Learning Center

Here you will gain access to information that will help you to successfully and easily create, deploy and track your widgets made in Editor’s Desk. We’ll post a range of useful information here, from announcements of free monthly webinars (as well as the content afterwards), best practices for getting the most out of NewsGator widgets, news items, and more.

Best Practice #1: Clearly Define Your Objectives

Before deploying a widget, it is very important to first consider the purpose of the widget and what you hope to achieve through it. In turn, the variety and type of widgets you implement should be based on the objectives. Equally important is to track the level of reader engagement and adjust accordingly.

For example, if you implement a widget with hopes to increase online traffic, it is important to monitor page views and click through rates; if you implement a widget in order to interact with customers, you should be monitoring other actions beyond page views, such as users who share content or add the widget to their own pages. Likewise if you deploy widgets to drive ad sponsorships, you should track ad dollars, impressions, and click through rates.

In short, it is important that you clearly define your intended objective before you deploy a widget; that you track pertinent engagement measurements; and that you adjust the widget accordingly in order to reach your end goal.

Best Practice #2: Know Your Audience & Select Relevant Content

Before deploying a widget, it is very important that you know your target audience and select relevant content that will appeal to them.

The first step is establishing who your target audience is and where they live; are they local, regional, national or international? Second is determining what they care about, and with this you can cater to the specific interests of users. Since widgets are generally easily deployable, the best strategy may be to make several widgets that focus on separate topics (i.e., politics, the economy, sports).

A key part of building a successful widget is encouraging interaction by using dynamic (and in some cases localized) content. Enabling users to provide content can also make your widget significantly more appealing. In addition, engaging users with a variety of content types (pictures, video, and text) can make the user experience more robust.

In short, before deploying a widget, it is vital that you are familiar with your target demographic and figure out what makes them tick. This step is critical to creating a successful, dynamic widget that users want to interact with.

Best Practice #3: Aggregate Content from Multiple Sources

Why is this important to aggregate content from multiple sources? The simple fact is that the "content universe" is far larger than what you/your site publishes. As such, it is useful to combine multiple content sources -- both in house and syndicated. In order to create a robust widget it is helpful to leverage NewsGator's discovery tools and editorial control, which include a feed search which gives you the ability to control post level content within each feed. We have more than 3 million feeds which you can choose from!

For instance, the inRich news widget allows users to select feeds from a variety of sources. And, despite "living" on CBS News, their politics widget aggregates information by reading in content from a wide variety of (non-CBS) sources. Clearly, giving your viewers access to a wide variety of content, both internal and external, allow for a more rich experience for the user and enhances the engagement quotient. Don't be shy in combining multiple content sources in your widgets!

Best Practice #4: Social Interaction, Prominent Placement, Broad Distribution

The keys to building a successful widget are fostering engagement as well as prominent placement and broad distribution of the widget. And one of the keys of engagement — beyond the obvious caveats of not making the widget too complicated and making sure the content is fresh — is fostering social interaction. To foster this interaction (without making the widget overly busy), consider adding to the widget several of the below options NewsGator widgets provides:

• rate
• share
• email
• comment
• IM
• send to mobile
• other (digg, delicious, etc.)

The other key steps in creating a successful widget are prominent site placement and broad distribution/promotion. In terms of placement and distribution, here are some suggestions:

• Display the widget prominently on your home page or other highly viewed pages
• Add the widget to as many pages as possible
• Place the widget on pages with relevant content
• Distribute the widget to like-minded sites and affiliates
• Allow individuals to take the widget to start pages, social networks, etc.
• Promote the widget through other marketing channels (blog, print, email, etc.)

A couple of other considerations: Consider co-branding the widget. This will allow you to expand your network, increase page views and your overall web footprint and with no extra cost since co-branded widgets can access an increased audience that you couldn't reach before. In addition, keep in mind that with a viral widget, as you allow content to be distributed, look and feel may change. So, be aware of where the widget may eventually reside (iGoogle, Facebook, etc.) and test the widget on all of the planned locations.