Someone tells you to “just add it as a widget”. Maybe it is your opening hours for the footer, a sign-up box for the blog sidebar, or a review badge a plugin has given you. You open the dashboard looking for a place called Widgets and find either a screen that looks like the page editor, or no Widgets item at all.
WordPress widgets are one of the oldest ideas in WordPress, and they have changed more than most, which is why so much advice online describes a screen you do not have. What matters is how to use widgets on the screen in front of you, and what takes their place when the theme has none.
What WordPress widgets are
A widget is a small piece of content that sits outside your pages and posts: a search box, a list of recent posts, a few lines of contact details, a menu, an image. You build it once, and it appears on every page that shows the spot you put it in.
Those spots are called widget areas. Your theme decides how many there are and where they appear. A typical classic theme might offer a blog sidebar, three or four footer columns and perhaps a strip above the header. WordPress’s own code calls every widget area a “sidebar”, even when it sits in the footer, which is why plugin instructions sometimes tell you to put something “in the sidebar” when they mean any widget area.
The key idea is the split. The theme owns the areas; you own what goes in them. Change theme, and your new theme may have different areas or none at all. Widget areas are one of three places a classic theme keeps the content around your pages; the guide to the WordPress header, footer and menus covers the other two.
Finding the widget areas your theme offers
Go to Appearance → Widgets. Each widget area is listed as a panel you can expand. The names come from the theme: Sidebar, Blog Sidebar, Footer 1, Footer Bar and so on. Some themes add a short description under each name saying where it appears.
When a name does not tell you enough, the Customizer can. Open Appearance → Customize → Widgets while previewing a page. It only lists the areas that page actually shows, and it tells you when the theme has other areas that this particular page does not display. Preview a blog post, then a normal page, and compare the lists.
How to use widgets on the block-based Widgets screen
Since WordPress 5.8 the Widgets screen works with blocks. Each widget area is a container, and anything you can put on a page with a block, you can generally put in a widget area.
- Go to Appearance → Widgets and expand the area you want, for example Footer 2.
- Click the + inside the area to add a block. For opening hours you might add a Heading and a Paragraph. For a list of recent articles, the Latest Posts block. For a search box, the Search block.
- Type your content and adjust the block’s settings in the panel on the right, just as you would in the page editor.
- Click Update at the top of the screen to save. Nothing changes on the live site until you do.
- View the site in a private window to check where it appeared.
To move a block from one area to another, select it and use Move to widget area in its toolbar, or drag it in List View. To remove it, open the block’s options menu and delete it.
The Customizer’s Widgets panel uses the same blocks with a live preview beside them, and changes there only go live when you press Publish. Either route edits the same areas.
Older widgets inside the new screen
Plugins written before the change still provide old-style widgets. On the block screen they appear inside a Legacy Widget block, which shows the widget’s familiar settings form. They usually behave as they always did. If a plugin offers both an old widget and a newer block for the same feature, the block is normally the better choice going forward.
The classic Widgets screen
Some sites still use the earlier screen, where widgets are boxes you drag from a list on the left into areas on the right. The official Classic Widgets plugin, maintained by the WordPress team, brings it back, and some older themes or agencies install it for compatibility.
The method is simple. Drag a widget such as Text, Navigation Menu or Recent Posts into an area, open it, fill in its title and settings, and press its Save button. Each widget saves separately, so changing three widgets means three saves. Widgets taken out of every area can be parked in the Inactive Widgets section, which keeps their settings if you want them back later.
If your site works fine on the classic screen, there is no urgency to change. If you are starting fresh, the block screen gives you more to work with.
Block themes: no widgets, and why that is fine
If Appearance shows an Editor item and no Widgets item, you have a block theme. Block themes do not have widget areas. The whole layout, header, footer and any sidebar, is built from blocks inside templates and template parts in the Site Editor.
So the job is the same, but the place is different. Want your opening hours in the footer? Open the footer template part and add a Paragraph block. Want a sidebar on blog posts? Add a Column or Group to the single post template and put blocks in it. Our walkthrough of template parts in the Site Editor shows where to find them and how to edit safely.
One consequence catches people out. Switching from a classic theme to a block theme leaves your widgets behind: they are still stored, but the new theme has nowhere to show them. Copy their content somewhere before the switch so you can rebuild it.
What is worth putting in a widget area
Widget areas fill up over the years. Every plugin wants a box, and every box adds a little clutter. For a business site, a shortlist works better, and a yearly look at it sits well with the other routine checks in our complete WordPress guide.
- Footer: contact details, opening hours, a short menu of useful links, social icons. Our post on editing your WordPress footer covers the rest of the footer.
- Blog sidebar: a search box, a few recent or popular posts, one clear call to action such as “Get a quote”.
- Above the header: a phone number or a short notice, if your theme has an area there.
Things that rarely earn their place on a small-business site: tag clouds, a calendar of posts, monthly archives going back years, a list of every category, and widgets that load content from other sites, which can slow every page that shows them. If you are not sure a sidebar is helping at all, our post on removing or adding a sidebar helps you decide and shows how.
If a widget will not appear
Most widgets that vanish are sitting in an area the current page does not print, or in Inactive Widgets after a theme change. A full checklist, from template settings to visibility rules, is in our guide to widgets that are not showing.
Frequently asked questions
Can I show a widget only on certain pages?
Not with WordPress alone. A widget area shows the same content wherever the theme prints it. Visibility plugins such as Widget Options add per-page rules, and some themes have their own. In a block theme, you get the same effect by using different templates for different kinds of page.
Can I put a contact form in a widget area?
Yes. Most form plugins provide a block or a shortcode. Add the form plugin’s block, or a Shortcode block containing the form’s shortcode, to the widget area. Keep sidebar and footer forms short, since the space is narrow and long forms are tiring to fill in on a phone.
Do widgets slow down my site?
Simple ones, like text, menus or a search box, add almost nothing. Widgets that pull in outside content, such as social feeds, review badges or embedded maps, load extra scripts on every page that shows them. Use those sparingly and only where visitors benefit.
Will I lose my widgets if I install the Classic Widgets plugin, or remove it?
No. Both screens read the same stored widgets, so installing or removing the plugin does not delete anything. Blocks added on the new screen do not turn neatly into classic widgets, though, so pick one screen and stay with it rather than switching back and forth.
Years of plugin boxes in a sidebar, or widgets scattered by a theme change, are tedious rather than difficult to sort out. If you would rather hand that over, our WordPress support service can go through what is there with you and keep only what still earns its space.
Next in this series: How to Add Social Media Icons in WordPress
