21 Essential Wordpress Widgets in 2021
Wordpress powers more than 40% of all websites on the internet. That is more than Shopify and Squarespace!
Widgets were created to make it easier for people to quickly create their websites without spending time coding and programming. I mean, who wants to do that when you can spend your time selling your product.
In this post, I’m featuring the top 21 essential and easy to use widgets for wordpress.
1. RSS.app - Auto-Updated News and Content
If you want to keep your users updated with the latest news and product launches, then you need News Feeds. Customize your feed in a beautiful layout to catch the attention of your visitors. Adding a News Wall is great for adding auto-updated news feeds and you don't need to know cany code!
Adding social sharing buttons, and changing the card layout are just a few of the many customizations available. You can also embed RSS widgets to your wordpress website and showcase top sports widgets as well. There’s really a lot you can do with News Wall which make it a great widget to add to your website.
2. Elementor - Page Builder
The Elementor widget makes designing your website super easy. It has all the design components you can possibly need when building your website. They advertise a live design and it really is because you are editing your website directly by dragging the desired components onto the page. This widget also doesn’t require knowing any coding.
3. Hubspot - Create Forms
Creating forms and newsletters is something Hubspot does well. Their responsive newsletters are great for managing your business and your contacts. It automates your business newsletters and marketing campaigns as well as provides free live 24/7 chat bots.
4. Yoast - SEO
To rank higher with Google’s algorithm, you need to improve your website’s SEO. Yoast SEO helps do this. They optimize your title tags and your meta description. They also provide XML sitemaps that help Google crawl your website better, and improve the loading time of your website. Their premium features help bring your website to the right visitors which is great for business!
5. Social Media Share Buttons - Social Sharing
What do you do when you see something you like? You share it! Social sharing buttons are a must on websites. They help get your content out there for visitors to view. This widget has more than 200 unique designs that guarantee more shares. They even support tons of social networks.
6. Disqus - Comments
Adding comments to your posts is an easy way to increase user engagement with your content. Disqus makes it easy to integrate their system into Wordpress. They make commenting very interactive by allowing your visitors to comment videos, emojis, mentions and photos. You can even moderate and filter comments in a moderation panel.
7. Adsanity - Ads
Ads can help bring in revenue to your website. Adsanity helps you manage the types of ads you show and place them anywhere on your website. You can monitor the statistics on how many clicks your ad got or how many people viewed the ad. Customize your ad and release it to a targeted audience or on specific pages of your site.
8. Backup buddy - Backup your Website
Backing up your wordpress website is very important in case something goes wrong. It is crucial that this is done or you can potentially lose all of your data and your website. Since Wordpress doesn't have a way to backup your website, BackupBuddy does it for you. They schedule automatic backups, store them in the Cloud, and restore them when needed.
9. The Events Calendar - Manage Events
Managing your events is now easier than ever with this widget. It allows you to create events and share them with your customers. This widget is great for small businesses and community organizations. They have many features that you can add to your calendar that make your schedule a lot less hectic.
10. Widget manager - Organize widgets
This widget is used to add pages or posts to your website at specific times of the day. You can organize your content by assigning specific posts to be displayed to certain users. For example, I can embed Tweets to my website and have my Tweet about Newsfeeds be displayed to my visitors located in Australia who only use Google Chrome.
11. Mailchimp- Engage subscribers
Wordpress is all about selling. This is why MailChimp is a great widget to incorporate into your website. You can sync your subscribers to your audience and set up automated emails to inform your customers about new products. Using this widget is a great way to engage more with your audience.
But Wait…. There's more Wordpress Widgets!
12. Ninja popups- Add Popups
Put pop up windows inside your website. These are great for getting your visitors to sign up to newsletters, emails, or product releases. Pop ups are also great for getting your visitors to sign up for coupon codes. They even have analytics to see how each pop up attracts various visitors!The best part is that this widget has integrations that you can link with Mailchimp, Hubspot, and even social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.
13. Cryptocurrency Widgets - Price Widgets
It's no secret that crypto is on the rise and everyone wants a piece of the action. With this widget, you can display the most recent price list and coin list of different currencies. Create multiple widgets that can display real time updates.
14. Translate Press - Translate your Website
Making sure visitors from any country can read the content on your website is very important. For this reason, you need to get a widget that can translate your website into any language. Translate press is an easy to use widget that can translate your entire page directly on the front-end. It is compatible with any theme or plugin and can even integrate with Google Translate.
15. Simple Weather - Display Weather
If you have a wordpress website that sells clothing or a travel blog, displaying weather is a good widget to include. Your customers and readers will enjoy seeing what the weather is in different areas around the world. It’s super easy to customize and available in 17 languages.
16. WooCommerce - Create Storefronts
WooCommerce is actually the world’s most popular eCommerce platform. It is open source, meaning you own all the data and content. It has built in themes and great customizations that allow you to sell your products to anyone. With a very easy set up, you eliminate the hassle of finding someone to program your website for you. They even have a marketing hub that integrates extensions to market your store.
17. XML Sitemaps - Create Sitemaps
Sitemaps really help improve SEO by helping search engines like Google and Bing index your site. The point of SEO is to have your website be on the first page and preferably one of the first few results. That way visitors can select your website and buy your products, or subscribe to your newsletter. This widget really is a lifesaver and it even has more than 2 million installations!
18. Redirection - Manage Redirects
Getting an error when you click on a website sucks which is why Redirection is very popular. They help you manage errors and improve the ranking of your website. You don't even need any server knowledge. Redirect users to another webpage or track where your 404 errors are. Best of all, it’s free to use!
19. Cookie Notice - Compliance Widget
Making sure your website is in compliance with government privacy laws is extremely important. Cookie Notice helps you easily embed a banner that features a privacy page and a cookie notice. You can customize these templates according to your website. GDPR is also featured along with CCPA notices.
20. Site Kit - Google Analytics
Site Kit is Google’s official wordpress widget. You get all of Google’s tools like Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed, and AdSense on your website. This is the most useful tool you can get with a very easy setup. Your Wordpress website will have the most important tools you need for growth.
21. Broken Link checker- Checks Broken Links
This widget monitors all the links on your website to see if they are valid. If a link is not valid, you are given the ability to edit the link and fix it. This helps your Wordpress website increase SEO and helps you bring traffic to your website.
These are the 21 essential Wordpress widgets we found. To learn more about RSS widgets, sign up for a free trial at RSS.app. We promise, we don't require credit cards to sign up!