Best Free Widgets for WordPress –

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In this article I am going to explain some of the best free widgets that you can use for your website.

The number of widgets that exist is enormous and each one of them solves a different need, but today I want to present you with a list of the 9 + 1 best that I recommend for one of the most popular CMS today.

Let’s see them!

What is a widget

But before we start with the list of widgets, we need to understand .

Widgets are small blocks with various functionalities that can be placed in different parts of the web. They can be placed in the sidebars, footer or even, depending on the template, anywhere else on the web.

Widgets allow you to add blocks of text, images, links, menus and other content on the web in a quick and easy way to edit.

Widgets are managed from the WordPress Appearance > Widgets menu. WordPress has a few default widgets, some quite useful like the Navigation menu either Categories.

On the left are all the available widgets and on the right the areas where they can be placed. Depending on the template (or theme) that we use, we will have more or less enabled areas.

The operation is simple and consists of clicking on the widget that we choose and drag it to the area where we want it to be displayed. Once it is displayed there, we will configure it and press the “Save” button of the widget itself.

Widgets can be used as many times as you want and in any area. In addition, they can be arranged within each zone by clicking and dragging the widget, or change the zone.

If you go to and would like to add a widget area somewhere that the theme does not allow it by default, here you can see how.

There are also some visual layouts that use widgets in the composition of the pages, such as Page Builder by SiteOriginwhich allows you to place widgets almost anywhere on the web.

And how are widgets installed? Widgets are part of plugins. Some plugins only contain widgets and other plugins offer widgets as one more functionality within everything they offer (for example, an events plugin that adds a widget with a calendar).

So to search for and install widgets we will do it the same as with plugins.

List of the 9 + 1 best free widgets for WordPress

First of all, I have to say that I actually name quite a few more than 9 widgets, but some are variants of the same thing and others are part of a single plugin, so I haven’t counted them.

For the list of free widgets I have based myself on the needs that the widget covers. In many cases with a couple of widgets we can solve many of the basic needs. I have ordered them from most generic to most specific. Let’s see them!

WordPress by default has two widgets to enter text and custom HTML. Although he is improving them, they fall a little short when it comes to options.

This widget offers us a text editor like the one for blog posts, with which we can use titles, images, align texts, change colors and other editor options.

As with the previous widget, WordPress already has an image widget, but it could be better. With this widget we will have more control over the image regarding size, alignment, link to another page or external link by opening it on a new page.

This widget works great for advertising banners, logos, or the like.

This widget not only shows the latest blog posts, but also any post type (portfolio, for example).

It has a lot of customization, you can exclude the sticky posts, skip a certain number of posts, show the excerpt and also show the thumbnail of the featured image, something that greatly improves the presentation.

We also have the plugin, with the same configuration options but with various presentation formats, highlighting the most recent entry.

If instead of a list with the latest entries we want to show them as a slider, nothing is simpler than the plugin post slider widget.

The only thing you have to enter is the title and the category where to show the entries (by default all categories) and it will show the images with their title. The speed between slides and the transition is automatic and cannot be changed, but the result is still very good.

And if you are still not convinced by any of the previous widgets, you can choose to display them in tabs with the plugin WP Tab widget. The available tabs are Recent Posts, Popular Posts, Comments, and Tags. They also show the post thumbnail among other features.

Being accessible on social networks is essential today and it is important that users who access our website know where to find you. With this widget we will show the icons with our social networks linked to the different profiles so that they can easily reach us and with a bit of luck follow us.

The widget is very complete since it allows you to customize the icons of the social networks in terms of position, size, separation, colors and decide the order in which they are displayed.

If you have an Instagram account and want to display its content on your website, this widget makes it very easy. You only need to know the name of the account or the hastag. You select the number of images to display, the columns and maximum size and how often you have to reload the content.

It also includes a button to follow you.

With this plugin you can connect with your Facebook account. For it to work you will need to create an app ID (it has a link that takes you to your account to create it). Once you put the ID on your configuration page, you will be able to use the widget.

The widget has quite a few customization options. The first thing you will have to enter is the url of the page you want to display. And then a series of options to show or not content.

Completing the social networks part we have this widget to show twitter. This plugin has a settings page where you fully customize the widget.

To be able to use it, you must first connect it with your twitter account. It’s easier than with Facebook, you just have to press a button to connect by entering your access data.

On the contrary, it has more configuration options and is only in English. You can show the tweets of your account or a hastag, the number of tweets to show and how often you have to search for new content on twitter.

You will use the other sections to layout it according to what you want to show and with what colors. Once you have everything, in the widgets you will only have to add it wherever you want.

This widget allows you to display information about your company such as address, phone, contact page, email and hours. It also includes the Google map.

This widget is very useful in the footer, the usual space for this type of information. The plugin has a previous page where all the data is filled. Then in the widget the fields that we want to show are marked.

So far I have shown you individual widgets to solve specific needs. This plugin is a pack of widgets designed to be used mainly with the visual layout Page Builder by SiteOrigin but almost all of them can also be used in the Appearance > widgets section of your WordPress.

Once installed, the first thing we have to do is configure the plugin to activate the widgets we want to use. There are over 20 widgets, which is pretty cool.

The settings are found in the Plugins > SiteOrigin Widgets menu.

Reviewing them above, the first thing to say is that there are some that perform the same functions as other widgets on the list, such as the SiteOrigin Publisher, Image from SiteOrigin (you have the option to add a title above or below the image), SiteOrigin Post Carousel either SiteOrigin Social Media Buttons (with more layout options).

Now let’s see the most outstanding of the new widgets:

• • SiteOrigin Accordion: This layout mode is widely used in frequently asked questions, where several questions are listed and clicking on one displays the answer.

• • Site Origin Features. This widget allows us to make a composition combining an icon with a title, a description and a link to “See more”. An example of use could be a store where we put “Secure payment”, “Free shipping” and ” Money back guarantee”, each with an icon and a link to the page where the conditions of each one are explained.

• • SiteOrigin Tabs. It allows us to display information in horizontal tabs, making it a very useful widget. We can customize the colors of the container, the tab title and the information panels. As each tab has a complete text editor, we can enter any type of content.

• • Carousel SiteOrigin. I like this widget a lot because it allows you to add an image slider (carousel) anywhere on the web without the need to create a previous gallery, or with complicated configurations as most plugins of this type usually have. You can add links in the images and layout navigation controls. It even allows you to add videos.

• • SiteOrigin Image Grid. This widget is more basic than the previous one, it allows you to place the images by defining the image size and the maximum size. The images are distributed horizontally until they don’t fit anymore and they are placed below. The images are shown centered and with a separation that we can also define.

• • Site Origin Google Maps. Enter the Google map with the location of your company, you can enter several markers or even a route with start and destination. You have many configuration options, from the zoom for desktop or mobile, the marker icon or the style of the map.

• • SiteOrigin Contact Form. It is one of the most complete that I have seen that allows you to create a contact form directly from the widget. Of course, it has many layout options that may seem excessive, but from experience I know that in the end the plugins that do not offer so many options end up showing a form that does not look much like the rest of the web, and you have to take care of the details.

    This widget allows you, apart from configuring the email, the automatic response and the fields to use, layout both the form container and the labels, the fields and the buttons, the size of the texts, the error messages and even put protection on it anti-spam with recaptcha or akismet.

• • SiteOrigin Video Player. This widget will allow us to display videos hosted on our website and external videos, such as YouTube or Vimeo. It’s very simple and the…