One post is fine but finding others related to it would be better. For readers, satisfying their curiosity on getting more in depth information as far as what they are reading is always a given. Also, they may want to know more because they fail to understand what they are actually reading. That is the beauty of a related posts widget which is something that any blog would surely want to have.
This comes in the form of scripts and widgets. Of the two, you know that the latter is the best option when it comes to installing widgets on your blog. Other than enriching the keywords contents of your site, it is a practical and good way to insure your readers that that is not the only post for a certain topic.
There are some WordPress Themes that have this embedded automatically upon installation. If that were the case, then good. But for sites that don’t have it, you can always download the WordPress Plugin (be sure to read the details as they are sure to be many of them around on the plugins page) and install it like any other standard widget.
There are some widgets that may require minimal appending of certain blog parts. But as long as you follow the directions usually contained on the readme file, you are safe from wrecking your blog and messing up the scripts.
After a successful update, you can be assured that your blog will be one good site to which you don’t have to worry about old posts the many deem as useless.
For most blog owners, they are sure to have a couple of these widgets on hand.
1.Blog Catalog
2.My Blog Log
What are these widgets? They are part of the social community network to which provides blog owners exposure to a wider community as well as showing who the last visitors were in your blog. Now if we look at visitors and traffic, they are two separate things. Of the two, it is naturally better to get traffic even if you don’t know where they are coming from. As far as registered visitors are concerned, they are similar to hit counts.
While these widgets show who visited your site, it does not necessarily follow that they really read your site. They may have clicked your link by accident or perhaps wanted to see the front page only which contains summaries of your posts. So with that in mind, the question is on whether you need it or not.
Widgets are supposed to enhance websites and leave a mark to help owners know who have visited and how many they are. But there seems to be inconsistency as far as knowing who are in and who are out. Remember, the people who visit your blog may not necessarily be interested in your posts. They are there to see what your blog can offer and if they find nothing interesting, that is the end of it all.
These widgets are good to perk up your site. But as far as their main intent, a lot needs to be said with regards to their true purpose for helping blogs.
Source
What makes an organization click as far as building publicity and awareness for most companies these days who look towards technology and social marketing as a prime source of staying alive. Is it that hard to make a widget? Apparently some have commissioned their IT staff to study it and come up with various designs. In the end, it all boils down to how well they can catch the eye of their top bosses and of course the people seeing them online.
Is this a wise investment? For sure it is. Other than applying technology to their biz, it also means they can keep track of actual people who are following them through the various links.
Privacy issues? As far as customer preference is concerned, companies should issue statements with regards to privacy policies to safeguard their privacy, something that many have been questioning as far as safety and of course their protection is concerned.
As you can see, it is not that simple when you try and build networking connections with people today in the world of cyberspace. There are more than just plain hacker issues to be considered. People today are fully aware of the dangers of the web and wisely choosing where they should sign up. But no company getting into the cyberbiz options is bound to overlook this issue.
So the next time you visit a company website, check it out and survey the site. See what is new. They may have something innovative to offer and most likely you no longer have to be the last to know!
Widgets are the IN thing. You see them everywhere – web sites, blogs, and social networking sites. But are widgets really important or do they give way to indulgence? I would like to think the former, but the latter is all very real. Here are some things to remember that can help you make the most of your widget experience.
Use widget to offer content.
There are so many widgets out there – which one to choose and use? I think the bottom line is that you should choose widgets that will add to the experience of your visitors. Choose widgets that will enhance their visit and that will give them new information. Eye candy is all very nice to look at but it doesn’t last. Widgets that provide information, however, will keep drawing visitors back to your site.
Choose widgets that are related to your site.
Many widgets offer information, but is the information all related to your main content? While information is always good, you would be better off choosing widgets that link to what your site or blog has to offer. This way, your visitors will truly appreciate your widgets – and not just for their looks!
Avoid widget overload.
Have you ever visited a site which loaded up sooooo slowly? The chances are there are way too many widgets. More than slowing down your site, trying to cram as many widgets as possible also has a cluttering effect on your site. Now who would want a cluttered experience?
Photo courtesy of giladlotan
Do you like poker? If you are like most people these days, you probably either play poker on a regular basis or you have just recently discovered this exciting card game. Thanks largely to reality TV shows that feature poker tournaments (think World Poker Tour) and the aggressive advertising campaign of online poker rooms, more and more people are finding a new hobby in this age old card game.
These days, it is much easier to find a venue to play a game of poker. If you have a lot of friends who have the same interest, you simply have to get several of them together and you can hold your own poker night at home. Alternatively, you can find card rooms in most cities. For a relatively cheap buy in, you can have a good night’s poker game. More so, you can simply stay at home and play poker online in the countless rooms offering this game. You can choose to play for fun without spending anything or use real money to win big.
Whichever way you like playing poker, you absolutely have to hone your skills in the game. Contrary to popular opinion, poker is not all about luck, but the player’s skill. And here is my gift to you today: a poker widget provided by Full Tilt Poker.
With this widget, you get poker tips delivered right to your desk top. And mind you, they are not simply any other kind of tip – they come from some of the best poker players in the world today.
If you are like a lot of people I know, you have your own wireless router at home by now. While some people might not think it necessary to have one, once you have tried using your laptop wherever you are in the house, you will definitely be raring to get a wireless router of your own.
There are many wireless routers available in the market but a name stands out – D-Link. If you have any of the D-Link routers which are 802.11 n-capable, then you might want to get the freebie that the company has for you: the Network Monitor v2.0.
This widget works as an information center and delivers the data straight from your router. It works with Yahoo Widgets, Vista Gadgets, and even the Mac Dashboard. Unfortunately, it does not work with Google Desktop. Anyhow, the Network Monitor will tell you what model router you have, the version of that model, what firmware version you are running on, and your router’s up time.
The guys at PC Mag suggest running the widget on your desktop computer which is wired to the router or on a wireless computer. On a desktop wired computer, you will only get data for send and receive on the network and the Internet. You won’t get any info on the data sent and received on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz Wi-Fi connections.
Another note, if you have had your router for a while and you decide to download the widget, you might have to update the firmware of your router.
In this day and age where technology is so much part of everyone’s lives, do “real” books still have a place? I would have to say an emphatic yes to this question. Trust me, I live and breathe technology. From the moment I wake up to the time I go to bed – I have one gadget or another in my hand. These things are part of my life. However, there are still times when I want to de-stress and nothing can take the place of a good book – and yeah, I have been called a bookworm once or twice.
This brings me to my question for the day – is there a way to merge these two aspects of my life? Aside from e-books and audiobooks, I mean. Actually, yes there is. If you blog or have your own web site and you have a nice collection of “real” books, you can make use of the widget that Shelfari offers.
Shelfari is an online community for book lovers of all sorts. You can create your virtual library by adding book titles to your list. You can even search for the books and specific editions through the platform. They put images to the titles, giving you an added realistic element. Of course, you do not actually get to the read the books because the idea is that you have these books in your “real” library.
So where does the widget come in? Shelfari has a widget which you can customize to a certain degree. This widget can be displayed in your web site to show other people what you are reading, what you own, and even what you want to read in the future. You can also link this with your Amazon affiliate ID, to send some cash your way. My only beef is that there aren’t enough customization options.
Have you ever heard of Chatterous? I would not be surprised if you had not heard of them until now. It is actually a start up company, which has the main idea of offering venues to chat using whatever platform you prefer.
Let’s say you have a blog or a web site. The idea is that by embedding Chatterous onto your site, you will be able to chat with other users. Venture Beat gives more details on how Chatterous works:
The chat widget does exactly what you’d expect — it’s a way to embed a Chatterous chat on your website or blog. Of course, there are many, many other chat widgets out there, but Chatterous brings its own spin on the concept. Rather than simply integrating all your communication tools, Chatterous lets you choose one method — such as email, instant messaging, or SMS text messaging — then you can participate in a chat with people using other methods. So you’ve got multiple channels leading into one conversation. The chat widget is just another aspect of that strategy, adding another way users can watch and participate in the conversation. If you add the chat widget to, say, your blog, visitors can read and participate in the conversation on-site — but people don’t have to visit your site; in fact most of the chat participants can be still be emailing, IMing, etc.
I actually like that idea – being able to participate in a chat using various platforms, such as e-mail. While it is not that hard to gain access to chat these days, there are still some circumstances that might prove to be challenging (like when you’re at work and all you can access is e-mail).
In the past years, blogging has reached unprecedented heights. We can find blogs focusing on just about anything. Indeed, we can find blogs without any apparent focus at all. No matter, the fact is that blogging is something that is HUGE in every sense of the word.
One thing that I like about blogging is that you can do so much with the venue. Blogs are malleable and versatile that you can perform countless tweaks to make your own personal stamp on them. One way to do this would be to use widgets. More than personalizing the blog, however, widgets can actually be used for promotion and monetization. That is why I have been looking at some of the best and most useful Blogger widgets that I can find for my personal blog. Here are some ideas, which can help you in your search as well.
Most commented posts.
I have seen a lot of blogs with this information available in one of the sidebars. I think that it is a brilliant idea to showcase those posts which have received the most comments. In this way, you can attract more readers to those posts and hopefully get more comments in the process.
Related posts.
This widget is easier to find for WordPress blogs, but I have been having a hard time finding a widget that works well with my Blogger blog. I think it is important to have a related posts widget since it helps your reader find other posts in your blog which may be of interest to them as well.
Tweet this.
Twitter is another phenomenon that has reached far and widget. If you want to reach more people, provide a widget that allows readers to tweet about your post – free advertising for you!
A lot of themes would include sections wherein you could put a little something about yourself. You would usually have to edit your theme’s sidebar.php to insert whatever you would like to include in that part of your blog’s theme.
There is now an easier way to go about it. Use the About Me widget by Sam Devol. It is still in version 0.96 and he admits that it is his first widget. In any case, it really looks nice. His screencap of the widget and how it works is here.
Stuff you fill in:
- Title – you could be as creative as you want so this could be something like “About this problogger” or anything you want
- Alignment – left, center, right
- Image URL - where you saved your image
- Image title/text – be a bit descriptive
- Font color – use either the hexadecimal notation or the layman’s term for the color
- Blurb – more descriptions about you, maybe a short paragraph
- More about me URL - if you created an About page on your blog, use the URL of that page
- More about me title – something like “the rest of the details” or “my resume” in case you have it online
- Contact Me – You have 2 choices: a mailto: with your email address or the URL of your contact page, if you made one.
- Contact Me title – you could use “contact information” or “contact me”
This is pretty friendly enough to use even for someone who is not an HTML geek because this is already a form that you just fill in with your preferences.
