• Categories
    • Tutorials
    • Beginners Guide
    • WordPress News
    • WordPress Security
    • Best WordPress Plugins
    • WordPress Themes
    • Product Reviews
    • WP Tips & Tricks
  • Guides
    • Start a Blog
    • Make a Website
    • WordPress Hosting
  • WordPress Hosting
    • A2 Hosting
    • HostGator
    • Bluehost
    • Cloudways
  • Managed Hosting
    • WPEngine
    • Rocket.net
    • WPX
    • Kinsta
  • Coupons
    • WPEngine
    • Flywheel
    • Cloudways
    • A2 Hosting
    • WPX Hosting
Best WordPress Plugins

How to Add a Sticky Floating Sidebar Widget in WordPress

Last Updated on: January 22, 2016 Devesh Sharma 18 Comments

How to Add a Sticky Floating Sidebar Widget in WordPress

Elements that float with the screen as a user scrolls tend to have a higher click through rate. This is why authority websites such as Quick Sprout, ManageWP, and Shopify use the floating widgets – it improves the conversion rate.

In this post, we’ll show you, how you can add a sticky floating sidebar widget in WordPress using the Q2W3 fixed widget plugin.

About the Q2W3 Fixed Widget (Sticky Widget) Plugin

Q2W3 is a lightweight plugin that relies on the unique ID attributes in html code and jQuery to achieve the end result. Essentially, once activated, the plugin will enable a fixed widget option in the widget settings. You’ll also have the ability to make more that one widget sticky and in case you have multiple sidebars, you can adjust the setting for each one.

The plugin works with most popular themes but there are a few know issues:

  • A minimum of jQuery 1.7 is required.
  • There can be no JS errors present which are caused by other plugins.
  • The wp_head() and wp_footer() functions need to be in the header.php and footer.php files.
  • If your widget jumps around with scrolling, you may need to use some custom CSS to fix the problem.

Customizing Your Sticky Widget Settings

Within the WordPress admin dashboard under Appearance, you’ll find  the global setting for “Fixed Widget Options” While it would be nice if you could adjust these settings for each individual widget, it’s not possible at this time. However, there are a number of helpful settings that allow you to customize the overall appearance including:

  • Adjusting the top margin in px – If you using a left and right side bar, try to make sure that the top of both of the widgets on each side are in alignment.
  • Adjusting the bottom margin in px – if you have a problem with the widget overlapping your footer, this is the setting you’ll want to pay attention to
  • Refresh interval option – This option allows you to adjust how frequently the plugin recalculates it’s settings. The developer recommends a setting between 250-1500 ms since this setting can have an effect on your overall site performance.

Example of Websites using a Floating Widget

You can use the plugin to promote your products or services. And if you are a kind of big deal like Neil Patel, then you can sell those leads to an agency and generate thousands of dollars each month. It’s also important to make sure that the content you’re placing in your sticky widget is something your visitor want to see. It’s easy for a sticky widget to to make your user experience negative.

It also important to test your site on multiple devices. Attempting to use a stick widget on a mobile device rarely works well the the end-user. Q2W3 has a simple checkbox option to disable the plugin on either phone or tablet devices.

quicksprout

Or you can use it to get more subscribers, check the below screenshot to see how Shopify is using this to attract more email subscribers.

shopify

Creating a Sticky Floating Widget using Q2W3 plugin

Step 1: Install and activate the plugin. Navigate to Plugins > Add New > search for “Q2W3 Fixed Widget” or if you’re familiar with installing plugins in WordPress than you might want to download it from the WordPress directory and upload it manually.

install plugin step1

Step 2: Once you activate the plugin, head over to the settings page, which can be found under the “Appearance” section. On the settings page, set the margins, refresh intervals, max width, enable jQuery, and more.

Fixed Widget Options

Now to make any widget floating, just tick the checkbox “Fixed Widget” in your widget.

You can use the sticky widget to boost newsletter signups, showcase content, promote your social media profiles, put banner ads, etc. And you can even have multiple floating widgets in your sidebar area.

You notice the use of sticky content all over the web. Some people use sticky content on their twitter profiles to promote their businesses. WordPress websites often have a sticky post at the top of  the blog in order to put important information front and center. The most important thing to remember is that you should use stick content selectively and make sure it not getting in the way of your visitors – once they’ve left, there is a good chance they might never visit your website again.

Are you using this plugin? What do you think about floating widgets, in general? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

+ Share
Disclosure

Devesh Sharma

Devesh is the founder of WPKube. He has been building and managing WordPress websites for 8+ years and has been featured in Forbes, HuffPo, Entrepreneur, and more! Follow him on Twitter.

Related Posts

Back to all articles
  • 5 World-Class WordPress Comments Plugins to Help Your Site's Engagement

    5 World-Class WordPress Comments Plugins to Help Your Site’s Engagement

  • 6 Best WordPress Schema Markup Plugins for Rich Snippets and Structured Data

    6 Best WordPress Schema Markup Plugins for Rich Snippets and Structured Data

  • Thrive Architect Review (2023) – Best Landing Page Plugin for WordPress!

Coupons

View more deals
  • Recipe Card Blocks Coupon
    15% OFF

    Recipe Card Blocks Coupon

    Running a cooking or food website can be fun (and tasty) – but
    Get This Deal
  • WP 2FA Coupon
    20% OFF

    WP 2FA Coupon

    Security should be at the forefront of all site owner’s min
    Get This Deal
  • Themskingdom Coupon
    20% OFF

    ThemesKingdom Coupon

    First impressions count. As such, you’ll want a WordPress t
    Get This Deal
18 Comments Leave a Reply
  1. Mike Roberts says

    October 3, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    Fantastic. Once I have registered on aweber this is the plugin I will be using down my sidebars. I have been through quite a few plugins in the directory, and this one seems like it does everything I need it to do.

    Reply
    • Devesh says

      October 4, 2013 at 2:55 pm

      Glad you found this plugin useful. It would be great to hear your experience, once you start using it on your site.

      Thanks for the comment, Mike.

      Reply
  2. Reginald says

    October 3, 2013 at 2:55 pm

    Hey mate,

    Thanks for sharing. Last I check, Q2W3 doesn’t work if you had turned minify on. Not sure now though.

    The plugin is great and the dev was very kind to try solve my issue (few months back).

    Thanks for writing this. Scheduled on Buffer 🙂

    Reginald

    Reply
    • Devesh says

      October 4, 2013 at 2:57 pm

      Hi Reginald,

      No problem. Lately, I have been seeing a lot of bloggers using this plugin. You should give it a try sometime :).

      Thanks for the great support, Bud.

      Reply
  3. Tony Ramirez says

    October 4, 2013 at 3:54 pm

    Been looking for a good “floating widget” in WP…..I will try it Devesh….Thanks again

    Reply
    • Devesh says

      October 4, 2013 at 4:32 pm

      Glad to hear that, Tony. Thanks for the comment.

      Reply
  4. Jane says

    October 4, 2013 at 4:42 pm

    Thanks so much Dev. This is something I’ve been looking for recently. And I’ve indeed tried this plugin. But I use Hybrid Connect for my optin forms and there seems to be a javascript error/clash between this plugin and Hybrid Connect. Other widgets that are not from Hybrid Connect stick – but the optin widget from Hybrid Connect doesn’t stick. Any ideas?

    Reply
    • Devesh says

      October 7, 2013 at 4:41 pm

      HI Jane,

      I haven’t tried Hybrid Connect, so I cannot say anything about that. The best way would be contacting the Hybrid connect support staff and see if they can help you.

      Thanks for the comment.

      Reply
  5. Yorinda says

    October 12, 2013 at 2:47 am

    Hi Devish,
    great overview of this plugin.

    So, if you had this widget currently installed it would show up next to the comment box?

    How do you know if it may clash with your theme?
    Is it easy to remove it if it does?

    What are the advantages of downloading a plugin vs. installing it from the WP back office.

    Thank you for sharing your expertise!
    Cheers,
    Yorinda

    Reply
  6. Real Name says

    November 16, 2013 at 3:26 am

    Thank you for this, Devesh.
    Just installed this for my new blog.
    Perfect for my needs.

    Reply
  7. Lopsang Sherpa says

    August 7, 2014 at 8:56 am

    Not working on my them. I’m using tourpackage responsive them.
    my site verticaladventures.biz

    Please help!

    thanks

    Reply
  8. George says

    October 7, 2015 at 6:36 pm

    Do not work at me also…

    Reply
    • Devesh Sharma says

      October 8, 2015 at 4:05 am

      Hey George, I’m going to test it on my server to see what causing the issue.

      In the meantime, you should contact the plugin author.

      Reply
  9. Prisqua says

    November 13, 2015 at 4:05 am

    This plugin does not work.

    Reply
    • Devesh Sharma says

      November 13, 2015 at 4:22 am

      Thanks for the heads up, Prisqua, but I think the issue could be related to your theme. I tested the plugin last month and it seems to be working properly.

      Have you tried contacting the plugin author?

      Reply
  10. Petar says

    February 24, 2016 at 5:06 pm

    I cannot believe you’re still recommending this plugin which is conflicting with every third theme or other plugin. it hasn’t been updated for 2 years and a lot of people are having issues with it
    just check the support page:
    http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/q2w3-fixed-widget

    Reply
  11. Nikhil Ganotra says

    May 28, 2016 at 4:37 am

    Hey Dev,

    This plugin has not been updated since 2 years and it doesn’t work with themes built using latest technologies.

    Are there any alternatives to this plugin?

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Dev says

      June 3, 2016 at 7:09 pm

      Hey Nikhil,

      I don’t think there are any other solutions available at the moment. I’ll do some research but I’m pretty sure there are none.

      Thanks for the comment.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Full Disclosure This post may contain affiliate links, meaning that if you click on one of the links and purchase an item, we may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). All opinions are our own and we do not accept payments for positive reviews.

THE BEST OF WPKUBE

Some of the best content we have published so far.

BEGINNER GUIDES & REVIEWS

18 Best Cheap WordPress Hosting Providers in 2023 (From $1.99)
210 Best WordPress Hosting Options for 2023 (Pros & Cons)
38 Best Managed WordPress Hosting Providers for 2023 Compared
45 Best WooCommerce Hosting Providers Compared in 2023 (All Budgets)
5Top 9 Landing Page Plugins for WordPress (2023)
69 Best List Building Plugins for WordPress In 2023
7How to Fix the 500 Internal Server Error on Your WordPress Website
8Thrive Themes Review: A Look At The Full Membership
9Beaver Builder Review: Is it The Best Page Builder Plugin for WordPress (2023)?
10OptimizePress Review: Create Landing Pages with Ease
11How to Make a Website: Complete Beginner’s Guide
12Top 22 Best Free Stock Photo Resources For Your Site
1317 of the Best Google Fonts for 2023 (And How to Use Them in WordPress)
14How to Start a Blog in 2022 (Step by Step Guide)
15How To Fix ‘503 Service Unavailable’ WordPress Error
1611 Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress in 2023
17How to Add a Custom Logo to Your WordPress Site
18How to Fix Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

WPEngine: 50% OFF Deal

Save 50% on one of the best managed hosting providers.

Get this Deal

Flywheel(our review)

Our Newsletter

Get awesome content delivered straight to your inbox.

Thank you!

You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

.
Featured In Forbes Huffpost Entrepreneur SEJ

About WPKube

WPKube is an online WordPress resource which focuses on WordPress tutorials, How-to’s, guides, plugins, news, and more. We aim to provide the most comprehensive beginner’s guides to anything about WordPress — from installing plugins, themes, automated installs and setups, to creating and setting up pages for your website.

We have over 500+ tutorials, guides, product reviews, tips, and tricks about WordPress. Founded by Devesh Sharma, the main goal of this site is to provide useful information on anything and everything WordPress.

Twitter Facebook

Useful Links

  • Behind the Scenes
  • Beginner Guides
  • WordPress Hosting
  • WooCommerce Themes
  • MeridianThemes
  • Exclusive WordPress Deals
View All Guides »

Reviews

  • WPEngine 33% OFF
  • Thrive Leads
  • Flywheel 33% OFF
  • Divi Theme 20% OFF
  • Thrive Architect
  • Elegant Themes
Reviews »

Deals

  • InMotion Hosting
  • LifterLMS Coupon
  • LiquidWeb Coupon
  • WPEngine Coupon
  • A2 Hosting
  • FloThemes
More Deals »
© Copyright 2023 WPKube ® All Rights Reserved.
  • Contact
  • Site Terms
  • Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy