As many of you have noticed, I've been away from posting on my blog over the last couple of weeks. I have focused on finishing the latest of my tools: The Blog Window widget. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am a great believer in widgets and I am planning on developing many more. Here is my recent post about the future of widgets titled Widgets - The Future of Affiliate Marketing. I have also discussed widgets in an interview with Shawn Collins.
I'm happy to say that the Blog Window widget is finally done. It is a 100%-customizable widget that allows any blog or web site to display the most popular posts or pages of their site.
I have seen some WordPress plug-ins that do the same job but they seem too complex and are limited to a single blogging platform. Not the Blog Window widget. It takes literally seconds to install and works on any site.
The biggest value proposition from the Blog Window widget is that I have observed a 25% boost in page views, just from the widget. It looks like when a reader is done with a page, Blog Window offers him/her a compelling next page to read on your site. They would typically leave the site at that point.
Because the Blog Window widget is customizable, you can make it look exactly like your site and it is quick and easy to do this. You can see my own Blog Window is customized in its look-and-feel to this blog. My AffiliateBrand.com widget has the look-and-feel of my AffiliateBrand.com site:
I'd love to see your comments on how easy it was to integrate the Blog Window widget with your site. The widget is completely free. In a few days I will do a post highlighting unique and interesting implementations of the Blog Window widget, so get yours today.
| Discuss in BumpZee! community |
Gene Kavner, Former World-Wide Director, Amazon Associates Affiliate Program, 2005-2006.
Peter -- yes, the Blog Window widget now pays you. I am running Amazon ads (other networks will soon follow) at the bottom of the widget with majority of impressions offered with your Amazon Associates id. Thus, if your Associates ID appears and someone clicks and buys from Amazon, you get paid 100% of that commission.
Good luck!
Gene
Posted by: Gene Kavner | July 15, 2007 at 06:41 PM
Hi Gene,
Thanks for the "Most Popular Posts" widget. I saw a link "Join Amazon Associates" link (I remember I saw "Amazon Affiliate" instead) and found out now I have 2 Amazon Associates ID. Also, I am getting frequent "Affiliate Brand Notification". The word "affiliate" makes me think I may be generating some earning, is that correct? If so, how?
Posted by: Peter | July 14, 2007 at 02:44 AM
Meeyauw (cute name!) --
The blog window widget has 2 lines of JavaScript, both of which must be on your site for it to work properly. The first line of JavaScript allows the widget to track the popular pages of your blog. The second line of JavaScript displays the widget itself. The two reason there are two lines (instead of one) is that they allow you to track popular pages on one site and display the widget on a different site altogether.
I'm seeing that on March 23 at about 10am Pacific time, the first line of JavaScript was removed from your site. So, the widget is only tracking the most popular pages through that date. If you do not place the tracking line of JavaScript back on your site, in a few days the widget won't show any popular pages -- I'm sure this is not something you want.
Go back to http://affiliatebrand.com/Account/ProfileSiteWindow.aspx, edit your BlogWindow configuration and grab the first line of JavaScript and place it back on your site -- this will fix the problem!
Good luck and thank you for the kind words about the Blog Window widget!
Gene
Posted by: Gene Kavner | March 27, 2007 at 10:11 PM
Hi Gene! I love this widget. I had it set for top 15 posts over last 7 days and suddenly today it is back to 5 top posts. The customization says 15 still. Can this be fixed? Thank you so much for this work!
Posted by: meeyauw | March 27, 2007 at 07:57 PM
Manisha -- what you are trying to do is possible and easy. Simply enter the URL for your stylesheet in the Blog Window configuration screen and your stylesheet will be the active stylesheet. Your stylesheet URL can be on any domain as long as it's reachable over the Internet.
Good luck!
Gene
Posted by: Gene Kavner | March 23, 2007 at 10:46 PM
Gene, this is an excellent tool, thank you! Installing the widget was very smooth.
The blog that I am using it for does not have access to a server where a custom css file can be saved. I would like to add the styles directly to my template (on blogspot). Is this possible? I am afraid that since the default stylesheet is probably on your server and is included in the js, your default styles will override the styles I set.
Is what I am trying to do possible?
Posted by: Manisha | March 23, 2007 at 03:33 PM
Very cool and useful. But the posts' titles are not displayed correctly. I guess maybe it's because my blog is in simple Chinese. My blog is hosted on blogger and the URL is http://zhgkevin.blogspot.com. Can you help on this? Does is not support Chinese? Can you help?
Many thanks
Posted by: Kevin Zhang | March 02, 2007 at 12:37 AM
I like. I decided to go with it at the bottom of each post at Computers.net rather than on a sidebar. We'll see how it works. Thanks, Gene!
Posted by: Bob Caswell | February 14, 2007 at 02:21 PM
Thanks Debra -- glad you like it!
Howard -- yes, as long as you are measuring popularity based on page impression, Blog Window will work with WallStrip. Let me know how it works out.
Posted by: Gene Kavner | February 14, 2007 at 07:06 AM
cool.. will install. Would this work for most popular wallstrip shows as a widget?
Posted by: howard Lindzon | February 14, 2007 at 06:18 AM
Wow. This is excellent. I've just implemented it at my site. I'm impressed at how configurable it is and how quickly it loads. Very elegant!
Posted by: Debra Hamel | February 13, 2007 at 07:35 PM