Make Your Blog An iGoogle Gadget & Increase Traffic

If you’re like any other blogger that is looking to be successful, then you already know the best way to achieve that goal is to be everywhere.

Your blog, your brand, and you, need to be seen in as many places on the web as you can manage.  Multiply that number by 5 and you may be at a 10th of the percentage you need to really be successful.

How do you continue to put yourself in front of your audience?

I’ve already talked about many of the ways (i.e. 8 Daily Tasks To Increase Blog Traffic), but there is a new way via a plugin that was uploaded to the wordpress codex today.

The Wordpress iGoogle Gadget Plugin

The iGoogle gadget plugin for Wordpress is a very simple way to create your own gadget for iGoogle, allowing up to 9 of your latest blog posts to display for anyone insterested in using it.

Simply activate the plugin once installed and copy and paste the code into your blog to offer your readers a chance to subscribe using iGoogle Gadgets.

Here’s an example of how the widget will look on your iGoogle page:

Customizing Your iGoogle Gadget

Minor customizations can be made to the iGoogle Gadget plugin:

1. Change Avatar Size – open igoogle.php in a text editor and change the value of $size=60;
2. Change Background Color – open igoogle.php in a text editor and change :
   #content_div{background:#fff;}
3. Add Background Image – #content_div{background: url(’http://…./stars.gif’) no-repeat top; }
4. Change Summary Length – open root.php in a text editor and decrease or increase “38?.
5. Use Another Email for the Gravatar – open igoogle.php in a text editor and replace :
   “$email = $user_info->user_email;” with: “$email = ‘your_another_email@ouiouiouinon.com’;“

The iGoogle Gadget plugin also allows you to submit your gadget to Google’s gadget directory, so others can find your blog posts within yet another place on Google.

You can get the iGoogle Gadget Plugin here, and if you enjoy my blog that much, please feel free to add me to your iGoogle homepage by clicking the button below: