Sunday
Widgets: Do They Help Or Hinder?
| Do you like widgets? Similar to the one in the right hand column showing photos from my celeb blog? If you do there are some that appear to work okay and may be of use, especially if you have more than one blog. They could be used, for example, to put your blog's feed or photos on another of your blogs. This way you may get traffic flowing between your various blogs. Wowzio have several different styles of free widgets, which can all be customised to requirements: (a) Feed Content Shows details of your recent posts (b) Panoramic Slideshow Shows recent photos you have published in your posts (as per example in right hand column of this blog) (c) Live Activity Shows your recent visitors and where they arrived from (d) Slideshow Shows recent photos in your posts (e) Tag Cloud Shows main tags, though personally I doubt the effectiveness of these clouds. From what I can see, so far, the widgets don't slow down the blog loading and seem to work okay. As to their value, this is for you to decide. I think that a photos widget could be of use for my celebrity blogs. If there are other photos in the side columns it's possible that readers, interested in celebs, may just click and move on to one of my other blogs. It could be debated that this means that visitors may move on too quickly, before they have properly see other bits and pieces you may want them to see on the blog. It's possible. of course, to theorise too much! Anyway, see what you think. Good luck, Mike. YouGov: Complete surveys and polls for payment - genuine company. Labels: Widget |
Hi Mike, I installed your Wowzio widget as my Widget of the Month on my latest blog. It does have a certain time lag loading, but nothing to worry about, the effect is great. (I was in Exeter last week, expected to see penguins walking about, it was so chilly. I flew straight back to California to warm up.) cheers
I think too many widgets can clutter your blog and distract from the content. I would place a few widgets that you would like seen on your blog and that is it. If you are monetizing your blog, too many widgets may distract from the banner that you are trying to draw your readers attention to.
ed: Thanks for that, 'tis an honour! As for Exeter - I was in Exeter last week too! Didn't see you, feel sure I'd have recognised you from your photo!
debby: Good point, you can have too much of a good thing.
Thanks for the comments,
Mike.