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3 Clever Ways to Implement Social Sharing Buttons within Your Blog Template |
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WMT Section:
Webmaster Tips -
WMT Category:
Tips for Webmasters
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Written by Webmaster-tips.net
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It’s very important to have social sharing buttons on your blog because they help to increase the reach of your content on the web. Even if just a handful of visitors share your content, it’s better than none at all. The more times your content is shared and bookmarked, the more backlinks and extra traffic you gain. So as you can see, just including this one thing on your blog is a very easy and effective way of increasing your traffic for free.
Here are 3 different methods that you can use to implement social sharing buttons into your blog template.
Plugins/WidgetsPlugins are widgets are the most popular method of adding social sharing and bookmarking buttons to blogs. They’re easy to install and most of the time need very little setup (if any at all) to get started. The top two blogging platforms are WordPress and Blogger, so let’s take a look at a couple plugins and widgets for each.
BloggerBookmarking Buttons Widget - A stylish, customizable widget that adds medium sized sharing buttons to your content.
AddThis - You can create an AddThis widget in under a minute. Just pick your platform and style and you’re done; there are quite a few styles and platforms (other than Blogger) to choose from. You might also like ShareThis , which is very similar.
WordPressSexyBookmarks - One of the most popular plugins for adding social sharing buttons above or below your content. You get to choose which services are shown on your blog and you can customize the background image.
Sociable - A useful plugin for adding small social sharing icons to the bottom of your content; there are 99 different sites to choose from. This plugin also happens to have a Blogger version .
Manually via Free IconsThere are many web design blogs that offer free social media icon packs (for download) on a regular basis. A quick Google search will bring up a lot of different sizes and styles for you to choose from. As you can see from the images below, there are quote some beautiful designs that you just won’t find with the use of a plugin or widget.
 
While this method is a bit more complicated and time consuming than simply adding a plugin or widget, it does allow you to add some very creative and unique icons on your blog. You’ll need to know some HTML and CSS in order to add these to your blog template. After that it’s just a matter of deciding where you would like to place them.
Social ToolbarsFinally, we have social sharing toolbars which are great for increasing user engagement on your blog. These toolbars are displayed at the bottom of your blog on every page; so no matter what your visitors are reading, they’ll always see it there and can easily share your content.
The two most popular toolbars are Wibiya and the Meebo bar. They both add sharing buttons and other interactivity like chatting as well as Facebook fan page and Twitter timeline access.
When it comes down to it, it really doesn’t matter which method you choose to add social sharing functionality to your blog; just make sure that you’re using something that’s fits well with your blog, is easy to access and highly visible. You don’t want to miss out on the additional traffic and potential new subscribers that these buttons can add.
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