The 10 Best Website Widgets for Blogs in 2020

If you want to share important dates or events with your readers, a public Google Calendar is a great tool.

To embed a public Google calendar into your blog, go to the Google Calendar site, select Calendar Settings and scroll down to Integrate Calendar. Select and copy the embed code and paste it into your site.

If you have an important event coming up, what better way to build excitement around it than to publish a countdown timer?

The Time and Date website offers a free widget to embed on your blog that displays a real-time countdown to your event.

Setting up the countdown timer is simple with a form that allows for easy background and text customization.

If you have a blog, you'll want to stay in touch with your readers. Building a strong newsletter subscription list is a great way to do that.

To run a newsletter, subscribe to a good newsletter-management platform such as Aweber, featured here, or MailChimp, MadMimi, Constant Contact, or Drip.

Regardless of which platform you go with, these services provide a customizable widget to embed a newsletter signup form into your website.

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks, so it makes sense that bloggers would want to share their social feed right from their own website.

Twitter offers a simple publication page where you just type the Twitter feed you want to display and copy the embed code.

Paste the embed code anywhere on your blog to insert the Twitter feed.

While Facebook removed the ability to embed your entire Facebook feed into other sites, you can embed specific Facebook posts.

Just go to the post you want to embed, select the three-dot menu at the upper right of the post, and select Embed. Copy and paste the code that appears and add it to your blog.

A common use for this widget is in the footer of a blog post. Embedding a related Facebook post encourages readers to click on your Facebook page and engage with your community.

A great way to grow your Facebook community is to embed a Facebook Like box on your blog's main page. Place it in the sidebar of your blog so that it shows up on every page on the site.

Setting up this widget is simple. Visit the Facebook Developers Like Button Configurator page and paste your Facebook page URL into the URL to Like field. Select Get Gode, copy the embed code, and paste it into your blog's sidebar widget.

Once you've pasted the code, the widget will allow anyone visiting your blog to visit and like your Facebook page.

Including comments on your blog is a great way to encourage engagement with your readership, and Disqus lets you embed a recent comments widget into the sidebar of your blog.

Visit the website to learn how to install the Disqus comments widget and see other engagement options.

Whether you want to sell merchandise or accept donations, PayPal button widgets are the perfect solution.

Set up and customize a PayPal button and then paste the button embed code into the sidebar, footer, or header of your site.

To set up your PayPal button, log in to your PayPal account and select Manage Buttons under Seller Tools on the right. Select Create New Button under Related Items. Work through the customize wizard and then copy the embed code and paste it into your blog.

Providing readers with a simple form to send you feedback or questions is a great way to stay in touch with fans and followers

FreeContactForm.com lets you install a very simple feedback form on your website. You're allowed up to 1,000 views a month with the free version, while the paid versions allow for a larger audience.

Visit FreeContactForm.com to learn how to install your free feedback form.