2009 Planning Guide - My Gift To You!A Whole Bunch Of Cool Widgets For Your Blog
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We got an email from someone that wanted us to take a look at some cool widgets that bloggers can use to enhance their blogs. JS-Kit has tons of handy, easy (just add a line of code in your site, that’s it!) to integrate scripts that can help your blog grow and attract new readers, something which will be welcomed by most of us. We’re just going to list up a couple of their most interesting stuff here, so you can decide if you’d like to grab one of them, for free.
1) Ratings - A lot of bloggers use Lester Chan’s plugin to show the 5 little stars at the end of a blog post, where readers can tell you how valuable they thought your post was. We took it out and have replaced it with JS-Kit’s script, which essentialy does the same thing, but it feeds the data to the navigator widget in the sidebar. This way the most popular posts (by ratings) can be seen by your visitors, most likely providing them with interesting stuff.
2) Score - This is pretty cool, it allows you to create your own localized Digg system within your posts. Every time someone “diggs” or “thumbs up” on of the posts they like, these will all show up in the navigator widget again, like ratings, but this time under the TOP or HOT tab. A simple yet effective way to make sure your blog’s top content keeps alive and highly visible for new visitors.
3) Reviews - This one could easily replace a blogs comment section because essentially it does the same thing, but it combines the power of ratings too. Besides that, it looks like there’s some sort of threaded comments built-in to the scripts. God knows, it’s so much easier to follow a discussion in your comments with some visual guidance.
4) Polls - A simple but powerful tool to add polls to your site and keep track of the results via your navigator widget. We never had any polls on our blog, but its obviously great to use to find out what interests your readers and what doesn’t. ThisWith this data you can make sure you keep pumping out interesting stuff (perhaps we should start a poll 
)
5) Navigator - Yes, the navigator. It doesn’t just look sharp in your sidebar, its essential to get your new visitors to explore and discover the hidden gems on your blog. Here is a short list with the benefits of the Navigator widget:
- decreases bounce rates, increases pageviews and simplifies content management
- incredibly easy to deploy (think minutes)
- viral distribution of content through “Grab It”
- unmatched run-time performance and full data backup
- seamless integration with your site using preconfigured design skins
- cross-browser compatibility
JS-Kit looks very promising, as they have recently been backed by a few large investors, raising $1.2 million to further develop themselves. We’re sure there are many more super widgets to come from these guys in the near future.
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Hey! We use JS-Kit on our sites too - glad to see this review here!
Sounds cool, will check ‘em out when I get home from my 8-5. That navigator especially looks cool…
Sabrina’s last blog post..I Forgot
I was going to ask too, why when I’m on JohnCow.com does it always say 9 guests online, does it always say that period or am I bring 8 isp addys’ with me?
Sabrina’s last blog post..I Forgot
Hey Sabrina, the navigator was just installed, so it needs some time to gather data to show. And about the 9 guests, we’re seeing 15 right now, and only one you
Just click the tab.
This widget seems excellent especailly if you already have a nice stream of traffic built up.
BTW: You might want to try a better location for it because it’s something visitors will definitely want to see…perhaps underneathe The Herd or underneathe Subscription Options
Caleb’s last blog post..I Could’ve Sworn I Already Signed Up With Technorati?
Yea John, I like that traffic thing widget too. Is that custom made or did you use an opensource plugin of some sort? The tabs in general looked great from the start.
John Motson’s last blog post..The Soviet Union extension .SU just won’t go away
The coolest and easiest ratings system I ever seen!
Have to try it out….
–blog for dream–
Thanks for the widget tips! I’ve used a couple of these but most are brand new. Fun things to try out at some point.
knupnet’s last blog post..New theme at knupnet.com released
Just what I have been looking for…time to pimp my blog…happy days