How To Wibiyafy Your Blog

Wibiya opened to the public a little while ago, providing the opportunity for the average blogger to spruce things up and possibly increase page views. This works by providing visitors with valuable tools integrated directly into your blog, keeping them engaged with your content. In other words, it makes your blog or website stickier.

In this post, we will go over basic implementation of the Wibiya toolbar. We will also cover some of the more advanced techniques for integrating Wibiya’s new features into your blog and keeping users engaged.

First thing you need to do is install the basic toolbar. This is as simple as installing most other widgets. You just need to copy and paste the code from the Wibiya website or, where available, install a plug-in. Keep in mind that, if you go the plug-in route, there is an ID number that you need to enter in your dashboard so that Wibiya recognizes your blog.

Next step is to actually figure out which plug-ins you want available on the toolbar. For instance, on my personal blog, I have: Search, Translate, Recent Posts, Random Post, Subscribe, Share, Facebook Fan Page, and Twitter. You choose your applications by going to Edit Toolbar and choosing My Applications.

Badges

Now, here comes the slightly more advanced part. Of course, visitors that click things on your Wibiya toolbar will be able to interface with third-party services like Facebook and Twitter without ever leaving your blog. So, what about your other links and badges? Most of us have links out to Facebook and Twitter in our sidebars or About pages in the hopes that visitors will connect with us elsewhere. The issue here is that, once a visitor clicks those external links or badges, they’re probably gone for good.

This is where Wibiya Badges come into play. They provide you with simple HTML code that gives you direct access to Wibiya’s features. For instance, you could link out to your Twitter profile with simple HTML like this:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/rahsheen”>Follow on Twitter</a>

This will take people to your Twitter profile where they can view your tweets and possibly follow you. However, with Wibiya, you can use similar HTML like:

<a title=”Twitter Dashboard” class=”wbadge” AppType=”20″>Twitter Dashboard</a>

Instead of simply dumping your visitors onto the Twitter home page, this will give them a popup interface right on your website where they can tweet about your stuff, follow you, and read your tweets.

As you can see from the screenshot, the Twitter Notifier from Wibiya leverages the power of BackType to show visitors tweets relevant to the specific page they’re looking at. It also automatically fills in a shortened link to that page or post. This means that each page and post on your site can have it’s own unique conversation going on.

Currently, there are 4 types of badges: Random Post, Twitter, Facebook, and Subscribe. Each one has an Image Badge option where you can just slap it in your sidebar somewhere. If you want better control over blending these badges into your current theme, use the Link Badge code. Wherever you have links to your Twitter/Facebook/RSS, just replace the “<a …>” part with the code from Wibiya. Access your badge code by clicking Get Badges under Edit Toolbar.

Keeping visitors on your blog isn’t the solution to success in blogging, but it’s a start. You still need to have good content updated on a regular basis. You also don’t want every link on your blog pointing back to your own blog as this could eventually kill your Google juice. I think Wibiya is definitely headed in the right direction in allowing users to connect with you on your social networks without actually leaving your home blog or site.

Have you implemented Wibiya yet? What do you think? How can they make it better?

About the Author
Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
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