Widgets must be functional to your pages, they must make a useful contribution to those who are reading them, therefore:
- Order: Make sure that all widgets are graphically harmonious and well spaced.
- Importance: put on top those that need to attract attention the most, such as call to action or newsletter subscription forms. Put widgets at the bottom (in the footer) that push the user out of your site, such as social pages or resources with external links.
- Utility: make sure that the user remains on your pages, then also provide useful content to help him continue browsing.
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Let’s start with listing the pre-installed widgets on WordPress that cannot be removed.
- WordPress widget
- Archives
It is the most generic widget, it is used to show the articles contained in a site organized by publication date. Suitable for all journalistic sites or blogs with an important history of inserted news. This is the oldest widget in WordPress!
Recent articles
Do you want to showcase your latest articles, fresh from publication? Here is the ideal solution: you can select the number of posts to show in the widget area, so that they adapt to the length of your pages and choose whether or not to display the publication date.
Calendar
A simple feature useful for enriching any space left empty in the areas dedicated to widgets. It must be said that the default calendar is not the best in functionality, but if you need a more “interactive” calendar you can find many alternative plugins to download, much more customizable and modern.
Categories
This small but powerful widget is perhaps the most loved by any self-respecting WordPress user. In fact, it allows you to collect posts and pages, based on the categories with which they were created. It can be used as a secondary menu and you can decide to show the article count of each category.
Near
Do you have a cooking blog with hundreds of pages? By activating the search box, you will allow each user to find any content that contains the word they are looking for.
Recent comments
- Your site surfers may be interested to see that your pages are teeming with life.
- Thanks to this widget you can allow them to read the latest comments posted in posts.
- Keep in mind that it is good to use it only if you actually have an interacting audience, leaving the only comment received a year ago posted is certainly counterproductive.
Half
It gives the possibility to insert the access links to RSS and WordPress.org. Aesthetically it is not very good and at least it is suitable for an insertion in the footer at the bottom of the page, but it is not used by many.
Pages
- This widget creates a small map of your site, capable of offering an immediate view of all the pages and sub-pages present.
- Even this graphically is not exactly the best, but it could also be useful, in some cases.
RSS
Do you know what RSS or Atom feeds are? By activating this widget you will be able to retrieve all the contents obtained from other sites and blogs. Each time they publish new content, it will appear on your dedicated space.
