As I stated in the ‘Introducing Polls‘ post, polls are a great way to get to know what’s popular, what’s best and is the ‘safest’ way to conclude something on a very heated topic. It’s also a great way to get to know what’s popular or what interests a particular community.
There are a number of ways to incorporate polls on your website whether you use a particular content management software or general services that let you incorporate polls into any website by adding a snippet of HTML or Javascript. The sheer number of services tuned towards providing this service shows that it is a great way to engage with your readers and have an idea of what the/your community is looking for.
Before introducing polls into Computer Realm I did a bit of home work and tested a few WordPress plugins as well as some online services. As mentioned in that post, I went with PollDaddy which is from the same guys that bring you WordPress and it’s not surprising that they are apparently the market leaders when it comes to a polling service for your website. Used by ‘big boys’ like Techcrunch and Wired, PollDaddy provides all the functionality that you’d look for in a poll service.
It’s available in free and paid versions with the free version being crippled (obviously) off some features the main one being the self promotion in the free version, personally I don’t mind it though, the Pro versions provide indepth statistics on the votes which pretty much comprises of demographics and also prevents fraudulent votes. IMO I think the free version is sufficient for your website or blog. You can take a look at the features comparisons with the 3 different account types available here. It also allows you to create a public profile which comprises of all your polls with a gravatar, about section, your website and links to your social networking profiles which can come in handy as well. The poll has a ‘widget like’ interface with over a dozen different skins to choose from.
If you are looking to add polls to your WordPress blog there’s more good news for you as PollDaddy has a WordPress plugin (obviously) that integrates very well with your blog allowing you to create polls from within your dashboard and incorporate polls directly from your ‘add post’ page. There are quite a few other plugins for WordPress as well that allow you to create polls however I was a bit weary of trying them out as they had a low rating (the WordPress plugin database sets high standards so I consider a 3/5 a low rating) and I was right, I tried WP-Polls which is from the popular plugin developer Lester Chan so I was quite confident however as I was disappointed as I couldn’t get the plugin to work at all, I tried Democracy as well to find it really buggy as well, it could be a conflict with the theme or another plugin so be sure to try them out however I think Poll Daddy is the best option.
If you use any other similar services that deserves a mention be sure to mention it in the comments.
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Out of interest, have the polls been of much use to you? I run a shopping deals site (as an affiliate…of course
) and the whole idea of a poll seems good but I don’t want to distract potential customers. I know they’re probably a good idea if you want to start targetting certain niches based on user feedback but at the same time I don’t want people clicking off site.
.-= James´s last blog ..Toshiba 32 Inch LCD | Toshiba 32AV635DB =-.
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Actually i’ve just implemented it so i wouldn’t know how beneficial they maybe, however i’m guessing it should help with getting to know my community of readers and with content creation as well, and also I wouldn’t be ‘distracting customers’ as I’m just providing content, not trying to sell anything, thanks a lot for the feedback!
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Thanks a lot man…. Now I can add a poll to my site too!
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Very nice plugin. I wait for it. Thanks for sharing information about it!
.-= Koncerty´s last blog ..Shaggy Kraków – 2009-08-22 =-.
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