How to add custom Widget areas for 3 column Footer

This tutorial goes over how to add new widget areas in our WordPress theme to use in the footer. We use these widget areas to make a 3 column layout in our WordPress theme footer.

Add widget areas to footer

  1. Go into inc/widgets.php and duplicate the sidebar widget area for the 3 new footer widget areas. Your widgets.php file should look like the following:

  2. Edit the footer.php file to include the new footer widget areas. Your footer.php file should look like the following:

  3. From the Dashboard, go to Appearance -> Widgets and add widgets to the new Footer areas to verify everything is working.