas …

(Many WordPress themes provide a number of widgetized sections)

Here is an enlarged image of the widget panel of the above theme, so you can see how many widget areas are included in the theme …

(Multiple WordPress widget areas)

As you can see, with the above theme, you can add widgets to the sidebar area of two different page templates (Main Sidebar and Showcase Sidebar) and three different Footer areas (Footer Area One, Footer Area Two, Footer Area Three) …

(Some WordPress themes let you add widgets to your site’s footer)

How Do I Access My Widgets?

To access the Widgets section go to Appearance > Widgets …

This loads the Widgets panel in your web browser …

(Widgets Area)

The Widgets section displays all the widgets you can use on your site.

On the right-hand side of the screen, you can see your “active” widgets …

(Activate or deactivate widgets using drag & drop)

Available widgets can be made Active or Inactive using drag-and-drop.

Widgets dragged from the Available Widgets section to widget areas like your sidebar, footer, etc. become immediately active and can be used.

The Widgets panel also includes an Inactive Widgets section that lets you remove widgets that you no longer want to use on your website. Inactive widgets retain their pre-configured settings.

By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets (e.g. widgets for displaying your pages, links, posts, post categories, adding text, adding RSS feeds, adding tags, adding a search box, etc …) and active widgets.

These widgets are available in the default WordPress theme right out of the box and display items like Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Categories, etc. to visitors …

(By default, your site already comes with a number of pre-installed widgets)

Sometimes, new widgets display in your Widgets area whenever new WP plugins are installed on your site …

(Installing new WP plugins can sometimes add new widgets to your Widgets area!)

Widgets Features: Drag-And-Drop

WP widgets are great because you can easily insert, activate, deactivate, rearrange and remove them all right inside your Widgets area using simple drag & drop …

(Rearrange widgets using drag and drop)

Using drag & drop technology lets you easily rearrange the order of your website’s widget-enabled areas.

For example, take a look at the image below. In this example site, the widgets have already been configured to show the following:

1. An opt-in form,
2. A contact support banner, and
3. Click to call sales buttons from a widgetized plugin …

(Widgets control the order certain features display on your WordPress site)

Inside this site’s Widget area, you would see that these features appear on the site’s sidebar area in exactly the same order as they have been arranged in the active widget area …

Let’s now reorganize these widgets in the Widget Area by dragging & dropping elements in the widget area …

(Drag & drop widgets in your widget area to rearrange their order)

The widget features have now been reordered in your sidebar …

This immediately changes the layout of your site’s sidebar. Note in the screenshot below that the click to call function (3) is now at the top of the sidebar menu, and the contact us banner (2) now sits above the newsletter opt-in form (1) …

(WordPress widgets are very easy to use!)

Pretty simple, huh?

There are some other things worth knowing about WordPress widgets:

Widget Management – Preview Widgets

Depending upon the WordPress theme that you have installed on your site, you can also customize widgets without making actual changes to your site, so you can be sure that you like what you have done before committing these changes to the live website.

You can do a number of things in preview mode, like inserting, deleting and reorganizing your active widgets to any widget areas that your theme makes available, and see all changes in real time. If you like what you have done and click the “Save and Publish” button, your changes will then be instantly updated and reflected on your site.

(Widget management – work in preview mode or configure widgets on the fly!)

The ability to manage widgets from within your WordPress dashboard is a great feature of WordPress. You can work in preview mode inside the WordPress Theme Customizer screen (Appearance > Customize) and see how your widget content will appear prior to publishing any changes you’ve made (to avoid making errors), or change widgets on the fly using the Widget editor area discussed previously.

Widget Configuration

As we’ve explained previously, WordPress lets you quickly and easily rearrange how information displays in areas of your website or blog, like sidebars, footers and navigation menus with only a few clicks of your mouse, using drag-&-drop …

(Rearranging sidebar elements with widgets can help to improve your site’s user experience)

In the screenshot above, for example, you can see that we have easily reorganized the site’s sidebar section by switching around the search and testimonial sections. As you now know, this was easily done by simply dragging and dropping the widgets into different positions inside the sidebar widget area.

Reorganize sidebar elements with widgets to improve visitor experience.

Now … what about the widgets themselves? Can the widgets be customized instead of simply added, removed and rearranged?

Absolutely!

With many static websites, you would need to edit code in your site’s templates to reorganize the layout, make unique customizations to features on page elements like subscriber forms, or just add features like your website’s page list, or a dropdown menu of your blog categories, an archives section, menus to display selected pages, links to external sites, links to your recent posts, the latest excerpts of comments added to your posts, a section displaying image banners, quotations or poll questions & results, RSS feed content, video thumbnails, Twitter feeds, and more.

While some widgets are “fixed” in the sense that they provide little to no configuration options, other than to add something like an optional title to the widget as shown in the example below …

(Some widgets provide users with little to no customization)

Many widgets offer a number of options that allow you to further customize things. This can include things like making certain types of information hidden to visitors but visible to registered users, displaying additional forms, fields, or information, specifying sizes of sidebar images, videos, etc. and more …

(Many widgets provide users with configurable options!)

How To Use Widgets

As we have seen, widgets require no coding experience or programming expertise to use. Most widgets can be added to your website simply by activating a plugin and then dragging and dropping the plugin’s widget into your Active widgets area.

There are some useful tips and tricks to using widgets, however, and we plan to add more great step-by-step tutorials to this site showing you how to use different widgets in WordPress to improve the effectiveness of your web site, plus lots of cool tips on how to get the most out of WordPress with widgets, so stay tuned and come visit us again soon!

Related Posts

If you are learning how to use WordPress, you may also find the following related posts useful:

• WordPress Plugins Overview
• About WP Themes – A Beginner’s Guide

Hopefully this article has given you a better understanding of issues that can affect your website and how WordPress can help you build a better online. To learn more about the benefits of using WordPress for a business website please click on links to visit our related posts section.

Has this post helped you gain a better understanding of WordPress? Did we leave something important out? Please comment below or take a moment to share this information with your friends.

The post Using WordPress: A Basic Guide To WP Widgets appeared first on Quick Click Hosting.

http://ift.tt/1V14qVb