In WordPress, widgets are blocks that are dedicated to making a specific function on your website available. Depending on the WordPress theme that you are using, widgets could be added in all sorts of locations around your website. To achieve that, some themes have more widget areas than others.
In short:
- A widget area is a container for various types of content
- A widget, on the other hand, is a smaller container that is dedicated to a particular function
As we mentioned, some themes are adding extra widget areas on top of the default number that WordPress has. Those extra widget areas could be on the home page, a particular post type, etc.
Generally, the widget areas that you’ll have by default are the Sidebar, and one to four-footer widget areas.
Not only widget areas, but widgets as well could be added by a theme or a plugin. Some of the default WordPress widgets are Categories, Tag cloud, Search, etc.
Some WordPress Widgets offer customization and options such as forms to fill out, including or excludes data and information, optional images, and other customization features.
To add or edit widgets to your website, you need to go to Appearance -> Widgets. Once there, you can easily drag and drop the widgets you want to add or remove.