9 Types of Web Widgets You Can Put on Your Website
Integrating a web widget is an easy way to enhance your site’s functionalities. And when we say easy, we really mean it. You don’t need a web developer or any special skills to do it. You just grab a peace of code and paste it.
Basically, web widgets are third-party applications that you embed on your website. They come in many different forms, such as calendars, forms, converters and many more. Usually, you need to go to the prover’s website, configure your widget, copy your code and paste it on your website. That’s it!
Integrating a web widget is now also available on Oxxy Website Builder too. You just need to use our HTML element and paste your code inside.
To give you some ideas on how to use our new tool, we have made this collection of best widgets to embed on your website
Email marketing
Email marketing is very popular among small and medium businesses. Using a third-party widget you can put a signup form on your website and collect emails.
MailChimp is one of the most popular tools for the purpose. It lets you collect emails, create templates, send newsletters, etc. By signing for a MailChimp account, you will be able to create a custom signup form that you can embed on your website. After that the emails you collect will be automatically imported into MailChimp and you won’t need to do it manually.
Other email marketing tools also offer custom signup forms. You can also try Campaign Monitor, for example.
Custom Forms
Many website owners want to interact in some way with their visitors. For example, you may want to collect some data from a survey, create employment applications or whatever else you can think of. An easy way to do it is using Wufoo. The tool lets you build your own form and customize it.
The tool also offers a free plan, which is great for people that need it for a limited time or just don’t want to pay.
There are other alternatives to Wufoo you can also check out, such as Google Docs, JotForm or FormSite.
Ecommerce
Yes, you can put an online store in any website. Perhaps the most popular ecommerce widget is Ecwid. The tool offers a free plan and lets you create and manage an online store that you can embed on your own website.
One alternative to Ecwid is Etsy that also has embedding functionality. And if you want to sell digital goods, such as music, ebooks or any other download, you can try Sellfy or Gumroad.
Testimonials
Putting testimonials on your site is a great way to boost trust in your business. Of course, you can design them yourself and include them on your site, but if you are looking for a something more advanced, you can check out some of the many customer testimonials widgets.
One of the most popular ones is Spectoos. If offers a customizable request form which you can use to collect testimonials and it’s free among all the other features.
Another smart option, proposed by the experts at KISSmetrics, is embedding social media posts as testimonials. You can go check their article for more information on the topic. You can check how to embed different social media posts below.
Social media
There are many social media elements you can embed on your website. Each social media lets you embed single posts for example. You can embed Facebook posts, tweets from Twitter, posts from Google+ or Pinterest pins and boards.
Usually, you need to find the menu of the post and look for “copy code” or “embed post” there. This is similar for pretty much all social networks. For example, in Twitter you need to click the three dots next to the tweet and on Facebook you need the checkbox in the upper right corner of the post.
Furthermore, you can embed the whole Facebook Feed for your page from here.
Presentations
Instead of uploading your presentation to your website as a file that your visitors will need to download and open on their computer, you can make it easy for them to directly view the presentation on your website. The most popular platform that lets you do this easily is SlideShare. You just need to upload your file there and copy the embed code.
Another great platform with similar functionalities is Prezi.
Lists
If you want to create a list of any kind, you can use a service like List.ly. The benefit of using it instead of just visually creating the list on your site is that lists from List.ly can be easily shared and commented on. In order to embed a list on your website, you need to click the „Embed list” button. You can also pick a format type depending on how you would like your list to look like.
Events
If you are organizing an event and want an easy way for people to register or buy tickets for it, you can use a platform such as Eventbrite or Peatix. Both let you create an event and grab an embed code that you can put on your website. This widgets gives an easy gateway for your visitors to the tickets and gives a great exposure for your event.
Booking systems
If you are operating a hotel or a guest house, you can use a third party service to handle bookings directly on your website. One such option is AvailabilityCalendar.com. The tool lets you create and customize different availability calendars that are compatible both on desktop and mobile devices.
Another platform that you can use is Fynder. You can use it for any kind of bookings, such as classes, appointments, workshops, etc.
