After some searching for a "Popular Posts" widget for Blogger, I discovered AffiliateBrand's widget (thanks to Blogger Tricks). This widget is free to use, and displays your most popular posts based on tracking of page impressions.
You can see an example of how this works in my sidebar, however please note that I have customised the overall appearance of this widget to suit my blog (which I will post about later, once I've ironed out the kinks). The default widget provided by AffiliateBrand looks something like this:
The widget is very simple to install, and now you don't even need to sign up to AffiliateBrand membership to be able to use it! You will need to register your blog's address though, in order to ensure that your most popular posts are tracked. Here's how to get this widget for your own blog:
- Visit AffiliateBrand.com and click on "Blog Window-Create/Edit" in the left sidebar.
- Add your blog URL into the box provided, and click "Add Blog". Your blog's URL will then appear in the window beneath.
- In order to get the javascript code you need to create your widget, you will need to click on the "edit" link beside your blog's URL. You will then be directed to the page from which you can copy the code. Paste this into Notepad or something similar.
- It may be a good idea to configure the width and height of the widget before you install it into your blog's template (if you decide to register with AffiliateBrand, you can do this later). To do this, click on "Customize" and choose your specifications for the widget's width, height, how many posts to display, etc. You can also specify a stylesheet for the widget, which I shall explain later. Then click "Save changes.
- Now, go to Template>Layout and add a new HTML/Javascript element to your sidebar. Paste the javascript code from AffiliateBrand and save your widget. Now when you view your blog, you will see the "popular posts" widget appear in your sidebar. At first, it will display a message rather than any posts as it takes a short time to begin collecting data of your most popular posts. To speed this up, click on a few of your post pages and you should soon see the results begin to appear.
As mentioned, if you create an AffiliateBrand account, you will easily be able to edit your widget later, as the javascript code is dynamically updated from the remote server. Also, you will be able to receive detailed analytics reports of your blog activity.
If you prefer, you can also specify a style-sheet to alter the appearance of your widget, which is explained most fully in the Stylesheet FAQ.
Another advantage of using this widget is that you can associate your Amazon Associated publisher ID and display relevant ads beneath your widget to help you earn money from your blog. To do this, click on "edit" beside your blog's URL, and then on "Advertising". On the following page, you should enter your Amazon Associates ID.
For a great tutorial of how you could customise this widget to better suit your blog's style, take a look at this post by Webweaver, which offers excellent advice.
As yet, I'm still learning about the configuration and usability of this widget, and will probably post again in a couple of days regarding my customisations and experience. In the meantime, feel free to leave your comments and opinions or email me if you prefer.
Technorati Tags: blogger | widgets | popular+posts | widget | most+read | affiliatebrand | amazon+associates
32 Comments:
Amanda,
I have recently discovered your site and think it is a wonderful assest to the bloging community.
I have run into a major problem today and I was hoping maybe you could help me out with it.
I implemented the "read more" add-on, and for some reason today when I was editing my latest post, all my posts were removed from the home page.
Plus the post I added is screwed up, reverting back to an earlier post when you hit the "read more" button.
I have asked Ramani for help, but I know it can take him a while to respond. I was hoping you would be able to help me. I am sick over this development.
Thanks so much for everything.
Hi
I used this widget on my blog www.TheIndianPhotoGrapher.blogspot.com
It works fine.. Thanks for the tip
I noticed that my pages take longer to load!!
Is it coz of this code?
@J Rose: I had something similar to this happen after implementing Ramani's hack: check that you still have the </span> tag right at the very end of your new post. If you accidentally delete this, nothing will show beneath the " Read more" link on the first page of your post! It's easily fixable, so don't worry-your older posts are still there!
Feel free to email me if this doesn't fix it, or if you need more help.
@Tip: Yes, I think the page takes slightly longer to load when you first begin to use the AffiliateBrand widget. I have customised mine, and find that now it takes less time to load. I will post about this once I've managed to perfect the method, as at present it is quite a laborious and imperfect hack!
Hi Amanda,
thanks for the tip.. the popular post widget from affiliate brand now merged properly with my site layout..
thanks again.. and more power
OFWLIFE BLOG
Hi Amanda,
Thanks heaps for the link to my blog post about customising this widget - I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do it - I'm glad you liked it!
Nice widget.... useful to me here is my blog thats shining with that widget
http://sara-intop.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the instructions! Unfortunately, I keep following them, and nothing is showing up at all. Do you happen to know if something has changed recently?
Thanks again.
Hello Laura,
Unfortunately it seems the AffiliateBrand site is down again, and none of our widgets are currently displaying. This does seem to happen sometimes, though after a day or two the site (and the widgets) should come back online.
Sorry about this! I didn't design this widget myself, and so can't offer any technical support, except for us to keep our fingers crossed and hope it comes back online soon!
I do wih that Blogger would enable such a widget. Even something so simple as a "Most commented" widget using data from the database about our posts would be warmly welcomed :)
Oh, ok. Just bad timing on my part, I guess. Thanks for letting me know!
thanks for the post it helped me a lot
Thanks for this. I'll use this on my site.
Thanks for this. I'll use this on my blog.
very nice tips sir. thanks
nice tip...very helpful
http://paintball-xtreme.blogspot.com
thanks a lot. I've implemented it on my site.
Hi Amanda
When i put it on my blog, it says
"Invalid Blog Window Registration
Get your link from AffiliateBrand.com"
What should I do?
Thanks again
www.dewagajah.co.cc
Niche widget. I need this. Thanks for share.
I've created a tutorial implementing the Most Popular posts base on most commented post, here is the full tutorial for this: Most Popular Post Widget for your Blogger blog (Most Commented Posts)
Hope you find this helpful.
How it can be installed in blogger?please explain it fully...
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