08/12/2009

Guest post by Ann Smarty.
It is always good to give your site readers something they can enjoy themselves with. Getting creative with what you offer your blog followers to spend some time with is essential: this way you encourage them to share your content and promote your site.

Here are 3 little known tools that allow you to create, customize and embed widgets to grow your site popularity:

1. Create a (Sliding) Puzzle

ProProfs is a free online tool that allows to create various brain games and embed them to your blogs.

Steps:
1. Register at the site;
2. Go to “Sliding puzzles” section of the site and click “Create a Sliding Puzzle“;
3. Provide an image by searching Google, entering a direct image URL or uploading from your computer:

4. Provide the puzzle title, description, name and the difficulty level.

Preview:

2. Countdown Widget

CountDown2Zero.com allows you to create a cool-looking, fully customizable widget counting time down to the event you are looking forward to:

Steps:
1. Go to the site (no registration required) and click “Create Your Countdown!”
2. Provide the following details:

• The event you are waiting for;
• Widget description and tags;
• Your moniker and email;
• Your time zone;
• End of countdown (time and date);
• The widget color (two if you want a gradient color).

Preview:

3. Flickr or Picasa SlideShow

PictoBrowser is a fun web app that lets you create a slideshow of any Flick or Picasa member’s photo:

Steps:
1. Enter your (or any other user’s) Flickr Username.
2. Select images by tags, groups and sets.
3. Customize the display elements of the slideshow:

• Image alignment;
• Player width and height;
• Background color; etc.

Preview:

Are you aware of any other less known widgets you can embed to your blog to entertain your readers?

The guest post is by Ann Smarty, an SEO consultant and social media power user. You can also write a guest article and share your favorite tools.

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