WordPress Sidebar Tips To Increase Page Results

1. Use Dynamic Widgets for Sidebar

Use dynamic widgets plugin when you’d like to customize where you want it to display. For example, you may want it to show a widget on only one page in your website but not in other sections. Make sure that your use of widgets aligns with the function of the page. For example, if you have a hotel booking website, you should disable the booking section once your users navigate to your blog section.

2. Build a Custom Sidebar for Each Category

All WordPress themes come with sidebars that are usually the same across all pages of your site. This might be fine for some users, but you may not want each category that you have on your site to have the same sidebar options. If you want to change those display options, you can use custom sidebars plugin to display your own widget configurations on your pages. Build a custom sidebar for each category that you have in your site, and after you assign them, you can start adding widgets.

3. Sticky Sidebar Widgets

There are controllable elements in your sidebar that have been proven to generate high click-through rates and have shown conversion results. One of those elements is the sidebar widget, which can “stick” to a user’s screen as they scroll through your site. After you have identified the widget that you would like to keep stuck, access its options through the plugin that you use and find the setting that lets you ‘fix’ the widget.

4. Opt-in form Email Subscription

Use your sidebar to create opt-in forms that you can use to send marketing content to your subscribers. Email marketing is alive and well and using your sidebar is actually one of the most popular ways used to create and build e-mail marketing lists. You can customize your color and font options and the display of your opt-in message. There are also tons of examples online about how successful and high-converting opt-in forms look like, so you can get inspired and see what might work best for your business.

5.  Dynamic Custom Lists for Posts

Dynamic lists can be used to display posts based on your configuration preferences. For example, you can have your posts listed in alphabetical order, or based on post type or date. You can use plugins to manage your posts and some plugins even come with list templates that help save time and are also customizable.

6. Showcase Your Best Content

Your sidebar should be used to keep people interested – you would be losing business if you have a user visit one page on your site when other content can also be of value to them. Use your sidebar to show the best posts and pages on your site and keep it in the viewer’s frame of sight. Install a plugin that you feel comfortable using the most and which presents you with the option of displaying your best posts in your sidebar.

7. Use Attractive Images

Use the default image widget provided by WordPress to upload your desired image to your page or post, but its important to attract to your audience with it, that it is relevant to your message, and that all your images are of high quality. The content of those images depends on your overall business so make sure that you choose images with the appropriate elements, tone, and subjects to keep people clicking. People are more attracted to images than text, so even if you have an excellent article or product for example, you need images to get people to click on it.

8. Showcase Social Proof

Social proof, such as testimonials, are a powerful tool for businesses with happy customers and they can be showcased with your sidebar. Customers look for reviews, and when your reviews are positive and easily showcased throughout your site, they will generate more sales from new customers who may have been hesitant to try. You can use your sidebar settings for example to showcase a glowing review about your product or service right next to the pricing list of your products.

9. User Engagement Tools

Use tools that motivate and trigger your audience through your sidebar because widgets can be used to measure their interest. You can use a series of engagement tools to monitor the performance of your site and see how your audience is interacting with it, such as adding follow and share buttons. Let’s say you’ve added a video in a widget section and you notice that the majority of your viewers watching the video stop after a certain time, or message. You can then use that insight from your widget to modify and tweak your video at that time frame, and see how people respond.

10. Fade In Last Sidebar Widget

The fade-in effect is a form of animation used by a lot of popular blogs and websites because it has been shown to increase click-through rates and it looks pretty neat! This feature allows the last widget in the sidebar to fade in and will show up as a user scrolls down your site. Fade-in is attractive to the eye, and with the proper font and coloring style, it can lead to more views for your content.

11. Use Custom Styles for Widgets

You can keep the style of your widgets the same, but for a little less redundancy or to highlight the importance of one widget as opposed to another, it’s better to use custom styles and display them differently based on the page or post. For example, a search widget should look different from a category widget or subscription. You can use your customized widget to your advantage when you’d like people to subscribe to your newsletter, and make it look different and more eye-catching than the other forms or fields on your site.

12. Enable Short-codes in Text Widgets

By default, WordPress filters out shortcodes in text widgets. You can easily disable that by adding this single line of code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

add_filter('widget_text','do_shortcode');

We hope this article helped you learn some new WordPress sidebar tricks to get maximum results on your site. You may also want to see our list of 25 most useful WordPress widgets for your site.

13. Setup Double Sidebars

When you have a lot of content or information to display, you can take advantage of having a double sidebar view and organize that content all in one place. For example, sports websites use double sidebars when they have profiles of their athletes, showcasing stats on one side and information on the other. Simply navigate to your dashboard and click on Appearance > Widgets and use the Sidebar 2 setting to create the second sidebar. A double sidebar saves time and groups all of the information you want users to see in one place.

Conclusion

These 13 tips might not all be applicable to you, but you can pick and choose the ones that can help you most based on your business and familiarity with WordPress. Sidebars and widgets are important tools to use when you want to make the most out of your web pages. You don’t have to have a lot of experience to get started on these tips, and always remember that you can make adjustments whenever you would like to your sidebar, so monitor engagement and see what works best for you.