Website widgets - for people without websites or blogs already

Making website widgets is a great way of getting people to discover and use your website without you actually having to build a website yourself first.

If you've signed up to an affiliate scheme already, but haven't had time to build your website yet, it means you can get marketing straight away.

My favourite widget website is called Widgetbox and it’s one of these wonderful, free, web 2.0 style websites which does pretty complicated stuff very easily and intuitively.

If you have a website or blog already, you need to look at this page as you have more options available to you.

With Widgetbox, you can create your own website widgets or use someone else’s widget.

The widgets you create are automatically made available on the site, so it also becomes a way of getting your site ‘out there’ and bring it to the attention of a new audience.

The essential part of this service though is that you can add your widget to your blog, your social networking profile or your website, and there's an extensive range of options available:

# Facebook # Wordpress # MySpace # Blogger # Typepad # LiveJournal

# Tagged # Multiply # Blogger Post # iGoogle # Netvibes # Freewebs

# Pageflakes # Piczo # Ning # Confluence

Creating your own website widgets

Elsewhere on this website I've recommended ei42.com as the simplest and quickest way of getting a web business going straight away, mainly because it provides you with a free website already - you don't need to build one first - and it supplies all the promotional tools you need to get started.

To make this widget you need to get signed up to ei42.com first.

Here's how a widget for ei42.com looks:

Notice the ‘Get Widget’ tab at the bottom … it’s really easy for other people to spot your website widget then grab it for themselves and add it to their own site.

So how do make a quick widget to start marketing ei42.com or your new website?

If you have a website or blog already, you need to look at this page as you have more options available to you.

Step 1: Click on Make a widget

Step 2: Click on HTML/JS ... but don't worry about coding yet as ei42.com provide all the code you need.

Step 3: Select Blank Widget and then give your widget a name as in the picture below.

Step 4: Click on Continue and Widgetbox will process your widget.

Step 5: The next thing we need to do is to insert a bit of HTML code.

To get you code - which is ready-made for you - you have to login to your ei42.com control panel ... so remember, you must be a member to be able to do this.

You're given a number of options to use in your widget, as in the image below:

Highlight the code for the image and promotional message you prefer, then 'cut and paste' it ready for use in Widgetbox.

Step 8: Cut and paste that code into the Widget Code area (see below) below the words <!------------Your widget code goes here------------> and insert the dimensions of the image (in this case 234x60 pixels) into the Width and Height boxes.

You will see that your image now appears in the preview box once you click on Apply Changes.

Step 9: Click on Save Widget and you will be taken to a page showing a list of Actions as in the screen below.

Step 10: Click on Test and Get Widget, make sure you test it first to be sure it works, then click on the Get Widget button as in the image below.

Step 11: Make sure you're looking at the options for people without existing blogs or websites (see above) and you can then email a friend, add to Twitter or any of the other social networking options shown in the list.

The most simple option is to email a friend, which you can see in the image below.

Once you send the email to your friend, they receive a link that will take them directly to your promotional widget, as in the example below.

You might also like to experiment with some of the other options that Widgetbox gives you, like adding your promo to iGoogle if you use it.

Creating website widgets in this way is a totally free option (though you can pay for extras!) and it's a great way of distributing your site content and getting it 'out there' without having to shell out for marketing fees.

Find out how you can create your own free e-shop in less than 5 minutes with ei42.com and then use their banners in your email signatures straight away to start earning money without building a website.

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