WordPress Site Search – Templates and Widgets Determine Where You Can Add a Site Search Field
Top of the Page in a Sidebar Widget is the Usual Placement for Site Search
Concept and Steps to Add Site Search
WordPress Site Search.
WordPress Site Search Field can be added to a widget in the upper right if you are using the Default Template that has a blog style with a sidebar. Often the social media Follow Us buttons are also added in a widget somewhere near the top of the sidebar.
WordPress Site Search can be added to the sidebar in Theme Twenty Twelve but If you are using the Front Page Template which does not have a sidebar you could only add the Site Search to one of the bottom widgets. If you use the Front Page Template then you can choose to use a Default Template which has a sidebar for the other pages.
This means the Front Page would have a standard website look and feel with a full width page including perhaps a Featured Image and two bottom widgets.
Visitors would need to land on one of the other pages which used the Default Template and had a Site Search added by using a widget. This would happen if they were using keyword searches that brought them to one of the articles instead of to the homepage.
One approach is to use a Front Page Template for the Homepage and then use Default Templates for the rest of the site.
Another approach is to use the Default Template for the Homepage so there will be a sidebar for adding widgets.
Steps to Add Site Search:
- Go Appearance in the Dashboard
- Go to Widgets
- Drag a Site Search Widget over to one of the available Widget areas in the Sidebar.
Please see the articles on Page Templates Choices and Static Homepages on this site for more details and steps on those subjects.
Basically you will need to decide whether to use a Front Page Template or a Default Page Template. The Front Page Template is useful with a static front page. This provides a page that will not change.
The Front Page Template does not have a place near the top for social media icons or a site search icon. The main purpose of this template is to get new visitors to the homepage to focus on important content that you wish to present to them. It can be thought of as a type of landing page. The idea is to keep it very simple, clean, uncluttered.
This way the visitors have a limited number of visuals and choices so distractions are minimal. If you wish to help direct their path to specific links to other parts of the site, for instance to special tutorials, then you can do it here.