How to follow and be followed via your blog’s sidebar

I love these WordPress.com widgets that enable you to follow and be followed, and suggest that every sidebar should have them installed.

And this is important, because being sociable, friendly and forthcoming, not to mention being nosey, aware and complimentary, is what makes as blog thrive!

So today I’m going to talk about how you can invite readers to subscribe to your blog and show off how many followers you have.

I’m also going to show you how important it is to visit and like other blogs, because once you get really good at it, showing off your results on your sidebar can look pretty good!

Very simply, in your widget gallery, you will see these:

Also WordPress have fixed the inconvenience of dragging your desired widget into the sidebar bucket. Now all you do is select and click!

Yep, find your widget, click on it, select its destination, click on the Add Widget button, and it will appear, already opened, at the bottom of your sidebar. Manage its options and facilities, drag it into its correct position, and check it out on your sidebar.

The first one to deal with is the Follow Blog widget. Once installed, it will open and give you the option to change what it says, thus attracting the attention of your potential followers and enticing them to subscribe. Here’s the original and the words I suggest, though, of course, you are free to say what you want:

I like to have an enticing command for the title of my widget to draw attention to the reader that they should subscribe to the blog. Also I prefer to have the button at the bottom of the form to contain a call to action with a sense of immediacy, to encourage a more positive reaction.

I’ve circled the check box to show the number of followers. This is a very interesting case. The number 4,258 shown here also refers to your connections from your other social media profiles, and if you are very prolific here that number could be substantial! Oh, and you have to be connected via the Settings > Sharing options to get the best results.

This is what it will look like, first to a non-subscriber and then if you have already subscribed:

The second widget I circled above was the Follow Button widget. This is a much less intrusive and discrete button that allows another WordPress.com users to follow your blog in their WordPress reader. This means that whenever a new post is published, your follower will be notified of that fact and will be invited to read it.

You have the option to show the name of your blog, and to decide whether to show how many followers you already have, especially if it is a big number! Popularity attracts people and increases interaction.

As well as inviting your readers to follow your blog, you can also show off the most interesting blogs you like to follow on your sidebar. It’s very important to follow and read other blogs in your niche, to gain ideas, learn more information and make relevant relationships by leaving helpful and constructive comments and feedback.

It’s good to share excellent, relevant blogs via your sidebar, and by suggesting your readers should visit them, this helps to promote these authors. Also, this widget automatically creates outgoing links that gives the search engine spiders something to do. This all adds to your credibility.

Of course if these blog authors also activate a similar widget on their sidebars that shows your blog within the listings, this reciprocation can only benefit everybody. Don’t forget to let these authors know what you have done, but let them make their own decision whether to follow suit.

Check out the Blogs I Follow widget and what it does:

Or you could select the grid option for a more visual effect:

Now I want to introduce the Posts I Like widget which reveals how active you have been reading other blogs and all the posts you have recently liked. This is a nice, altruistic widget will encourage your readers to visit these posts to find out what you liked them. The liking facility occurs at the bottom of each post near the comments section.

Remember popularity is gained through evidence of interaction and activity. And of course the more posts you’ve liked, the more information this widget will show on your sidebar.

So there you have it. Two widgets that encourage your blog’s visitors to follow your blog, and two widgets that show you follow other blogs and like their posts.

Don’t forget that to be able to receive you must learn to give first. It’s all very well setting up the follow me widgets, but the uptake will be slow unless you make the effort to visit, read and comment on other blogs in your niche, or in subjects that interest you. By doing this you will create much more awareness of you and your blog, and your altruistic efforts should be rewarded by lots of followers, likes and comments in return.