Widgetize your Wordpress theme
If you want to use widgets on your Wordpress theme, then these are the steps you should take:
1) Create a file functions.php in your theme directory. Add this to the file
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar();
?>
register_sidebar();
?>
2) Open your sidebar.php file and add this somewhere in the ul-list defintion
|| !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>