2 Free Tools to Make Your Web Site More Social
Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and even MySpace, the Web is becoming an increasingly social place. Web sites are expected not only to give information, but also to accept ratings, comments and other feedback from surfers. Once a one-way communication, Web sites are now seen as interactive places where ideas are exchanged.
Lucky for Web developers, there are many quick-fix tools for making any Web site more social with very little effort. Here are a two to start your transition to sociability:
One of the many interactive features Web users have come to expect is the ability to rate things. We like and dislike our friends’ status updates on Facebook. We give books and movies five stars. We like to believe that our opinions matter—so we litter the Web with them.
SetRating.com is a very simple way to add rating abilities to your Web site. All you must do is copy/paste a small piece of code into the source code of your Web pages and instantly you are endowed with either a thumbs up/thumbs down or five-star ranking system. The code is available on the SetRanking.com homepage, with no need to register for an account.
Besides anonymous ratings, modern Web surfers like to feel they are contributing to/with a Web site by leaving comments pretty much everywhere. Instacomment allows your visitors to leave comments anywhere you place a small script.
Unlike StarRating.com, though, you must register for Instacomment, and you must upload a php file to your Web server. So, expect to spend a few minutes on setup, but then your site will have a fully functional comment tool, complete with RSS feeds. Comments are collapsible, making them unobtrusive.
So now there is no excuse for losing traffic for lack of social interactivity. These tools, and others like them, can be integrated with current site content within minutes.
Lucky for Web developers, there are many quick-fix tools for making any Web site more social with very little effort. Here are a two to start your transition to sociability:
1. SetRating.com
One of the many interactive features Web users have come to expect is the ability to rate things. We like and dislike our friends’ status updates on Facebook. We give books and movies five stars. We like to believe that our opinions matter—so we litter the Web with them.
SetRating.com is a very simple way to add rating abilities to your Web site. All you must do is copy/paste a small piece of code into the source code of your Web pages and instantly you are endowed with either a thumbs up/thumbs down or five-star ranking system. The code is available on the SetRanking.com homepage, with no need to register for an account.
2. Instacomment
Besides anonymous ratings, modern Web surfers like to feel they are contributing to/with a Web site by leaving comments pretty much everywhere. Instacomment allows your visitors to leave comments anywhere you place a small script.
Unlike StarRating.com, though, you must register for Instacomment, and you must upload a php file to your Web server. So, expect to spend a few minutes on setup, but then your site will have a fully functional comment tool, complete with RSS feeds. Comments are collapsible, making them unobtrusive.
So now there is no excuse for losing traffic for lack of social interactivity. These tools, and others like them, can be integrated with current site content within minutes.
