Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Got Dust Mites on Your Blog Archives? There's a Widget for That.

Disclosure: I haven't been compensated in any way to write this post; I do so because you are awesome and I want to help you. :)

If your blog is more than a few weeks old and updated frequently, I'm sure you can relate to this thought scenario:

"I've just spent the better part of a day/morning/evening putting this post together...that I think just might be some of my best work...and dang-it, after a few days, when it rolls off the front page, nobody's gonna remember it, or know how to find it, and MAN <insert wincing>, I wish there was a way to keep this stuff fresh...."

Depressing, huh?

I used to think so, too. 

But then I found and installed the LinkWithin widget. 

A virtual blog archive tour guide

If you don't already have this widget (or one that functions similarly) on your blog, 
why are you depriving your readers of all your great stuff?


Seriously.

Help people find your stuff. 

Since I installed it (with about 10 weeks worth of archives saved up), 
(according to Blogger stats) my blog has had 2,500+ page views referred by LinkWithin.


That's 2,500+ times that my ARCHIVED POSTS have been viewed (via LinkWithin alone).

2,500+ confirmed times that someone ON PURPOSE decided to read more than one post in one visit. 

2,500+ times that all that hard work didn't get left behind (under a virtual pile of mite-infested dust). Ick.

Installing the widget is easy and there is NO sign-up or advertising.

Just visit LinkWithin and follow the simple directions.

No HTML knowledge needed.

You won't be sorry.

***

Oh, and if your blog is on Blogger, there's a customizable "popular post" widget that you can install in your sidebar, header or footer. I just recently added one; it looks like this:


This widget will always fill with my 10 most viewed posts, in descending order. 

If I visited your blog today, could I easily find your most popular posts? Or are they gathering dust?

***

I am happy to answer any questions.

Hope this has been helpful!

15 comments:

  1. That was SUPER HELPFUL!!! I'm so happy you posted that- I'm brinin back some old favorites!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you very much for posting that! I've always wondered about getting that widget and now I know!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you! I went ahead and added it to my blog, hopefully it does help people find other relevant posts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing this nifty little tip! I've never thought of adding a sharing widget.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I used to have LW on Kol's Notes, but found it was slowing things down. Have you had any troubles with load times?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jodi - My load time could be better, but LW, interestingly, isn't the culprit; my blogroll is.:P (But that's not going anywhere!) When I switched from IE9 to Chrome a while back, my overall load time improved considerably.

      Delete
  6. Off subject (kind of) I must say seeing my JRT and his soccer ball as the thumbnail image for your current most popular post made me smile! We approaching some tough times health wise with him and it was nice to have this surprise reminder of the really good days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Spyrock - Oh, no. So sorry he's having a tough time. :( I love seeing his smile there everyday, too. And, fyi, that post had so many views that his face will probably stay there for a very long time.

      Delete
  7. Thanks for posting this! I will definitely take advantage!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm so glad this has been helpful for many of you. (I think LinkWithin is something that hasn't gotten much air time - maybe people assume everyone already knows about it.)

    You all have lots of great stuff in your archives. (Karen, not sure who you are from your profile, but I'm sure you do, too.)

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is so cool! I've seen this widget on so many other blogs but never thought I'd be able to figure out how to put it on mine. I love finding the little hidden gems on other blogs and have wasted many an hour in this exact way. Thank you so so so much for this post!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for the tip. I had seen it around but hadn't had time to experiment. You took away my excuse, I mean, made it easy. ;)

    I had also heard about load times lagging and since I have enough trouble with Disqus, I was nervous about adding another potential resource hog but I haven't found it to be an issue in the (spectacularly limited) time I've been using it. Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I had to try the popular post thingy just to see if I had any ;) It was not the ones I thought it would be :D

    ReplyDelete
  12. Finally had time to upload this. It's cool. Thanks for the tip!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I've got the Wordpress version of both installed on my blog but I've never bothered to see how many extra views linkwithin has resulted in. I didn't even know you could look that up!

    ReplyDelete

We love comments almost as much as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! Thank you!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...