Want your website to be more engaging? Use these best WordPress sidebar plugins to improve functionality and captivate your audience!
A WordPress sidebar is an area on your website that displays supplementary content and widgets alongside your main content. It’s a valuable space to enhance the user experience by providing additional information, navigation options, or interactive elements.
Creating a WordPress sidebar can be challenging as you need coding and a deep understanding of WordPress theme structure. Also, themes have limited sidebar customization options, requiring you to manually edit code to achieve your desired layout and functionality.
However, WordPress sidebar plugins make it easy to create custom sidebars that match your website’s aesthetic.
In this article, we will check 8 easy-to-use WordPress Sidebar Plugins you can consider.
Let’s get started!
What are WordPress Sidebar Plugins?
WordPress sidebar plugins are tools that let you customize the sidebars on your website.
Sidebars are those areas on the sides of your website where you can put extra things like a list of recent popular posts, a built-in search function, contextual-related posts, event calendars, or social media buttons.
These plugins give you more control over what appears in your sidebars and how they look.
You can use them to add functionality to your website, generate leads, make it more engaging, offer additional information, lead visitors toward specific actions, and more.
Best WordPress Sidebar Plugins Compared
| Sl. No. | Plugin | Best For | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Advertisement Banner Widget | Displaying ads & promotions | Free + $39/year |
| 2 | Social Sharing Widget | Encouraging social media sharing | Free + $39/year |
| 3 | Navigation Menu | Creating custom navigation menus | Free + $39/year |
| 4 | Elementor Popup Builder | Building engaging popups | Free + $39/year |
| 5 | Sticky Column Widget | Keeping content fixed while scrolling | Free + $39/year |
| 6 | Mailchimp Subscription Widget | Growing your email list | Free + $39/year |
| 7 | Fuse Social Floating Sidebar | Adding floating social media icons | Free + $29/year |
| 8 | Content Aware Sidebars | Displaying different sidebars based on content | Free + $49/year |
1. Advertisement Banner Widget
The Advertisement Banner widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor provides an easy way to integrate promotional content into your website. With this versatile tool, you can craft visually engaging banners that highlight key offers, showcase products, or generate advertising revenue.
With this widget, you can monetize your website through ad revenue, promote specific products or services, or highlight special offers.
The Advertisement Banner Widget allows you to customize your banners extensively with images, text, buttons, and captivating hover effects. The widget offers a user-friendly interface and a range of pre-designed templates and buttons, making it easy to create banners that align with your brand’s aesthetic.
Key features of the Advertisement Banner Widget
- Versatile Design Options: Customize every aspect of your banners, including images, text, buttons, colors, and fonts.
- Interactive Hover Effects: Engage visitors with captivating hover effects like blur, parallax, and vertical animations.
- Ready-to-Use Templates: Jumpstart your banner creation with 17+ pre-designed templates and customize them to your liking.
Ideal for: The advertisement banner widget works best if you want to monetize your website traffic or feature promotional content prominently. Consider placing this widget above the fold for immediate visibility or interspersed with content widgets to break up text-heavy areas. You can also place it strategically below the navigation menu to catch visitor’s eyes after they have explored the menu.
Pricing of Advertisement Banner Widget
The Advertisement Banner Widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor plugin. You can download the plugin for free from the WordPress repository. It also has pro plans starting from $39/year. The Plus Addons plugin gives you access to 120+ Elementor widgets to improve the look and feel of your site.
2. Social Sharing Widget
The Social Sharing widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor empowers you to effortlessly integrate social media sharing functionality into your WordPress website.
You can boost your content’s visibility and encourage audience engagement by providing visitors with a convenient way to share your articles, pages, or products across their favorite social media platforms.
With this widget, you can add eye-catching social sharing buttons to your website’s design to enhance its functionality and promote organic reach.
The Social Sharing widget allows you to fully customize the appearance and behavior of your social sharing buttons with a wide range of options. You can choose from a variety of button designs to match your website’s aesthetic, display share counts to showcase the popularity of your content, and add follower counts to highlight your social media presence.
Key Features of Social Sharing Widget
- Flexible Layouts: Choose from horizontal, vertical, or toggle layouts to seamlessly integrate social sharing buttons into your design.
- Diverse Styling Options: Customize button styles, colors, and sizes to match your website’s branding.
- Extensive Platform Support:The widget supports over 20 popular platforms, including Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more, ensuring comprehensive coverage for your audience.
Ideal for: This widget is great for blogs, news websites, online stores, and any website that wants to encourage social sharing through the sidebar. You can place it above the fold to maximize visibility or position it prominently after the post title so that users share your posts immediately after the title catches their attention.
Pricing of Social Sharing Widget
The Social Sharing Widget is a premium widget part of The Plus Addons for Elementor, available for $39 per year. This grants you access to a comprehensive suite of 120+ widgets and tools to enhance your website’s functionality and design.
3. Navigation Menu
The Navigation Menu widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor provides a powerful and flexible way to improve your website’s navigation.
You can go beyond the standard WordPress menu options and create visually appealing, dynamic menus that improve user experience and encourage exploration of your site.
This widget empowers you to craft unique menu styles, incorporate interactive elements, and customize the navigation experience to align perfectly with your website’s design and functionality.
With a user-friendly interface and extensive customization options, the Navigation Menu widget allows you to tailor every aspect of your menus.
Choose from various layouts, including vertical, horizontal, and expanded accordion styles, and add icons, images, and custom colors to create visually engaging menus that capture attention and implement smooth animations and hover effects to add a touch of interactivity and enhance user engagement.
Key Features of Navigation Menu
- Theme Compatibility: Works seamlessly with any WordPress theme, providing flexibility and integration.
- Mobile Optimization: Includes a dedicated mobile menu for a responsive and user-friendly experience on all devices.
- Cross-Browser Support: Ensures consistent functionality and appearance across all major web browsers.
Ideal For: It’s perfect for websites that require advanced navigation customization. The widget is typically placed at the top of the sidebar and serves as the primary navigation for visitors. It can also be used to create secondary menus or sub-navigation within the sidebar.
Pricing of Navigation Menu
The Navigation Menu widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor plugin. You can download the plugin for free from the WordPress repository. It also has pro plans starting from $39/year. The Plus Addons plugin gives you access to 120+ Elementor widgets to improve the look and feel of your site.
Want to create stunning menus for your website? Here are the 5 best WordPress menu plugins.
4. Elementor Popup Builder
The Elementor Popup Builder from The Plus Addons provides comprehensive tools for creating and customizing dynamic popups on your WordPress website. You can now get rid of static displays and craft interactive popups with diverse layouts, eye-catching animations, and customizable triggers.
Popups help you capture leads, promote offers, or deliver important information.
The Elementor Popup Builder gives you the flexibility to design popups that match your website’s design and enhance the user experience.
With an intuitive interface and a wealth of customization options, the widget allows you to tailor every aspect of your popups. Choose from various layouts, including modal, slide-in, and corner box styles, to achieve the desired visual impact.
Key Features of Elementor Popup Builder
- Multiple Popup Layouts: Choose from various layouts, including modal, slide-in, corner box, and off-canvas styles.
- Entrance Animation & Triggers: Control how your popups appear with 7 entrance animations and trigger them based on user interactions or page events.
- Popup Display Controls: Fine-tune the display of your popups with options to control width, height, overlay, and closing settings.
Ideal For: Popups are ideal for capturing leads, offering discounts and promotions, and delivering targeted messages. They are typically overlaid on the entire screen. However, within the sidebar, you can trigger smaller popups with additional information, a contact form, or a special offer.
Pricing of Elementor Popup Builder
The Elementor Popup Builder is a part of The Plus Addons for the Elementor plugin. You can download the plugin for free from the WordPress repository. It also has pro plans starting from $39/year. This subscription also gives you access to 120+ other widgets.
5. Sticky Column Widget
The Sticky Column widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor enhances website layouts and user experience by enabling specific columns to “stick” as visitors scroll. This ensures content, like calls to action, navigation menus, or key information, remains consistently visible, even on lengthy pages.
This adds an interactive and modern design element while improving user engagement by continually prompting users to take certain actions and keeping useful elements readily accessible.
This widget offers customization options to fine-tune the sticky behavior. You can control the points where the sticky effect starts and ends and manage the sticky column to control how it overlaps with other page elements.
This level of control ensures perfect integration with your website’s design without overwhelming your users.
Key Features of Sticky Column Widget
- Customizable Top and Bottom Spacing: Define the exact points on your page where the sticky effect begins and ends.
- Adjustable Padding: Control the spacing around the sticky column to fine-tune its appearance.
- Responsive Settings: Enable or disable the sticky effect for different devices (desktop, tablet, mobile) to optimize the experience across various screen sizes.
Ideal For: These are great for highlighting important information, improving navigation accessibility, and creating dynamic layouts on your website. You can use this widget to keep your navigation options, social media buttons, contact forms or call-to-action buttons in view.
Pricing of Sticky Column Widget
The Sticky Column Widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor is part of the Pro version, priced at $39/year. At this price, you also get access to 120+ unique widgets that help enhance your website’s design.
6. Mailchimp Subscription Widget
The Mailchimp Subscription widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor simplifies integrating Mailchimp with your WordPress website. Effortlessly create attractive subscription forms that capture leads and grow your email list.
This widget provides a user-friendly interface and extensive customization options, allowing you to design forms that align with your website’s aesthetic and branding.
With this widget, you can easily configure your Mailchimp API key and list ID, ensuring a smooth connection between your website and your email marketing platform.
Customize form fields, add GDPR compliance checkboxes, and personalize the subscribe button to match your preferences. The widget also offers advanced features like custom response messages, double opt-in configuration, and redirect options, providing complete control over the subscription process.
Key Features of Mailchimp Subscription Widget
- Ready-to-Use Templates: Choose from a variety of pre-designed form templates to quickly create visually appealing subscription forms.
- GDPR Compliance:Ensure data privacy with built-in GDPR compliance features, including consent checkboxes and customizable privacy policies.
- Custom Response Messages:Personalize the user experience with tailored response messages upon successful subscription or form submission.
Ideal For: The Mailchimp Subscription Widget is ideal if you’re looking to grow your email lists, capture leads, and nurture existing customer relationships. You can place it in your sidebar, or above the fold to maximize visibility, below a blog post to encourage engaged readers to stay connected, or complement your call to action with an opportunity to subscribe for updates or exclusive offers.
Pricing of Mailchimp Subscription Widget
Mailchimp Subscription Widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor plugin. You can download the plugin for free from the WordPress repository. It also has pro plans starting from $39/year. The Plus Addons plugin gives you access to 120+ Elementor widgets to improve the look and feel of your site.
Recommended Read: 7 Best MailChimp Plugins for WordPress [Grow Subscribers]
7. Fuse Social Floating Sidebar
Fuse Social Floating Sidebar offers floating social media icons that you can add to your WordPress website. This plugin provides a visually engaging method for displaying social links, encouraging visitors to connect with you on various platforms.
The floating icons remain visible as users scroll, ensuring consistent access to your social media profiles. The plugin also allows for basic customization, enabling you to adjust icon shapes, sizes, and colors to match your website’s aesthetic.
The Fuse Social Floating Sidebar allows you to control the visibility of the icons as users scroll, ensuring they don’t obstruct crucial content on the initial page load.
While it offers these functionalities, the free version has a limited selection of platforms and lacks advanced features like analytics and conditional display settings.
Key Features of Fuse Social Floating Sidebar
- Animated Rotation Effect:Add a dynamic touch to your social icons with an animated rotation effect.
- Control Visibility on Scroll: Choose to reveal social icons only when users scroll down the page, preventing them from obstructing the main content.
- Action Button Feature: Display social icons under an action button, requiring users to click to reveal them.
Ideal For: This widget helps you add visually engaging social media links. It can be placed anywhere on your website and typically appears as an overlay on the side of the screen.
Pricing of Fuse Social Floating Sidebar
Fuse Social Floating Sidebar pricing starts from $29 per year. It offers advanced functionality like custom icons, conditional settings, and analytics.
Want to opt out of using WordPress sidebars? Here’s how to remove the WordPress Sidebar.
8. Content Aware Sidebars
Content Aware Sidebars is a management plugin that allows you to create and manage multiple sidebars on your WordPress website, tailoring their display based on various conditions. This plugin offers granular control over widget visibility, so you can show or hide specific widgets on different pages, posts, categories, or even based on user roles.
While this sidebar plugin for WordPress excels in conditional sidebar management, its design customization options are not as extensive as those offered by some other sidebar plugins.
With Content Aware Sidebars, you can create unique sidebar experiences for different sections of your website for optimal content delivery and user engagement. This plugin provides a user-friendly interface for managing your sidebars and defining display conditions.
Key Features of Content Aware Sidebars
- Extensive Display Conditions: Target specific content with a wide range of display conditions, including post types, categories, authors, taxonomies, and more.
- Schedule and Disable Sidebars: Control the visibility of your sidebars with scheduling options and one-click activation/deactivation.
- Enhanced Widget Manager: Enjoy a user-friendly widget management experience with live search and a split-screen interface.
Ideal For: It is perfect for creating dynamic sidebars to tailor content delivery. The plugin helps you manage and fully control where your sidebars appear, which means you can place them based on your specific requirements.
Pricing of Content Aware Sidebars
The pro plans of Content Aware Sidebars start from $49 per year.
Want to make your website more navigable? Choose from these 7 best WordPress search plugins.
Do you Manage WordPress Websites? Download Our FREE E-Book of 20+ Checklist for WordPress Site Maintenance.
Wrapping Up
That sums up our guide on the best WordPress sidebar plugins.
With the right WordPress sidebar widget, you can improve the user experience on your website by providing relevant information and simplifying navigation to guide visitors seamlessly through your site and keep them engaged.
Instead of installing multiple plugins that might slow down your website, install a comprehensive plugin like The Plus Addons for Elementor that bundles several sidebar widgets you may need into a single package.
With The Plus Addons for Elementor, you get access to over 120+ Elementor widgets including the first six sidebar widgets mentioned on this list.
The Plus Addons give you immense design freedom. Customize your sidebar’s appearance with various options to match your brand identity and create a visually appealing experience.
Check out the Complete List of 120+ Widgets and Extensions here. Start building your dream website without coding!
Enjoy a lightweight, performance-focused plugin that enhances both the functionality and aesthetics of your website.
FAQs on WordPress Sidebar Plugins
Do WordPress sidebar plugins impact website performance?
Yes, sidebar plugins for WordPress can impact your website’s performance, especially if you use plugins that are poorly optimized, as they can make your website’s code bulky. To ensure minimal performance impact, use lightweight plugins like The Plus Addons for Elementor, which are optimized for speed and performance.
Are sidebar plugins compatible with page builders like Elementor and Gutenberg?
Yes, more WP sidebar widgets and plugins are compatible with major page builders like Elementor and Gutenberg. Check the plugin’s documentation or support forum for compatibility information.
Is it ok to use multiple WordPress sidebar plugins simultaneously?
It’s technically possible, but it’s generally not recommended. Multiple sidebar plugins can lead to conflicts, performance issues, and unexpected behavior. If you need multiple functionalities, try finding a single plugin like The Plus Addons for Elementor that offers a comprehensive solution for your WordPress sidebar needs with several custom widgets.
Are WordPress sidebar plugins compatible with all WordPress themes?
Most reputed WordPress sidebar plugins are designed to work with a wide range of WordPress themes. However, some themes might have unique sidebar configurations or styling that could cause compatibility issues. Use sidebar plugins that are frequently updated and offer easily accessible customer support to avoid running into compatibility issues.
Is it possible to generate leads through website sidebar?
Yes, you can strategically place opt-in forms, calls to action, or contact forms within your sidebar to generate leads. Sidecars can help you place forms to generate leads without disrupting the main content on your page. Offer valuable incentives like free ebooks, exclusive content, or discounts to encourage lead generation.
Which WordPress sidebar widgets are highly recommended?
Some highly recommended WordPress sidebar widgets are those that allow you to create eye-catching advertisement banners to generate revenue, social sharing buttons for increased visibility, user-friendly navigation menus for easy exploration, relevant pop-ups for ongoing promotions, and sticky columns to keep key content in view as visitors scroll.
What features should I look for in a sidebar plugin?
A good sidebar plugin should be user-friendly and offer extensive customization options. Look for features like creating multiple sidebars, display-specific sidebars based on content, and widget control. Apart from this, look for a comprehensive plugin like The Plus Addons for Elementor, which gives you a variety of widgets.
Can I add social media icons to my WordPress sidebar?
Yes, you can add social media icons to your WordPress sidebar by using widgets such as the Social Sharing widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor. Social media icons in your sidebar allow you to boost brand visibility, drive traffic to your social media pages, and build community by connecting with your audience.
