Looking for a way to keep your readers up-to-date on the latest news, while simultaneously attracting new visitors to your blog?
Checkout the Feedzilla News Widget. It's a customizable widget that aggregates and categorizes news stories by topic. The content is collected 24-hours a day, 7-days a week from a handpicked list of the top news sources. There are over 1750 topics to choose from, so whether you write about travel, tech, business or celebrities, the content will align with your blog.
In addition, by adding the Feedzilla News Widget, you'll not only be providing fresh, relevant news, you'll:
We love guest stars here on Everything TypePad, especially when they're telling us how to do more cool stuff with our blogs. Here's a guest post on how to add the Etsy mini-widget to your blog, from one of our favorite bloggers, Sara, who blogs at All Things Girls Can TellWhat I Did With My Summer Vegetables. Take it away, Sara!
Do you have a Typepad blog, love Etsy.com and want to include an Etsy mini widget (or three) in your sidebar?
1. Once you have the java script all cut and copied from your Etsy account for your Etsy mini (you can find it under "Promote" when you're logged in, under "Your Etsy"), go to Typelists in your Typepad behind-the-scenes screen (your dashboard when you're logged in). Click "create a new Typelist". 2. Choose "link" as the type of list you'd like to create. 3. Name your fancy new list (I call mine "currently at Etsy", but by all means, be more creative than that). 4. Now choose which page you'd like to display it on - your blog page, your about page, etc. 5. Click on this new Typelist, and paste the javascript code you grabbed from Etsy into "link title" and then save it. (Leave the other fields blank). 6. Once that's accepted, you need to click to "edit your current design" (in the "Weblogs" tab). 7. First click "select content" to add it to your sidebar content. 8. Then click "order content" to arrange your sidebar items as you wish (most likely prominently displaying your fabulous Etsy Mini). It's all pretty drag and droppy, so have fun with it.
Once that's all done, you need to republish for it to appear. You can see how it looks all pretty and finished right here on my little blog. Rock it!
Want to add your del.icio.us linkrolls, tags, or your del.icio.us to the sidebar of your blog? It's easy.
There's lots of ways to incorporate your blog and your del.icio.us social bookmarking activity. There's a great widget in our gallery that you can just add right in for displaying your bookmarks. You can see how I did my own links in this screenshot on the right. (I take the word del.icio.us pretty literally, as you can see.)
We're excited about another widget that we like a lot, from our friends
at
Lijit. You can add a Lijit search box to your blog to index your own
blog
content. It can also index stuff from your social networking profiles,
like Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us bookmarks, and others. This can help
your blog get more page views and helps you to increase your
reach online. If you're someone making money with your
blog from ads, you'll have the option to promote ads on Lijit search
results pages.
Lijit also offers performance and traffic analytics for cool things like
geo-location and keyword searches. Adding Lijit to your blog is easy -
just
click here to get started.
One of our fabulous support team members, just discovered a great new widget called LinkWithin. and it adds link below each of your posts to other related posts. Zalary posts:
"I know lots of TypePad subscribers have been asking about this type of functionality, so I was very excited to try this widget and find it works so well!"
Some of the our favorite third-party applications are giving us the royal treatment this week- Ping.fm, Apture, and Userfly.
Apture's a slick Firefox extension that helps you to add and integrate all kinds of media into your blog. Andy and I are working on another video to show you just how cool you can get with it, but give it a whirl. It'll add a button on your compose window to help you along. (It works with Movable Type too.)
Ping.fm makes updating your social network-ed friends very easy, and Userfly makes your web usability testing both free and easy.
Thanks to all the awesome developers out there who keep building cool tools to use on your blog. Have a favorite widget or browser plugin you want to share?
Today's guest post comes from John T. Unger. He's sharing some news about updates to the PayPal Storefront Widget:
When I first wrote about the Paypal Storefront Widget, I called it "the fastest, easiest eCommerce solution for blogs." If you're looking for a quick and easy way to add fully functional eCommerce to your blog (whether selling goods or services) you should definitely give the Storefront Widget a look. The widget works equally well for TypePad blogs using basic or
advanced templates. You can add a
storefront with a single click by visiting TypePad's Widget Gallery.
Or, you can embed as many stores as you like, anywhere you want, by
cutting and pasting a snippet of code provided by PayPal at the end of the
set-up process. For a list of features and an overview of what the Storefront Widget can do for your blog, please check out my previous articles on Everything TypePad and my own blog TypePad Hacks.
I'm writing about the Storefront Widget again today to tell you about some new features and to congratulate Judy Chang and the PayPal Distributed Payments team on the fantastic effort they've put in to supporting widget users and continuing to improve the widget for everyone.
Here's a list of what's new for the widget:
Multiple Currencies: One of the most-requested features that was missing from the initial release was the ability to sell in currencies other than US Dollars. This has been addressed and you can now configure your store to sell using any of the 17 currencies that PayPal supports.
Product Options: Just like the original PayPal buttons, you can now customize up
to two options for a product. For items that might come in different sizes, colors or materials this is certainly handy. Even better, you can now also include a surcharge for certain options if you want to. For instance, if you're selling jewelry, you could set different prices for the same ring done in gold or silver. Or you could use the surcharge to offer upgrades to services.
Inventory Control: For items that have limited quantities, you can now specify the available inventory. This can be broken down further to allow you to set inventory numbers for each item by options or combinations of options (ie: I have 9 red shirts, size xxl and 15 blue shirts, size xxl).
Store Reputation: We all know that favorable feedback from buyers is one of the best ways to increase trust online. Now, customers who buy from your Storefront Widget can provide written feedback and rate your store from 1-5 stars. Only one rating per transaction is allowed and buyers must provide the invoice ID that PayPal generates in order to leave feedback.
Shipping Options: Originally, shipping had to be included in the sale price. The obvious drawback to this approach is that it makes items look more expensive. Although the widget does not yet include a way to automatically generate shipping costs, the PayPal team has called attention to a clever hack developed by sellers using the widget: You can add shipping fees to your storefront and have buyers select the proper shipping rate as an item based on the order subtotal. This is still an imperfect solution for some situations, but should prove useful for many sellers.
Here's what the updated widget looks like in action:
The Paypal Storefront Widget is an amazing tool for bloggers who want to sell goods or services without diving deep into coding a custom solution. You can add a storefront with a single click by visiting TypePad's Widget Gallery. Or, you can embed as many stores as you like, anywhere you want by cutting and pasting a snip of code provided by PayPal at the end of the set-up process. If you're looking for an easy way to monetize your blog or to sell goods and services online, this is one of the best options I've seen yet. The widget works equally well for blogs using basic or advanced templates.
Don't let the ease of use and simple set-up process fool you… although the Paypal Storefront Widget was designed as a tool for "casual sellers," the widget contains almost all the features you would expect from a full eCommerce tool. Because you can have as many different storefronts as you want, there's no limit to how you can use this widget to grow your business. You could use it to offer special deals from within any post. Or to create a "catablog" with your full range of products. You could use it to feature product spotlights. The possibilities are limited only by imagination.
The PayPal Storefront Widget is free, and fees for transactions are the same as those for the standard PayPal shopping cart buttons. This makes it an ideal solution for testing new products and ideas. You only pay if you've made sales and the costs are much lower than most eCommerce products currently available.
Who is the Paypal Storefront Widget for?
People who want to focus on blogging about their area of expertise and drive business, rather than spending all their time configuring and coding their blog.
People who want to test new ideas in the market or grow their existing businesses.
People who need an inexpensive eCommerce solution that delivers real features.
People who need a simple eCommerce solution with a low learning curve.
People who want a fast eCommerce solution they can set up in minutes.
Even for people who are comfortable with writing code, this widget offers a great solution for quickly adding one-of-a-kind items or special offers that might not justify the amount of work needed to hand-code product pages.
Our friends at PayPal have just launched their new PayPal Storefront Widget. The widget – designed to integrate seamlessly with TypePad blogs – lets you embed a virtual storefront into your blog you can use to sell...well...just about anything! With the holiday season in full swing, we see this as a great tool for crafters and artists looking for an easy way to sell gifts through their blogs. The widget is a complete eCommerce solution that includes product descriptions, a shopping cart and integration with PayPal's secure payment system. And it's very easy to set up. Have something to sell? Create your own PayPal Storefront and add it to your blog today!
I had a lot of fun working with Judy Chang and the rest of the PayPal team bringing this together. We'd love to hear your feedback in the comments! You can read more about the widget on The PayPal Blog.
