Kajabi How To & Elfsight Review: Add "Plugin" Widgets to Your Site
Jan 12, 2022
Happy to ditch WordPress for Kajabi but missing some plugins? Learn how to add functionalities to your Kajabi site and blog. Elfsight is low-cost and easy to use!
Are you a WordPress user - or former WordPress user? I was before I joined Kajabi back in 2016. In fact, I'd had a successful blog on WP since 2007 and my virtual assistant site on WP since 2015.
But can I say???? I. HATE. WORDPRESS.
I still have to use it sometimes for other projects so I know it hasn't gotten any easier or more user-friendly over the years. If you're naturally techie or have a tech education, God bless ya'. I don't (#EnglishMajor) so using WordPress has always been the bane of my existence.
Your Kajabi Subscription Includes a Website and Blog
Did you know? A lot of people don't. They hear "Kajabi" and think "courses." That's it. But Kajabi is an all-in-one to run your entire business in one place. Two of those many components are that you can have your website and your blog on Kajabi as well.
Since having a blog primarily was important to my business (I booked a lot of my clients back then because of my blog), I was SO happy to find the ease of using Kajabi and being able to let go of WordPress for my website/blog.
My WordPress to Kajabi Story
I did my Kajabi free trial in December 2016, officially joined in January of 2017, and I've never looked back! (Well, okay, I look back but only to laugh at WordPress, bwahahaha!) In another post, I explain how I did it and you can too: Move Your Blog from Wordpress to Kajabi in 8 Easy Steps
One of the best things about ditching WordPress is that we no longer have to deal with all the headaches from plugins, amiright? It seems for every problem they solve, they can cause another - plugins that conflict or even shut your site down, not to mention the constant updates - and cost, if they're paid plugins.
But we can't use WordPress plugins on Kajabi, and we DO lose some functionality which, for the most part, I don’t miss. As my tagline says, I prefer to keep things simple. My WordPress plugin game HAD gotten a bit out of control. When I moved my WordPress VA site to Kajabi, I think I had about 30 plugins. It was RIDIC.
Stock photos in this post courtesy of Pixistock, one of my favorite feminine stock photo memberships
I Don't Need No Stinkin' Widgets
With Kajabi, I figured “if they don’t have it, I don’t need it.” Meaning if the functionality wasn't inherent in Kajabi - and I saw so many people making great money using JUST Kajabi - then was adding a small functionality worth the hassle? If I could even find a way to do it?
For a long time, my answer to that was "No." I was quite happy as a "Kajabi purist" thankyouverymuch.
But then I saw Kajabi start suggesting 3rd-party solutions to little bits of functionality that customers were asking for. For example, in the GDPR frenzy of May 2018, everyone and their mother was looking for a Cookie Disclaimer.
Well, Kajabi does a ton of things but generating the legalese for a cookie disclaimer is not one of them, lol. So they referred their customers to use those from other companies. Currently, in their How to Add a Cookie Disclaimer Script help file, Kajabi suggests using "free cookie managers like Cookie Script or a paid cookie manager like Osano or OneTrust."
Kajabi Has Suggestions But They're Kind of a Mish-Mash
So that's what finally prompted me to use something 3rd-party with my Kajabi site. I started out with a cookie disclaimer. Since that was free and so easy, I ended up adding social media share buttons too.
Over time, I saw Kajabi suggest widgets to fulfill customer requests for very specific functionalities, including the social share buttons I wanted. Here are some examples along with their instructions (but don’t dive into them yet; keep reading!):
How to collect reviews on your Kajabi site
How to add a ManyChat widget to your website
Adding your Instagram feed to your page
How to add social links to your post with AddThis
How to add a cookie disclaimer script
One problem with the options above is that they’re all from different companies (AddThis, ManyChat, SnapWidget, etc.). If you use them, it means five accounts, logins, passwords, learning curves, payments (if not free), etc. What a pain.
That Time I Found Elfsight
So at first, I had a cookie disclaimer from one company (I can't remember which one now; there are SO many). I also had AddThis for my social media share buttons.
Then I went looking for a Contact Form because I was not super-fond of the workaround I came up with so that 1. I could respond to requests without a bunch of gobbledegook in the email, and 2. make sure they didn't end up getting promo emails from me.
I also wanted visitors to be able to contact me from any page on my site, not just from the Contact or About page - yet not add another form to each page that would distract from my opt-in form. Make sense?
See, I'm an "all-in-one" girl. I like having everything in one place, with one subscription, one login, etc. Hence KAJABI 😂.
So I went looking for a solution that had multiple widgets in one place - including a cookie disclaimer, social media share buttons, AND a Contact Me widget. Was I dreaming?! Possibly. {Maybe it was that 3rd cup of coffee making me feel so eeee POSITIVE!).
But I did eventually find ElfSight.com, the solution I was looking for, woo hoo!
Use Elfsight Widgets; They're Like Plugins for Your Kajabi Site
ElfSight offers many kinds of widgets all in one place, for one price. They include things like:
- social share buttons
- cookie consent bar/box
- contact page
- countdown timer
- event calendar
As of today, there are 84 widgets and plans to add more!! You can even make requests here and see which new ones might be added here.
I'm currently (as of 01-13-22) using these Elfsight widgets on my site if you want to see them in action:
- Back to Top
- Cookie Consent
- Contact Form
- Social Share Buttons
- Weather
'Course you don't have to configure them exactly as I do. There are options for size, color, placement on page, etc.
Ooh, one cool thing about the Contact Form is that you can set it up to push all the info collected to a Google Sheet! I like this a lot because I don't consider them Kajabi Contacts since they didn't opt in. Yet I have a record of them if ever needed, to target with ads, say. Bingo!
How to Install Elfsight Widgets on Your Kajabi Site
In Elfsight, just follow the instructions to create each widget here, then:
1. copy the code
2. paste it under Settings, Site Details, Page Scripts
3. Save - easy peasy!
If you then need to play around with the widget settings so it looks or performs the way you want, just go back into Elfsight, click on the widget you created, make any changes, and Save.
You don't have to copy/paste the code again into your Page Scripts. Any changes you made will be reflected when you refresh your site 🎉
*How to Install the Elfsight 'Social Share Buttons' Widget on Your Kajabi Blog Posts (Only)
Since publishing this post, I've had some requests for instructions on how to use an Elfsight widget ONLY on your Kajabi blog posts - in this case, the Social Share Buttons widget.
If you're not sure what I'm talking about, here's what the Social Share Buttons widget from Elfsight looks like floating on the left on my individual blog posts. (You can peep my little Contact Form paper airplane icon there on the right corner too):
Would you like this on your Kajabi blog posts? Cool cool. So here's what you do:
1. As above, create the widget in Elfsight, and copy the embed code
2. Then go here and paste it: Website, Customize, Blog Post, Blog Post Body, Blog Post Call To Action, Content.
3. Open the Source Code box by clicking the <> button
4. Paste the embed code
5. Save and you should be good to go!
General Tips for Using Elfsight
🔸 Widget vs Application: I kinda' use them interchangeably but here's how Elfsight explains it. "Widget is an adjusted display of the application. Every app may have multiple widgets. Widget defines how the application will look and function on your website." For instance, I use the Social Share Button application and have made 4 different versions of widgets with it.
🔸 When you're in each application, there are 3 tabs at the top - check the other 2 out for Statistics and 7 Handy Tips!
🔸 Pay attention to those statistics because if you run out of your allotment on any of them, the widget will go *POOF!* ... maybe even during a launch. Ask me how I know 🙈
🔸 What IS your allotment? It depends on which plan you're on. For instance, I have All Apps on the Basic plan which means I get all 84 current apps plus any they release. Each app can be used on unlimited websites and have 5000 views* per month total (across all sites).
*The number of views is the number of times an app loads on your website. It depends on the number of visits to a page with the widgets. The limit is provided on a monthly basis, and it's reset once a month.
You can see where you stand at any time in your account dashboard, like this:
Elfsight Pricing - Single App Monthly
Elfsight Pricing - All Apps Pack Monthly
Basically, it only makes sense to use the Basic Single App plan if you only need 1 or 2 of the apps. Once you use 3 apps, it becomes $15/mo which is the same as the Basic All Apps Pack. And so on ...
If You're Thinking About Using Elfsight, Here's Some Useful Info
With Elfsight, you can:
👍🏼 save 17% by paying annually
👍🏼 save 20% on your first payment by filling in their survey in the app
👍🏼 upgrade/downgrade at any time and payment will be pro-rated
👍🏼 revert to the free plan called Lite at any time [has 1 website and 200 views]
Remember how I said you could see what new apps/widgets they might add? Well, I VERY much want Elfsight to add a Comments feature. I dislike the only 2 options provided by Kajabi - whcih are the Facebook Comments and Disqus. Both are really problematic for me.
Will you PLEEEEESE do me a favor and go add a comment on Elfsight HERE? You know how it is: "the squeeky wheel gets the grease" kind of thing. I feel like the more of us who request it, the more likely and quickly it'll happen.
In the meantime, I'm stuck with these stupid Disqus comments - or having to pay for a whole separate solution called POWR.io, which is another widget provider with nowhere near as many choices as Elfsight (but still great).
Edited to Add 05-02-24: In March 2024, Kajabi provided a better way to have Blog Comments on our Kajabi blogs. It's a new feature where you can integrate with Common Ninja widgets via the inside of Kajabi ... and they have a Comments widget!!! You can see my post here with all those details and how you can add Common Ninja comments to your site pages and blog.
Kajabi How To: Add Comments to Your Blog Posts (!!)
Also, here's an update on Elfsight: They reiterated today in their community, where there has been a renewed interest in blog comments, that they still have no plans to add them. While they hear their customers and are grateful for the continued feedback, they "have to delay this widget development for some time."
Ready to Check Out Elfsight? Just go >>>>> HERE
So that's my review and how-to for using Elfsight with your Kajabi site! I hope you found it helpful. Let me know what questions you have! Please email [email protected] ... or leave a Comment below! (Woo hoo!!!)
xo,
