Widgets can add a lot of positive to your site. They can also add too much negative value to your site, if you’re not careful. There are some basic design considerations that you should take into picture when you’re working with widgets that will make your site more easy to use and user friendly to enhance the experience of your valuable readers.
Points to check what your site holds on?
Functionality – Your widgets should add something useful to your site. Some widgets allow you to add feeds from other sites, some allow you put image gallery there, some allow you to add your social account updates there in your sidebars very easily. There are many more functionalities provided by widgets that you can take advantage of. This can lead to a kitchen sink approach to web design, however, where there are some many widgets on your page that people simply don’t look at them because it’s too much to take in.
With the help of your own sidebar widget user can attract the readers to any specific important page. With the widgets one can also share his/her other niche blogs and friends’ blogs he might like, by adding such widget user can give a more personal and authentic touch to his site. Use of heavy widgets can also also make your site slow which is not a good SEO practice. Take a look at some of the largest sites out there and you’ll find many of them that have their sidebars so full of widgets.
The Look – When your page looks crowded and stuffed with too much graphics, use less add-ons and ads people will start to ignore the content. And the only thing which is responsible for this cruel act is over optimization with lack of knowledge. This can have some serious implications for your site. For instance, if you’re trying to get people to send their email address and name in a lead capture form on your sidebar, you’re going to have a tough time of it if there’s so much content stuffed into that sidebar that they’re disinclined to look closely enough to find the form.
Make sure your widgets flow well aesthetically speaking and that it’s easy to tell one from the next. Widgets with similar functions can also be grouped together to make things easier. For instance, having a widget form that allows people to enter contact information right next to your own contact information on the sidebar makes good sense.
Professional WordPress templates have such widgets bundled with them. By using those templates user can reduce his work load and save his time for gathering more technical knowledge for future.
