I’ve Added Polls to My Blog
September 24, 2009 Posted by Tyler CruzI’ve been getting pretty caught up with work recently and so I’ve actually been able to open my long ‘todo’ list. The first item on the list was to consider adding a poll plugin to my blog if I could find a decent one. Fortunately, the search wasn’t too difficult as one plugin appears to be the best by far.
I am using the plugin WP-Polls v2.50 which can be downloaded for free here. It’s a great poll plugin that is quite versatile and works perfect. You can add it to the side of your blog or inside of posts, and it utilizes AJAX to provide seamless voting and results.
I’m actually surprised I’ve never thought about adding a poll to my blog before. Now that I think about it, it should be one of those essential things that all bloggers should have in their arsenal, just like having an RSS feed and contact form. By occasionally polling your visitors, you can learn extremely useful information that will enable you to improve your blog by catering to your visitor’s wants and needs.
It’s also great for helping you to make simple choices. While comments are great for getting specific feedback, polls help in that they can give you a numerical figure. For example, if you’re getting a new logo done and have two mockups to choose from, you can poll your visitors to see which they prefer.
Therefore, I think the larger your audience is, the more polls come in handy. For example, I’ve received 41 comments on my To Merge, or Not to Merge: That is the Question post. I had a lot of great feedback in the comments, but it was very difficult to see which option people were leaning towards since it was so split. Adding a poll to this post would have been perfect. I’ve had other posts with over 100 comments, so in my case polls really do help sum things up.
So to celebrate the addition of polls to my blog, here are 8 that I’d love for you to answer. I may publish a follow-up post on the results.
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Where am I from? Colombia
Ah, cool to know 🙂
I actually took the time to vote. Personally, I wouldn’t be a huge fan of the voting thing but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to test it out to get a feel on what your readers have to say without actually having to say anything.
I’m interested in a lot of things but mainly the whole business aspect… things like how you go about getting a special accountant, how you went incorporated, how to get trademarked, expenses, how to save on reinvesting in your business, etc.
I know a lot of that stuff already but it doesn’t hurt to have other ideas especially since you’re in Canada and its slightly different over there.
Eh, just my two pennies…
Jay
Nice idea, i took the time to vote on all of the polls. 🙂
Yea I had the chance too, to vote on them, I like it.
what a pools… it will take lot of time to finish…lol…but it’s okay…
Poll would be good to know what your audiences want to know more about. You can produce more relevant topic that your audiences love to read about, that’s a great way to receive more return visitors.
Anyway, I’m from Malaysia. 🙂
Regards,
Lee
Where am I from? Norway
Reading RSS, so remember to say when there’s a vote up in the actuall post too. 🙂
I like the idea, polls are always good when building up user interaction.
I honestly don’t think polls are the best way to find what the audience wants in terms of content. They’re good for stuff like “Which logo do you prefer?”
But, as far as finding out what the audience wants for content, I think server logs and keywords used to get to the site are more telling.
Hi Tyler,
It’s great to know that you want precision in terms of your results. But I would say that in order to achieve that precision you must know how reliable those poll results are gonna be for you. I wish you all the best & hope you get huge & precise results.
P.S.: I admire your strategy for adding the polls. It’s pretty obvious, though.
I’ve been on making money online for a couple of months.
Therefore I’m still a new bie and need more experience.
And I really like to read more articles about internet marketing which I’m on the boat.
I like the polls. I voted on them all. I hope these polls help you find the information you looking for.
It looks like you changed bunch of things. I am glade to see somethings changed. I think polls are great to see what your readers are leaning to. Greg Ellison
Polls are pretty cool. Have you looked at polldaddy.com? they have a wordpress plugin and it’s free.
I Love The polls 🙂 !
Me too they add more value.
On the \how do you visit’ question you should take into consideration combined RSS/browser visits. I subscribe to your RSS abut very seldom read there, I visit the blog when I see a new post.
I actually wish there was subset service of RSS that would work like Google Reader or other RSS tools but automatically open the actual blogs rather than having to double and triple click and have multiople tabs open all the time.
Pretty cool addition with the polls, I am real fan of this Tyler =D The only problem I saw is that It took a while for it to finish “loading” after I submitted my vote. It took at least 20 seconds…. for it to process.
Till then,
Jean
I like the new polls Tyler, thanks for sharing.
This was great, i loved it. many thanks
cool polls
who are the other 12-14 year olds?? I thought I was the only one?
Austin, you may be the only one..it’s possible someone could misclick… or lie about their age 😉 But.. surprisingly there are quite alot of young bloggers… so its not a surprise to me.
Till then,
Jean
Great idea. I answered all the questions 🙂 Polls really help to see many things
Hahah, these are quite a lot. I think you can have a specfic section for polls here in your blog..
hahaha its pretty funny man! I think this is a great idea but I think there’s too many polls there haaha
Just took the poll. I agree with you polls are a valuable asset to any blog. An occasional poll can help see what your readers like and dislike about your blog.
Thank you captain obvious…
How often will you update the polls?
[…] added a great poll plugin to my blog that can be seen in action here. It’s a great poll plugin that that is quite versatile and works great. You can add polls to the […]
Pinecone research, Surveysavvy, Greenfieldonline are some of the larger survey companies, who pay regularly . A list of companies you can join for free…
I want to create a poll to put in my blog but I can’t find a decent site :P.
Anyone know a site?
Just download and use the same plugin that Tyler uses and you should be fine.
Till then,
Jean
I want to hear inspirational stories about your childhood involving snow, mountain passes, and canibalism.
Interesting comment to say the least 😉
Till then,
Jean
in past i dont like polls because after i vote page reloads and some time it tooks a lot of my time. but polls like in this website have ajax technology so these type of polls are awesome.
Awesome how the polls don’t require another page load
Polls are a great way to spark debate. Good idea implementing them on your blog. I look forward to some great polls in future posts.
Just don’t overdo it with the polls. An occasional poll is fine, but people don’t want to be taking a survey everytime they come to your blog.
Polls work both ways when you share the results with your visitors, just like you did with the one above. A word of advice, though: don’t overdo it. Just like with everything else, I guess.
Hi Tyler,
the polls are IMO great idea, BUT you mentioned Philippines and missed out Europe in “Where do you live?” question? I really don’t get it:)
Good idea, an occasional poll would be interesting.
I always enjoy polls on sites, as long as they are interesting questions and concise.
-Jack
wew there is polls to vote hehe..thats great! good idea implementing them on your blog. I look forward to some great polls.
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[…] months ago I added polls to my blog and put up 8 polls for you guys to answer. 144 of you filled them out which was a lot better than I […]