There are a lot of free blog blog badges and widgets that you can display on your blog sidebar. You’ll find dozens of them to choose from. Not only does it dress up the look of the blog but it can be very beneficial in other ways as well.
Most are really easy to install and just involve cutting and pasting some html text into your blog. Here are just a few examples of blog badges and widgets:
MyBlogLog And BlogCatalog
These two blog directories have a lot of people using them and those people who visit your blog will have their faces shown in your widget. This gives you an opportunity to connect with that person. You can click on their avatar and visit their blog. You can also search for blog topics by tag / category. Join in on conversations, join their community, and converse with them directly through private messaging functions.
MyBlogLog also gives you blog traffic statistics so you can use that with analysing your trends, and keyword strategies. You can customise these widgets for colour coding, grab the code and simply paste them into a text widget on your WordPress or Blogger blog.
EzineArticles
Ezinearticles has a great author widget that you can use on your blog and other websites. It’ll display your profile link as well as the most recent article marketing articles in your feed. This can bring traffic from your site to articles you’ve written. Those articles can establish you as a professional and drive traffic to landing pages where you can sell a product.
The Ezinearticles syndication feed can also be added to your sidebar in your blog as well as in Web 2.0 pages like HubPages and Squidoo lenses. You’ll find your RSS feed and your widget code in your Ezinearticle profile and it can be cut and pasted on other sites.
Twitter Or Other Microblogging Badges
Many microblogging sites will let you paste some code onto your blogs and other Web 2.0 pages that display your recent statuses and can help people follow you or click your links from other places. Whatever can be done to spread the word you’re trying to spread in your status updates can help you with your business.
If someone likes your blog they might subscribe to your updates and that gives you more opportunities to connect with them and woo them into buying from you. When you login to Twitter, you can see something called Goodies on the footer of the page. This will lead you to the widgets where you can grab code to paste into your blog.
Wink Badge
This one is kind of cool. It lets you add a list of many of the other services you are using and add a list of the sites you are a member of in a nice-looking widget. So if someone sees this badge on your blog, they can also see where else they can connect with you.
Social Bookmarking Widgets
These widgets let you add your favourite social bookmarking tools to your posts and help encourage people to make your blog posts go viral on social sites. This will improve your site’s SEO and increase the traffic you receive. By making it easy for your visitors to bookmark with their favourite social media sites, you increase the chances of that happening.
CommentLuv Widget
Most people who frequent blogs regularly love the interactive nature of them. If someone reads your blog and sees that you offer CommentLuv, this encourages them to comment. This tool lets commenters add a blog URL of their own to your blog and their own most recent post will appear linked below their name.
Comments and conversations on your blog posts improve your SEO so this definitely works to your benefit, especially if your target market includes other online entrepreneurs.
Some communities will create badges and widgets for their members to display. Some show your affiliation and others are merely fun. Beyond dressing up your blog, widgets can help your users, help your own SEO, and you can use them to direct traffic to other blogs of yours as well.
While you don’t want your site too crowded, a few well-placed blog badges and widgets can blend in nicely and add to the aesthetics and functionality of your blog.
About Sean Rasmussen
Hi Sean,
Thank you this some more very helpful information to help me along the road to success and if everyone were to follow your advice they will improve their income.
Rita
There is certainly lots to choose from.
The social bookmarking ones are very handy as well as ones like Facebook badges and Fan Page badges.
I’m still looking to see what other ones I might put on.
I’m learning so much about these.
I love the Twitter badges and there are so many designs to choose from.
So many – and as usual you are the man!!! Thanks Sean!
I have a few widgets & just the one badge so far. But who would have thought about Ezine and a “wink badge” – now that’s one for the books!! But gee, there’s gotta be more, my mouth is watering!!!
Hello Sean,
I have trouble understanding how to add Badges and Widgets to my blog because I am not that great with html, but with the tools available it makes sense to add as much as possible so that my blog stands out as looking professional, is attractive to other bloggers.
Do you recommend beginners purchase a blog that is already set up, or use a basic wordpress blog, and add as you learn? I am wondering for my next blog if I should head over to rentacoder or another company (at the moment I can’t think of its name!!!) to “put it out there” to purchase a template. Saving time? Is it saving money?
Good to know how to add Badges and Widgets.
Cheers
Lisa
Hi Lisa
My blogger friends and I have all done the hard yards and learned it ourselves. Like anything, when it’s new, it can be very frustrating. When I started, it took me two days to work out how to login into my self-hosted WordPress blog! Can you believe that! At the time, I knew I would laugh at it some day.
There is a very good product out there that gives support for learning how to blog… Have you heard of Year of The Affiliate and Year of The Blogger?
Hi Sean,
There are so many widgets and badges to add to my blog. I just have the basic ones at the moment. Do you have any suggestions on which ones we should use?
I know it’s a personal choice but are any of them better for one reason or another?
Hi Sean,
I believe I need to take some time to give my blog some TLC time and get it up to scratch the way I want. Widgets are probably the answer to find the right badges.
I don’t have the Badges I want but instead I have just made-do with what I have. Or perhaps I have just changed my mind and now want something different. Either way it’s just not good enough and I will have to try a little harder in the future to find exactly what I want.
Hi Sean
I did not overdo the widgets while setting up my blog but it is great to have a wider selection to choose from and know what is available so I will be able to add a variety of widgets and badges to other blogs that I create in the future. Thank you.