Mar

Boost Your Blog With Widgets

Filed Under (Uncategorized) by ozge on 02-03-2010

Is there any blog without a widget around on web? I don’t think so. “Widgets” has become a common term in blogosphere. I love using different widgets on my blog though too many on a blog maybe confusing.

Here is a list of my favourites. I’m sure most bloggers are familiar with them, but this maybe a good list for newbies and the ones who want to flare their blogs:

Skysa is a website application and a social widget that you can add to your blog. Once you add it, you can change the settings, customize its looks and you can use different applications such as RSS, announcements, chat rooms and third party applications such as Facebook or Twitter. Wibiya is also a similar site that will boost your blog with interactive features.

Wowzio offers interesting widgets to enhance the blog reading experience. It has different widget options. You can use PhotoGallery and SlideShow widgets to show photos on your blogs that are linked to the posts. LiveActivity widget provides a live feed of the visits to your blog or you can use TagCloud widget that displays the matching blog posts inside the tag cloud frame.

Feedjit gives you a tool that tells you what city your visitors are coming from, what sites they come from and what search terms they use to find your blog. When you get it, your blog will be automatically added to Geoblogosphere that shows which blogs are popular in your country. If you want to visualize results, you can try MixMap or NeoWorX. You can also try SiteMeter web counter to get information or data about your visitors. You can display the results on your blog as well or if you want to see and analyze the traffic on your web, you use Google Analytics. You can also try ClickMeter.

Do you want to create polls for your readers. You can use PollDaddy to ask people their opinions.

With Blogrator, you can give the chance to rate your blog or your blog posts.

If you are using Skype, you can display a skype widget on your blog to tell your readers status. You can choose from different widget options.

You can give the ability to your visitors to chat with you using Meebome.

You can share your Delicious list with your visitors using this linkrolls widget.

AddThis widget can help your readers to share your content anywhere on web. If you’re using Twitter, you can add this Retweet Button to let people RT your post immediately on Twitter.

Box.netlets you share your files with your visitors in a small widget box.

Smakly can help you to get more traffic and more page views with its useful photo pictures that are linked to your blog posts.

SnapShot reads your website and looks for key phrases that you have inserted as a link and adds the right snap shots. You don’t have to add an extra link, the snapsshot will automatically get it for you.

Enjoy while exploring these widgets or you can have a look at Wigipedia or Widgetbox or SpringWidgets.

You can also read this post on TechLearning.

10 Responses to “Boost Your Blog With Widgets”

shawnette @simplek12 Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:12 am
Fantastic post! We have a related post on our blog (http://www.IHeartEdTech.com) titled How to Bling Your Blog with some additional resources. Thanks for sharing!
Marisa Constantinides Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:12 am
I love widgets and have used as many as they come but you have given me ideas for more!!!!!

Great!

Marisa
Sally Bray Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Really useful and interesting!!! Thanks for the tips!
ozge Says:
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:09 am
Thank you all for the comments =)
Esra Says:
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:19 pm
Dear Ozge,
Such a nice post again! I love adding widgets to my blog page, especially the ones animated and glittering:) I am sure I will add some more with the help of your list. Thanks!!!
Jigsaws Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Please take a look at http://www.epuzzle.info . You can find there jigsaw puzzles for you blog or website. You can also make your custom jigsaws and put it on the blog or just link it. You have personal highscore list for each foto.

You can check how it looks like at http://puzzlomaniak.blogspot.com/ or http://www.dottysvirtualjigsaws.com/EPuzzle.asp
S. Farsakh Says:
March 7th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
This information is perfect for a new blogger like me. I am still learning how to do everything! I am going to try to add some to my site. Thanks!
Writer Says:
March 12th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
I am very embarrassed to admit, I haven’t heard of any of the above accept for Skype widget and PhotoGallery. Have to get on that right away. Thanks for educating me!
susanna127 Says:
March 29th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Thanks for all the information! I’m trying to redesign my blog on Edublogger- I’m having trouble! :-{
Caitlin @ Link Building Packages Says:
March 16th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Great list of widgets! I love using them because of their functionality. But I still try to limit the number because the site will load slower if there are too many widgets. Remember that not all readers have high speed computers. If your site takes ages to load, readers will tire of visiting.