If you are an advanced user who has a little coding knowledge you can create your custom widget areas by very simple code.
Basically there two steps you need to take:
- register your custom widget area in functions.php
Here is the code you can use:
<?php $args = array(
'name' => sprintf(__('Sidebar %d'), $i ),
'id' => 'sidebar-$i',
'description' => '',
'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s">',
'after_widget' => '</li>',
'before_title' => '<h2>',
'after_title' => '</h2>' ); ?>
<?php register_sidebar( $args ); ?>
More details on register_sidebar function
- use your already registered custom widget area in a template file
Here is function call example:
<?php dynamic_sidebar( 'Sidebar N' ); ?>
It is not a bad idea to check if the side bar is active (in use):
<?php if ( is_active_sidebar('Sidebar N') ) { .... } ?>
You might want to try a plugin for creating custom widget areas.