10 Reasons Why You Should Try Wowzio Widgets On Your Blog/Site

Showcase your recent creative additions on your blog/site with Wowzio FREE widgets.

Discover 10 reasons why you should try Wowzio widgets on your site.

**UPDATE**

Read Wowzio Widgets Help You Monitor Your Favourite Blogs to find out how to use Wowzio Widgets as a reader, get popular post RSS feeds of your favourite sites and do a bit of competitor analysis while you’re there.

• Read how you can get your own widgets in 5 easy steps.
• Check out our examples and see how we are using them on our sites.

1. Wowzio is a FREE Widget

It is FREE, therefore there is no risk. If you don’t like it, you just remove it instantly. It works on any blog/site that is javascript enabled.

• If you use the WordPress installation with your own domain name – it will work.
• If you are using Thesis Theme then it is perfect.

2. It Won’t Slow Down Your Blog/Site

The team at Wowzio say the application will not slow down the page loading time of a blog…

Our widgets are hosted on quad-core 64-bit super-fast machines, with RAID 10 disk storage and a Gigabit network backbone. We are absolutely obsessed with widget performance and uptime. We monitor our systems closely and try our best to respond promptly to support issues. If something goes wrong, we will fix it fast, tell you what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. What’s more, our widgets are developed to play nicely with all major web browsers, and environments.

3. You Don’t Need To Know How To Code

• The theme, color, size and interactions can be configured, using Wowzio’s WYSIWYG designer.
• You can change the look and feel as often as you like.
• The “Grab this widget” link at bottom of each widget, takes you to the widget’s Designer page.
• The “Auto-Fit” feature automatically sizes the widget to the size of its container. For example, if you paste the code into your sidebar or your post box, it will automatically resize to the container. If you want to set the height and width of the widget you can do that too.

4. Make A Wowzio Widget For A Single Site OR Multiple Sites

You can enter up to 15 feeds. Simply click on the “Add Another feed” and it will open up a new text field where you can input an additional feed-url, in the Wowzio Builder.

5. Wowzio Updates Your Site With Dynamic Content Every Hour

Wowzio picks up new blog posts along with associated images and tags every hour.

This is great for a static home page or simply adding a beautiful image/graphical interface showcasing your recent creative additions.

6. There Are 5 Widget Types To Choose From

Add one or add many Wowzio widgets to your site. Mix and match the different kinds of Wowzio widgets for different sites and locations.

Choose from 5 different types of Wowzio widgets:

1. Photo Gallery

2. Slideshow Widgets

These widgets provide an elegant and simple way for users of your blog/site to discover the awesome content created by you. Each photo links back to it’s corresponding blog post.

3. Activity Widget

This widget provides you and your users with a “live” feed of the visits to your blog or site. Everytime a page that the widget is on loads, the user’s location is located and the page they are coming from is displayed. This information is fed in real-time to every other widget open at that time, to give your visitors a rare insight into the vitality of your blog or site! [You do have to instal the widget on every page you want monitored however.]

4. Tagcloud Widget

The tagcloud widget helps bubble up the rich content that is deeply embedded in blog posts. When a user clicks on a tag, we display the matching blog posts inside the tagcloud widget frame, thus keeping the user on the same page.

5. Content Widget

The content widget is a syndication and content distribution mechanism. You can aggregate feeds from multiple sources ( up to 15 ) into one widget. You can use it for cross-promotion of content, or syndication via 3rd party channels.

7. There Are Only 5 Simple Steps To Get Your Own Wowzio Widget

Step 1

Go to Wowzio and click on Build Widgets or go directly to the Wowzio Widget Builder page.

• Select a category for your blog. If you don’t like anything on offer, go with “Other”.
• Enter the feed or blog url – it doesn’t have to be your site!
  
• If you want a combo widget, add more urls (up to 15)
• Click on “Continue”

Step 2

You will see the recent posts for the feed/url you entered.

• Check these out. Are they what you expected to see?
• If so, click “Looks great, create my widgets!”

Step 3

You now get to choose what kind of widget you would like to use. When you click on the “Customize This” button below each option, it will take you to the code page where you will copy the code for your site.

• Test the widgets while you are here by clicking on buttoms, arrows and tag words.

Note: The Live Activity that is displayed is a simulation only. People may not actually be surfing your site from Rio De Janero, etc.

Example: ProBlogger Blog feed widgets (24 Nov 08)

Step 4

Wowzio will ask you for your contact details so they can keep you up to date with any changes. You do not have to provide any information here if you do not want to.

Note:

If the feed/url you entered is not your site, make sure the “This is my blog site” box is not checked.

You can click on “Skip this Step” to go straight to the code or you can “Submit & Continue to Designer” if you have provided your details.

Step 5

This is the fun part. You can customize the appearance of your widget or select from several beautiful ready-to-go formats.

• Remember to change the title to something meaningful, e.g. your site name.
• Once you are happy with the appearance you simply copy the code and paste it where you want. For example, you may want to put your widget in your sidebar or place it directly into a post.
• If you discover you are using a widget type that doesn’t let you put a title on it and you do want a title, simply click on the “See all widgets for this blog” hyperlink at the top right of the widget and it will take you back to step 3.

8. Examples of Wowzio Widgets in Action

We have placed a couple of Slideshow widgets and a couple of Content widgets at the end of this article to show how nicely the “auto-fit” features works within a post. We also placed a slideshow widget in the sidebar of Timberwolf HQ.

9. Engage Your Audience

Wowzio widgets are an automatic and attractive way to get your readers to read more posts per visit.

Bloggers have told us that page views on their blog have gone up as much as 30% after installing our widgets. Additionally, since all the widgets link back to your own site, it’s a no-brainer to take advantage of them!

10. Grow Your Readership

Wowzio says it best:

Today’s internet is about sharing, distribution, and viral channels of growth. Wowzio widgets make it simple for you to channel traffic from other sites by empowering your users to distribute your content for you via the easy “Grab This Widget” links.

Share Your Thoughts

• Have you tried Wowzio widgets?
• Do you have some great ideas on how to use Wowzio widgets?

Related Posts

1. Wowzio Widgets Help You Monitor Your Favourite Blogs
2. Use Unsolicited Reviews To Get Free Traffic To Your Site
3. Creating an RSS Feed for a Category in WordPress
4. Customize When Your Sidebars Show What & Widgetize Your Thesis Multimedia Box