How to Add Widgets in WordPress?

As we all know, WordPress is the easiest, most famous way to create your website or blog. WordPress powers over 43% of all the websites on the Internet. Almost one in four websites you visit is likely powered by WordPress. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced web developer, WordPress can help you create a professional-looking website quickly and easily.

What is a WordPress Widget?

These features are so common that you probably have seen them a million times visiting different blogs. Recent post lists, shopping carts, and search bars are just some examples of what you can place on your WordPress website with the help of widgets.

How to Add a Widget in WordPress

Let’s review the steps we need to take to add a widget to our website.

Please note the process of adding a new widget to your website used to be very different from what you can see now. When the 5.8 version was released in July 2021, the widgets screen that many WordPress users had been operating for a long time was transformed. All the latest versions of WordPress show a new widgets menu that does not look like what it saw before. Let’s review how to add widgets in WordPress.

Step 1. Log Into Your WordPress Dashboard

To add a widget to your website, you must access the WordPress admin area. If your default WordPress admin dashboard URL does not change, you can access it from your website.com/wp-admin/ in any browser.

Step 2. Choose the Appearance Tab From the Left Menu and Click Widgets

It will take you to the new widgets screen that first appeared when WordPress 5.8 was introduced. On the right side of the screen, you can see the list of areas to which you can add a widget.

Here, we are using a popular theme, Astra. You can see that now we have 5 areas available for us to add new widgets to. Different WordPress themes define a different number of widget areas.

Step 3. Click On Your Targeted Chosen Widget Area

Once you click on the area you would like to add a widget to, you will see a real-time preview of the added widgets.

You can add and modify widgets from there to create your unique style.

Step 4. Now Click on the Plus Button Next to Your Targeted Area Widgets

Once you click the plus button in the top left corner, you will see a long menu presenting all widgets and other elements available to add to the chosen widget area. If you scroll down to the widgets, you’ll see all the default ones that can be used.

If you installed any plugins that provide additional widgets, you will see all of them in the menu.

Step 5. Thats it Adds the Chosen WordPress Widget

You can use the search bar to find what you’re looking for or browse through the elements to select one you want to add. After selecting, you can click on the widget to make it appear in the widget area you’ve chosen for your website. To position the piece precisely where you need it, you can drag and drop it. The example below shows the default calendar widget located on the right sidebar.

Conclusion

If a plugin adds a widget, deleting that plugin will also remove the widget. If you use a shortcode for a plugin in a text widget, the widget will remain, but the shortcode will no longer function. Therefore, you will need to remove the widget in that case manually. Also, keep it in mind not to add too many widgets. These can overload your sidebar areas and take longer than the actual post. When this happens, there is no other way than to describe it as bad design.