Newer version of this article is available: Widgetizing pages in WordPress can be even easier and faster.
Have you ever wanted to drop some widgets in a page content area or build the entire page using widgets?
This is now a very simple thing to do and requires no coding knowledge.
The Sidebar & Widget Manager for WordPress is now equipped with Easy column interface for Widgetizing Pages. This means that you are now able to create your custom page layout in as many rows and columns as you like and add as many sidebars (widget areas) in the columns as you like.
Bellow we will go through the process of widgetizing a page in WordPress:
Widgetizing a page – overview video
1. Create sidebars (widget areas)
You can create as many sidebars (widget areas) as you need in just few clicks.
Go to Sidebars and Widgets -> Add Sidebar. Fill in the name of the sidebar, make it active, choose horizontal or vertical widget alignment and save.
2. Create a new page
Create a new page: Pages -> Add new
3. Create page layout
Bellow the editor of your new page you will find a metabox called: Sidebar & Widget Manager – Widgetize page. This is where you create your page layout before you insert the sidebars (widget areas).
Click on “Inser Row”. A lightbox will open. Select the number of columns for that row from the dropdown. Then select the type of columns you want to have.
Create as many rows as you need the way described above.
4. Insert sidebars
Now when you have the column layout set up for your page you can go ahead and insert sidebars (widget areas) in those columns.
Click on “Add Sidebar” for each separate column. A lightbox will open. Select the sidebar you want to insert from the dropdown menu. Click insert.
Insert sidebars in each column the way described above.
5. Drop widgets in
Now when you have the sidebars set in the page content area go ahead and drop some widgets in.
Go to Appearance -> Widgets. Find the sidebars that you just inserted in your page and drop widgets in.
Widgets should now appear in your page content area.