Widgets for Your Web Content

Bling is usually characterized as offering a special extra “punch” to an ensemble or outfit. Bling is an accessory, which is how I would describe sidebar widgets on your website or blog. Accessories can enhance the main site but can also offer eye candy or a shiny bauble to help the main site gain more attention at the social web party. Coco Chanel is quoted as saying, “Before leaving the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.”  Do you need to examine your website to see if it has one or two too many widgets that may detract from your site’s main messaging?

Can widgets sell?

If your site is for online commerce, selling products, services, or event registrations, think of how handy the related items lists can be for someone shopping online. Better yet, let your online catalog show “read wear” to others online. A well-browsed print catalog might show dog eared corners or coffee-mug circles on favorite pages. Similarly, your popular online catalog can remain neat but feature widgets that display related popular choices of prior visitors. Take this example from the Eagle Optics web site, which supplies birdwatching optical tools.

Are there authoritative widgets?

If your site exists mostly as an informational or authoritative source of information, you might want to show your experts’ comments or punditry in other areas of the web, such as a Twitter RSS feed with their latest “between the blog posts” micro-posts, or report web visitor or authoring statistics.

What about lead generation widgets?

If your site assists in lead generation, you can use widgets to draw visitors’ attention to the best ways to contact you. There may be metadata you can report to your visitors to help convince them to get in touch. Also consider the mobile phone user and make a widget that makes their lives easier when getting in touch with you through your site.

What does your website offer visitors visually?

I’ve been reading “The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures” and something that stuck with me was the use of our “mind’s eye” - that we all have images we carry around with us. Also, apply the visual analysis we all use to figure out what we need to accomplish and how to accomplish it when we walk into a room - but consider what visitors need when they “walk” up to your website.

What are your favorite examples of sites with well-done widgets or sites with over-done widgets?