Are you looking for the best WordPress plugins for your site’s sidebar and widgets?
Most website owners use sidebars primarily for two purposes:
- Draw the user’s attention to something important, like a “Sign Up” form.
- Include information on the website that would otherwise not be included.
That said, there are plenty of ways to get creative with these areas to improve user experience, add SEO elements, and make your site design more appealing.
Check out how WPBeginner uses its sidebar to draw user attention to lead magnets and social profiles.
Now, WordPress themes usually come with custom sidebar layouts and widgets. However, if you’re looking for more options, there are tons of WordPress plugins that will help you with that.
We’ve been building successful websites for a long time, and we almost always include a sidebar. Over the years, we’ve tested a long list of sidebar plugins and widgets. In this guide, we’re going to share with you the best ones that you’ll actually need for your site.
Let’s get started.
Choosing the Best WordPress Sidebar and Widget Plugins
Here are some common examples of WordPress sidebars and widgets that you can add to your website:
- Instant Navigation: Displays links to important pages on your website making it easier for users to navigate your content.
- Search Bar: Give users easy access to your search bar to help them quickly find what they’re looking for.
- Contact Form: A contact form widget allows users to quickly get in touch with you. You can add this widget to your sidebar, footer, or any widget-ready area of your WordPress website.
- Email Opt-in: Get users to subscribe to your marketing emails.
- Contests and Giveaways: Make your site interactive and exciting by hosting a giveaway.
- Banner ads: Promote ads from brands related to your niche and make money online .
- Maps: Show users where your stores or offices are located.
- Customer Testimonials: Build customer trust with testimonials and reviews.
Now that you know some of the ways you can use your sidebar, let’s dive into the list of the best WordPress sidebar and widget plugins.
We are going to show you 2 WordPress builders that allow you to add and customize sidebars and widgets. Next, we will show you the different WordPress plugins that are best for adding more costa rica phone number library elements to your sidebar and other widgetized areas of your site.
1st SeedProd
SeedProd is without a doubt the how to install a wordpress plugin – 4 methods (step by step) best WordPress sidebar and widget builder plugin. By installing the plugin on your site, you get to activate a pre-made theme template kit or you can create your own design.
The kits come with widgets that are already responsive, so they will look good on all user devices. Plus, you can make any changes and customizations you need without any code (no CSS, PHP, or Javascript required).
Now, let’s take a look at what it looks like inside the SeedProd builder. Here is the dashboard where the sidebar can be accessed as a standalone layout.
Clicking on
it will open the dedicated sidebar manager with a drag and drop page builder where you can start designing your sidebar. On the left, there is a task bar where you can add new widgets and other elements.
All you have to do is select it and drag it into your design, then drop it wherever you want it to appear. It’s that easy.
In the example above, we have added a virgin islands send subscription form to our sidebar. Here you can explore more elements and blocks including payment buttons, contact forms, countdown timers, social profiles, progress bar, testimonials, and more.
You can also add blocks of posts and pages and filter them by category, author, tags, and taxonomies. This way, you can display specific posts or pages in your sidebar.
If you scroll down the left menu, you’ll find a section dedicated to widgets. Here you can add widgets like pages, calendar, files, audio, gallery, search, text, recent posts, categories… and the list goes on!
This plugin integrates with popular plugins like WPForms , RafflePress , OptinMonster , and more, so you can add widgets from third-party plugins easily. It’s also compatible with online store plugins like WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads, so it’s easy to add eCommerce options to your sidebar, too.
SeedProd is so feature-rich that it is the only sidebar plugin you will ever need for your WordPress site.
Get started with SeedProd here ”
2. Thrive Topics
Thrive Themes is the best theme builder for WordPress, but it also comes with a suite of conversion-focused tools that can help boost engagement, leads, and sales for your site.
You can choose from theme designs and page templates that already have a sidebar. This makes it much easier to design your sidebar and customize it later as well as when you need to change things.
Next, you’ll see a navigation panel to customize different areas of your site. If you want to make changes to the footer, simply select it here and you’ll be able to start editing that area. You can also choose to show/hide a certain area, such as your new sidebar. This is great for temporary changes, testing, and troubleshooting.
Within Thrive Builder, you can change things like height and width, typography, layout and position, background, borders, and more.
What we love about Thrive is that you can decide what happens on scroll, so you can make your sidebar elements static or dynamic. You can even add animation effects to these elements to give your site a more dramatic look.
If you use other Thrive tools, such as the lead generation tool , quiz builder , and online course builder , there is a widget library for all of their tools.
Just drag and drop it wherever you want it to appear on your site.
Now that you know how to create a stunning dynamic sidebar, let’s take a look at the best WordPress sidebar and widget plugins.
3. WPForms
WPForms is the most beginner-friendly WordPress form builder plugin that comes with a custom form widget for your sidebar and other widget areas. First of all, you can create any form you want like contact , registration, login, signup forms, and surveys.
So WPForms makes it easy to add these forms anywhere you need. You can find the readymade WPForms block inside the Gutenberg editor (block) and other popular builders like SeedProd and Elementor .
So in the block editor, you can add a new block, search for ‘WPForms’ and add it to any page or post in WordPress.