Sticky Widgets: A Great New Plugin

So as I wound up Spring Cleaning, I stumbled upon a plugin called Sticky Widgets WordPress that I’m really glad I integrated into the blog.

The actually name of the plugin is a bit odd so I’m just going to rename it to make it easier for you to remember, ha. Why can’t great WordPress developers also be great at being catchy?

How to Use this Plugin

This plugin makes widgets in your WordPress sidebar essentially hover in the sidebar as the reader scrolls down. I think I originally saw it in action over at Mauro DenAddres blog Blog-Growth and was pretty curious what he was using.

The point is this plugin lets you keep whatever item you want in your readers vision while he or she reads your blog posts.

Plugin installation: To use, just go the plugin page, hit download, then in WordPress go to plugins, add new, upload, choose file then find the plugin in your downloads, install now, activate, and voila.

Example

Try out scrolling down on this post to see what I’m talking about.

The plugin is activated on two widgets, one which is higher up in my sidebar, and the higher widget basically floats down to “catch” the lower widget which is activated as well.

Cool, huh?

Benefits of this Plugin

I think I enjoy this plugin for a couple reasons.

For one, previously on this blog when a reader would be enjoying a post, there would be nothing in the sidebar. If a reader’s attention wandered to the sidebar, they would see nothing and might get so bored they left the blog 🙁

Now, I have something I control and can make attractive to keep next to the reader’s vision.

Another reason I like this plugin is the ease of use. It was extremely easy to “use” because a little checkbox comes right into my widget boxes without me having to edit in code or really make any adjustments.

Easy is good. See that arrow in my “torn up” image above.

And lastly I like this plugin because it meshes with what I’m doing here. I’m trying to provide a lot of blogging answers to readers usually in a short time frame as your visits here average about 5-10 minutes maximum.

With this new feature I basically ensure more reads and more clicks per stay, which (and you know I love this) should lower bounce rate even more!

More reads on older posts is a really good thing. There’s nothing to say an older post, especially of the evergreen kind I try to write here for you guys, is off lesser quality.

Let’s explore this thought a little more…

Great Plugin for Evergreen Content

Do you feel your older content get’s lost? That some posts you maybe wrote 2-3 months ago were great and should still be in the spotlight?

I had felt like this at times but wasn’t sure how to re-highlight older posts without totally changed the structure of the blog, so I basically gave up.

Well we clearly have a solution here.

Just pop open a Text widget and write in the HTML/CSS for a section called “Recently Popular Posts” or whatever you’d like to call it.

Or, if you have a pre made widget just use that, though I generally avoid premade widgets as you don’t really know what code they use, if it will slow down your blog in weird ways, etc etc.

Are “Plugin Posts” a Good Idea Here?

As I close my thoughts for this plugin post I’ll give you a heads up I may be publishing a few of shorter posts featuring plugins I use here and I want to get your opinion on that.

The idea would be to introduce you to helpful plugins you can use on your blog too.

Do you think shorter content of this nature, especially in light of recent Google algorithm shifts, is a good idea? Would this help boost our credibility in the WordPress community? Please let me know.

Conversely, would love to hear how you’re using the Sticky Widget’s WordPress plugin as well. Post a comment and let’s get a discussion going.