Setting up your own website is easier than ever before. There are dozens of great platforms, but when it comes to building your website, it is of course a little more complex.
There’s so much to consider when building your site, whether it be for eCommerce, a portfolio, a news site, a blog, or any other niche. And when it comes to adding widgets to them, there are many to choose from.
But what are the must-have widgets on a website? Here are the top 5 widgets that one should consider having on their platform.
Click to Call Widget
It’s more than likely that no matter what your website is designed for, it will require people to get in touch with you. Contact pages are of course a must, but to make life easier for users click-to-call widgets are also handy.
For instance, Duda is a website builder that offers a click-to-call widget for businesses to add to their site. This is particularly useful for small businesses. According to the company;
“Most small business owners look forward to calls from potential customers, so it should be a top priority to facilitate as many as possible from the website. Click-to-call widgets usually take the form of big, thumb-friendly buttons that enable a visitor to call a business in just one click. This widget is great at getting attention and driving customer leads.”
The Share Widget
As well as getting in touch with you, you ideally want users to be sharing your content and spreading the word. A good way to do this is the ability to share directly through your website to social media like Facebook and Twitter.
Most businesses will have social channels in which they look to engage with potential consumers, and this lets users do a similar job for you. By adding share buttons, people can directly share links to that specific page and encourage click-throughs with their own followers. It’s a useful way to increase brand awareness, as well as creating trust, and in turn more traffic.
Map Widget
You can add a map widget on most platforms, from the likes of DudaFlex to WordPress and they are easy to add in. They are often used on homepages or contact pages for businesses to show their locations, and it certainly adds more context than a simple address on the screen.
However, they are also useful for several other reasons. You can visually showcase where an event is being held, where a meet-up is to occur, and other reasons like showing useful information on Wi-Fi hotspots or food outlets.
Accordion Widget
If your website is going to be information-heavy, it can sometimes look quite clunky on a page if its design isn’t user-friendly. It can reduce the time on a page from a user significantly as lots of text can be incredibly overwhelming. There are ways around this though and an accordion widget is one of the best ways. This will essentially hide parts of the content, showing only the title, which users can then click to open up the information.
Accordions are particularly useful for the following:
- FAQs
- Step-by-step instructions
- Contact information
- Guides
Animation Widgets
Animations are useful for grabbing user’s attention and pointing them in the right direction. Using animations is much more engaging than standard text or imagery and they can add real value.
Animation widgets are the best way to implement these without getting too technical in the back end of your design. In many cases, you can choose from thousands of animations, as well as changing their colors and other features. Depending on what your website is designed for, you can find formal or more fun animations, and if you select the right ones for your target audience, they can be hugely effective.
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