What is a Sidebar in WordPress?

A sidebar is commonly a vertical section on the left or right side of the page, holding menus and other handy widgets. Depending on your theme, one can also sit in the header or footer. That's because in classic themes, a sidebar technically means any widget area the theme registers, wherever the theme places it. The name is a holdover from when widget areas normally ran down one side of a blog, and most themes show the same sidebar on every page and post.

Editing a sidebar in classic and block themes

How you edit a sidebar depends on your theme type. On a classic theme, go to Appearance > Widgets in your WordPress dashboard (or Appearance > Customize > Widgets) and add, remove, or rearrange the widgets in each area.

Block themes, part of WordPress since version 5.9 in January 2022, have no Widgets screen at all. Instead of widgets, they rely on blocks. Open the Site Editor under Appearance > Editor and edit the sidebar directly in the relevant template; the official Learn WordPress lesson builds one as a Columns block in the Single Post template. Our Full-Site Editor entry explains how template editing works.

Not sure which type you're running? Open Appearance in your dashboard: a Widgets item means a classic theme, and an Editor item means a block theme.

When to use a sidebar (and when to skip one)

Use a sidebar for secondary content that serves repeat visitors on a content-heavy site, such as:

• Navigation menus and category links
• Recent or popular posts
• A search bar
• Social media profiles
• An email signup form
• Ads

Skip it on landing pages and other conversion-focused pages: a full-width layout keeps attention on a single call to action, and many modern block themes leave the sidebar out by default (Twenty Twenty-Two's post template ships without one). Never make a sidebar the only home of anything critical, either. On phones, most responsive themes stack the sidebar below the main content, so mobile visitors only reach it after scrolling past the entire post.