How to Add an Instagram Widget in WordPress (Step by Step)

W ant to learn how to add an Instagram widget to your WordPress blog? Displaying your Instagram feed on your blog is a great way to increase engagement with your readers, provide them with extra content, and more.

Connecting your Instagram account to your WordPress blog might seem difficult, but it’s actually not!

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily add an Instagram widget to your blog in 2 different ways: manually and using an Instagram feed WordPress plugin. We’ll also go over all of the ways adding an Instagram widget will help you grow your blog.

Ready?

Let’s dive in!

What is a WordPress Widget?

First, if you’re new to WordPress, you might be wondering what a WordPress widget is.

Widgets are basically small blocks of content that you can add to the sidebar, footer, and other areas of your WordPress site.

There are WordPress widgets available for many different functions like displaying your most popular blog posts, adding forms, showing social media feeds, and much more.

In the example below, Studio Mommy added an Instagram widget in the footer of its website along with social media icons, a newsletter signup form, and more.

Adding an Instagram widget to WordPress can be especially beneficial to your blog.

Keep reading to find out why. 

Benefits of Adding an Instagram Widget to Your WordPress Blog

There are many ways that adding an Instagram widget to WordPress can help you improve your website and grow your blog.

So, let’s take a closer look at why you should add an Instagram feed to your blog. 

Provide Visitors with More Content

When you add an Instagram feed to your blog, you’re providing your website visitors with more interesting content to check out. Instead of leaving your blog after reading your latest post, they can scroll through your Instagram feed, without having to leave your website.

Boost SEO

When you add an Instagram widget to WordPress, your Instagram captions are embedded on your site.

This helps search engines better understand what your blog is about, which can help you boost your SEO (search engine optimization) and drive more traffic to your site. 

Increase Engagement and Followers

Your blog readers might not know that you’re on Instagram. So, by adding an Instagram widget to your blog, you’ll let them know you’re active on the platform.

Plus, when readers are able to see your latest Instagram posts on your blog, it will encourage them to interact with your posts more by liking or commenting. 

Update Your Blog Easily

With an Instagram feed embedded on your blog, it makes it easy to keep your site updated with fresh content. Every time you post new content on Instagram, it automatically appears on your website. This saves you time and shows that your blog is active. 

Build Social Proof and Trust

If you share user-generated content like testimonials from your readers on Instagram, adding an Instagram widget to your site will help you build social proof and trust with website visitors.

Users on your site will see that other people trust your blog, which will encourage them to become loyal fans too.

Now that you know about all of the benefits of connecting your Instagram account with WordPress, let’s jump right into the tutorial. 

How to Add an Instagram Widget in WordPress (Manually)

If you want to add an Instagram widget in WordPress without a plugin, you can do it manually.

We recommend using a plugin because it’s easier and it will give you a ton of other display and customization options—more on that in the next section.

Plus, there’s lots of room for errors with the manual method, which can be difficult to fix if you’re not familiar with code.

But, to add an Instagram widget manually, start by heading to your Instagram account and selecting the photo you want to display on your blog.

Click the 3 small dots in the upper right corner of the Instagram post. Then, click Embed.

In the next step, click the blue Copy Embed Code button. Here, you also have the option of removing the caption from the embed if you want by unchecking the Include caption box.

Once you’ve copied the embed code, you can simply paste it to any post or page using the WordPress editor.

If you want to add an Instagram widget to your sidebar in WordPress, with the embed code copied, go to your WordPress dashboard. Then go to Appearance » Widgets.

On the left side of the Widgets page, you’ll see a list of available widgets. Find the Text widget and drag it over to the right side of the page where you want it to appear on your site. For this tutorial, we’ll add it to the sidebar.

Once you’ve placed the widget where you want it on your site, click the dropdown arrow on the widget.

This will open up a text box where you can paste the Instagram embed code you copied earlier. Make sure you paste the embed code in the Text editor rather than the Visual editor.

You can also add a title for your Instagram feed. Click Save when done.

That’s it.

Now you can see your Instagram widget live on your blog.

As you can see from the example above, you don’t have a lot of customization options when you manually add an Instagram widget in WordPress.

So, let’s take a look at a better way to add an Instagram widget to WordPress.

How to Add an Instagram Widget in WordPress (Using a Plugin)

The easiest and best way to add an Instagram widget to WordPress is with a plugin. We recommend the Instagram Feed Pro Plugin by Smash Balloon.

Instagram Feed Pro is the #1 highest-rated Instagram plugin for WordPress.

Using this Smash Balloon plugin, in just a few clicks you can easily add your Instagram feed as a widget in your sidebar, to any post or page of your blog using the WordPress block editor, or by pasting a shortcode anywhere on your site.

Plus, Instagram Feed Pro comes with awesome features to help you create a powerful, customized Instagram widget, including:

• Multiple Layout Options – Choose from built-in layout options like carousel, grid, masonry, and highlight. 
• Visual Moderation System – Decide which posts to show and which posts to hide. 
• Social Engagement – Show Instagram stories, comments, likes and a follow button on your feed. 
• Responsive Design – Automatically adapts to different screen sizes to make your feed mobile-friendly.
• Multiple Instagram Feeds – Display as many different types of feeds on your site as you want. 

Smash Balloon also offers a free version of the plugin, so you can try it out.

But to access features like multiple layouts, comments and likes, and hashtag feeds, you need to upgrade to the pro version.

Now, let’s go over how to use Smash Balloon to add an Instagram widget in WordPress, step by step. 

Step 1: Install the Instagram Feed Plugin

First, you need to download Instagram Feed Pro from Smash Balloon and install and activate the plugin.

For beginners, check out this post on how to install a WordPress plugin for detailed instructions. 

Step 2: Connect Your Instagram Account with the Plugin

Next, you need to connect your Instagram account with the Smash Balloon plugin. To do this, click on the Instagram Feed button in your WordPress dashboard that appears after downloading and activating the plugin.

This will bring you to the Settings page of the Instagram Feed plugin. Click on the blue Connect an Instagram Account button.

Follow the prompts that appear on the screen to connect your Instagram account.

The first prompt will ask you if you want to connect a Personal or Business Instagram account.

It’s important to note that for some Smash Balloon Instagram Feed features, like the hashtag feed or shoppable posts, you need to have a Business Instagram account.

Don’t worry about which type of Instagram account you need right now though because you can always change it later.

Select your Instagram account type and click Connect to continue.

That’s it! Your Instagram account is now connected to the Instagram Feed plugin. 

Step 3: Choose the Instagram Content to Display

On the same page, you can also choose what type of Instagram content you want to display in your Instagram widget.

You can choose to display:

• Your standard Instagram feed
• A feed with photos from a specific public hashtag
• A feed with photos that you’re tagged in
• A mixed feed with multiple feed types

To display a simple feed of your latest Instagram posts, choose the User Account option, and click Save Changes. 

Step 4: Pick the Layout for Your Instagram Widget

Go to the Settings page of the Instagram Feed plugin and click on the Customize tab.

On this page, you can decide how the Instagram widget will look on your blog with customization options like:

• Width and height 
• Background color
• Number of photos to show
• Show/hide your Instagram bio
• Add a Follow button

You can also choose what type of layout you want your Instagram widget to have. Instagram Feed from Smash Balloon offers 4 different layout options to choose from:

• Grid – A standard grid with fixed square images
• Carousel – A horizontal carousel that users can scroll through
• Masonry – A gallery that shows Instagram photos in their original horizontal or vertical format
• Highlight – A gallery that specific photos appear larger in the grid to highlight them

For this tutorial, we’ll choose the Grid layout, which looks like this:

Choose the layout type you want and click Save Changes.

Step 5: Add Your Instagram Widget in WordPress

Now it’s time to add your Instagram widget to your blog!

With Smash Balloon’s Instagram Feed plugin, you have 3 different ways to embed your feed.

Let’s go over each of them. 

1. Instagram Feed WordPress Block

To add an Instagram widget to a new page of your website using the WordPress block editor, first, go to Pages » Add New.

In the WordPress block editor, click the Plus (+) icon to search for a WordPress block. In the search bar type “Instagram” to find the Instagram Feed WordPress block.

Click the block to add it to your page.

You’ll then get a preview of how your Instagram feed will look on your website and you can tweak the settings if needed.

Publish the page to make your Instagram feed widget live on your blog!

Here’s an example of what the finished product looks like:

You can use this same method to add an Instagram feed to any existing page or post on your site. 

2. Instagram Feed Shortcode

If you’re using the classic WordPress editor, you can use the Instagram Feed shortcode to display your feed in a post or page of your site.

Go to the Instagram Feed Settings page. In the Display Your Feed tab, copy the shortcode provided.

Then, simply paste the shortcode directly into your post or page editor.

Click Publish to save your changes and make your Instagram feed live on your site. 

3. Instagram Feed WordPress Widget

If you want your Instagram widget to appear in your sidebar, like the footer or the primary sidebar, you can use Smash Balloon’s built-in Instagram Feed widget. 

Go to Appearance » Widgets from the WordPress dashboard. 

Find the Instagram Feed widget on the left side and drag it over to your chosen sidebar. For this tutorial, we’re going to add an Instagram widget to the primary sidebar. 

In the settings, you can add a title. When you’re done, click Save. 

Now, when you preview your site, you can see your Instagram feed in the sidebar. 

That’s a wrap!

Now you’ve learned how to easily add an Instagram widget in WordPress. With your Instagram feed displayed beautifully on your blog you can provide more interesting content to your readers, boost engagement, and grow your social media presence.

Want to display a Facebook feed on your blog too? Check out our list of the best Facebook plugins for WordPress. You can also read our tutorial on how to embed a Facebook group in WordPress.

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