![]() You could even add your main navigation menu to a widget area, although this will only work if you have a small navigation menu. The Navigation Menu widget lets you create an custom navigation menu as well as the main navigation menu in your site, and then add that to a widget area. ![]() There are a few options for this: the Categories or Tag Cloud widgets and the Navigation Menu widget. You can also use widgets to encourage people to navigate around your site. This uses the built-in HTML widget in which I’ve included an image, some text and a button that I’ve coded in HTML. ![]() On one of my own sites, I’ve created a call to action widget encouraging people to sign up to my mailing list. Your widget could be a simple button, or you could create something more bespoke using a text widget or HTML widget, or even an image widget, all of which come pre-installed with WordPress. Call to Action WidgetsĪ great use of a widget is to encourage people to take action, and you can do this with a call to action widget. Again, if you want to add extra functionality you can install a third-party comments plugin such as the WP Social Comments widget which lets people comment using their Facebook account: good for social media engagement. The Recent Comments widget comes with WordPress. The Recent Comments widget displays the latest comments on your site, giving visitors the opportunity to navigate straight to those comments and join in the discussion. Want to show visitors how vibrant your site is and how much your audience is engaging with your content? Alternatively, the Advanced Random Posts widget refreshes every time the user visits a new screen. If you want to add extra functionality, you can install a plugin for an alternative widget like WordPress Popular Posts, which displays the most popular content. It lets you set how many posts you want to show and what heading you want to give the widget. The Recent Posts widget comes pre-installed with WordPress. It lets you display a list of your most recent posts in the sidebar or footer of every page on your site, increasing the possibility that people will browse the site and read a number of posts. The Recent Posts widget is possibly the most commonly used widget in blogs. Let’s take a look at eleven types of widget you’ll frequently see on WordPress sites. The best way to understand the possibilities offered by WordPress widgets is by looking at some examples of them. If your theme also has special widget areas for the home page, you might want to use these for navigation around your site’s departments, lists of relevant content, or media such as a video welcoming people to the site. So a latest posts widget or a call to action widget might be better off in the sidebar where people have more chance of interacting with them, while a social media feed could go in the footer. Widgets in the sidebar will be more prominent than those in the footer, which some users may not even see. Think about how many users will need access to each widget and how important it is when you decide where to place it. They’re particularly useful for content you want to show on every page of the site, such as a list of your latest posts, a shopping cart, or a call to action button. You should use a widget whenever you want to add extra content to one or more pages in your site (and when I say page, I include posts, archives etc.), but that isn’t part of the content of that page. In fact, the biggest challenge is often choosing between all the options and not going overboard. There’s very little you might want on your site that you can’t find a widget for. These can cover a vast range of content types, such as media, social media feeds, navigation, search, maps and lots more. But you can also add lots more widgets by installing plugins or coding your own. WordPress comes with a bunch of widgets preloaded so you can use them without having to install any plugins or write any code. The screenshot below, of one of my own sites, shows widgets in the sidebar and footer. Most WordPress themes have widget areas in the sidebar and footer, although some will have multiple widget areas in lots of places, such as below or above the content or in the header. Widget areas are created by your theme because they relate to the design and layout of your site and not to functionality. To add a widget to your site, you need to add it to a widget area. In most cases, each widget will be displayed on every page in the site, but you can also register widget areas for specific pages such as the home page. Widgets contain information, navigation or media that is separate from an individual post or page. In WordPress, widgets are snippets of content that live outside the flow of the page or post content. First, let’s start by identifying what WordPress widgets are.
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