Short answer: GoDaddy sells two very different products, so there are two answers. On GoDaddy Website Builder you add the widget through a custom code or HTML section on your page. On GoDaddy Managed WordPress you paste the script into your theme's footer or use a header-and-footer scripts plugin. Either way it is one script tag, and the site has to be republished before anyone sees it.
First work out which GoDaddy you actually have
This trips people up constantly. "I have a GoDaddy website" can mean the drag-and-drop Website Builder (sometimes branded Websites + Marketing), or WordPress hosted on GoDaddy, or a plain hosting plan where you uploaded your own HTML. They install code in completely different places.
Log into your GoDaddy account and look at your products. If clicking "edit site" drops you into a drag-and-drop editor with sections you rearrange, you are on Website Builder. If it opens a WordPress dashboard with a left-hand menu of Posts, Pages, Appearance and Plugins, you are on WordPress. If you have cPanel and a file manager, you are on classic hosting and you can edit the HTML directly.
Installing on GoDaddy Website Builder
Website Builder is built around sections. To add custom code you open the page in the editor, add a new section, and choose the one meant for custom HTML or embedded code. Paste the script tag into it and save.
A few honest caveats. Custom code sections are not available on every Website Builder plan, so if you cannot find the option, that is usually a plan limitation rather than something you have missed. And because the code lives inside a page section rather than a site-wide template, you have to add it to every page you want the chat widget on. For most small sites that is a handful of pages: home, services, contact, maybe an about page. Do the home and contact pages first, since that is where the enquiries come from.
The widget itself is not affected by where in the page you drop the section. A chat widget positions itself against the browser window, not against its parent section, so it floats in the corner regardless.
Installing on GoDaddy Managed WordPress
WordPress gives you a proper site-wide option, which is better. You have two sensible routes.
The plugin route is the one we suggest for most people. Install any reputable "insert headers and footers" style plugin, paste the script into the footer field, and save. It applies to every page automatically, survives theme updates, and you can remove it later without touching code.
The theme route means editing your theme so the script sits before the closing body tag. Do this only through a child theme, otherwise the next theme update wipes it. Some themes also expose a footer scripts field inside their own options panel, which is the same idea without the risk.
Both routes end at the same place: the script loads on every page of the site.
Snippet or plugin, which is better
For WordPress the plugin is easier for non-technical owners, and easier to undo. The snippet is fewer moving parts and slightly faster, because you are not loading a plugin whose only job is to print one line of HTML.
There is no functional difference in the chat widget itself. It is the same script either way, so it trains the same, answers the same, and captures leads the same. Pick whichever you will be comfortable maintaining in six months. If you would rather not decide, Clerkzo offers done-for-you setup and someone will place it for you.
How to verify it actually went live
Editors lie. What you see in the GoDaddy editor is a preview, and custom code frequently does not execute there. Always check the real site.
Publish the site, then open your live domain in a private or incognito window. That sidesteps the caching that makes people think an install failed. The chat bubble should appear in the corner within a second or two of the page finishing loading.
If it does not, right-click the page, choose to view page source, and search for the script tag. If the tag is not in the source, the code never saved or you edited a different page than the one you are viewing. If the tag is there but no bubble appears, open the browser console and look for an error, which usually points to a blocked script or a typo in the paste.
Common gotchas on GoDaddy
You forgot to publish. Website Builder changes are staged until you hit publish. This is the single most common cause of "it is not working".
Caching. Managed WordPress runs its own caching layer. After installing, flush the cache from your hosting dashboard, then reload in a private window.
You pasted into a text block. A regular text or paragraph element will show your script as literal text on the page instead of running it. The code has to go into the section or field specifically meant for HTML.
Partial paste. Copy the whole script tag from the opening angle bracket to the final closing tag. Half a tag does nothing and produces no error.
Multiple installs. If you paste it on every page and also add it site-wide later, you can end up with two bubbles. Remove one.
Should you do this at all
If your GoDaddy site currently ends at a contact form, a chat widget is a straightforward upgrade because it answers people rather than just collecting them. We wrote up the comparison in chatbot vs contact form if you want the longer version. And if your enquiries tend to arrive in the evening after you have closed, the after-hours answering page shows what a widget catches while nobody is at the desk.
Frequently asked questions
Will this slow my GoDaddy site down?
A well-built chat widget loads asynchronously, meaning the browser paints your page first and fetches the widget afterwards. Your visible content is not held up waiting for it.
Can I put it on only some pages?
Yes. On Website Builder that is the default behaviour, since you add the section per page. On WordPress most header-and-footer plugins offer page-level rules.
Do I need a developer?
No. If you can paste text into a box and click publish, you can do this. Most people are live in about ten minutes.
What does it cost to run?
Clerkzo is flat monthly pricing with no per-conversation charge, starting at nineteen dollars a month, and it starts with a 14-day free trial so you can build and test before you go live. Details on pricing.