Customizing your WordPress blog with widgets

I am surprised to see a number of my friends’ blogs using the ready-to-use sectional links on the sidebar of their blogs like calendar (useless for new or not frequently updated blogs), archives, etc. when they have so much to display.

Either they don’t have time to explore the functionalities offered by WordPress.com to change the looks of their theme (at least on the sidebars) or they are not into experimenting.

As we wrote in an earlier post, at WordPress.com you need to pay a few dollars to have access to a CSS editor. If you don’t want to go that route, there is not much you could do with the appearance of a selected theme other than to customize the custom header, that is, if that is an option in your selected theme.

But the widgets feature can change the appearance of your theme in terms of content and layout. The widgets can make your blog a little different from blogs using the same theme. This blog is using the Mistylook theme, but with the use of widgets, it now looks different from others blogs using the same theme. (Not the best-looking blog, I admit, but it demonstrates what widgets can do.)

In terms of content, there are so many things one can do with sidebar widgets. Here are some of them and what you can do with them:

• Image: This is one of the latest features of WordPress.com which easily displays an image in your sidebar
• RSS: Fetches the latest entries of your favorite site with RSS feeder
• Top Posts: Excellent for showcasing to your visitors which of your posts receive the most number of views
• Twitter: To display your latest tweets if you have a Twitter account or the latest tweets of your favorite Twitter-er
• Text: This allows you to enter any message like announcements, greetings, etc. on your sidebar

To activate a widget in your sidebar, all you need to do is “drag and drop” it on where you want it to appear. For most linking widgets, for example, RSS or Twitter, like the Recent Posts or Recent Comments widget, you can specify the number of entries you want to display.

Layouting or re-ordering the sequence of your widgets is very easy as well. Simply “drag and drop” your active widgets to where you want them to appear.

Want to remove the widgets? Easy. Open the widget by clicking on its down-arrow button, and press the Remove text link.

Why not try the widgets and give your blog a lift?

Related posts:

1. Experimenting with free and premium WordPress themes
2. A new homepage for PinoyJokes.net
3. Why now is the time to upgrade your WordPress install
4. How to list posts by category
5. Where to download free blog header graphics