The Text Widget

I just made video #2 of the WordPress Widget video series.

You’ll learn how versatile this widget is.  It allows you to embed code from an affiliate network if you want to sell a product or service.

Depending on the theme you are using and the size of the sidebar you have, you can put in banners of different sizes and test to see what works best for you.

You can also create your own advert by writing your own html code.  Or you can have an advert written for you.

The text widget will take copy pure and simple if that suits your need.

Take your pick.

Just take in the video and see what the text widget can for you.

As always, if you find this video helpful don’t forget to “like”, “tweet”, or “Google +1″ it. Many thanks for your support.

PS- Here is the transcript of the video for your use and enjoyment.

Hey, Claude Pelanne at Affiliate Starting Line. Welcome. This is going to

be video two of the Widgets Series. This one is about the text widget. In

the first video we explained what widgets were, and it’s just a word for a

piece of software that adds functionality to your sidebar. What is a

sidebar, you might say? Here is a website. It has a main content area

here in the middle. Then on either side of it, it has a left sidebar and a

right sidebar. That is how this one is configured.

 

These are called sidebars. You’ll see here that it says: pages, about,

contest, disclaimer, recent posts and has a calendar. The information in

these sidebars was put in there by widgets. If I go to the widgets

section, you’ll find the widgets, as I explained, by going to appearance

tab, and then clicking on widgets. You come up to this back office that

shows you all the widgets available for the particular theme I’m using.

 

You’ll notice here on sidebar one, we have pages, and on sidebar two we

have recent posts and a calendar. These widgets are already installed

here. If I wanted to get rid of them, I could click the edit button and

click delete. I just got rid of the widget in the sidebar here, and it’s

gone down here to the inactive widgets and parked itself.

 

I am going to be talking about here, the text widget. The text widget is a

very versatile, arbitrary text, or HTML.

 

How do you use a text widget? You click the add button. This is brand new

in the latest version of WordPress. In the old days you could drag them

across and put them up there. They just changed. It gives me a widget

editing box, a title, then it has a box, then the choice down here of

sidebar. I can put in sidebar one or sidebar two. It has inactive widgets

if I want to put it away in the inactive part and so on. I want it

positioned in sidebar one. It will default to position one because there

is no other widget in there now,I cleared that, and I am going to put some

information in here.

 

What am I going to do? I went over to Share-A-Sale where I have an

account. I’m looking for an advertisement for this travel site, Sandos. I

found this particular banner, a 125 x 125. Here’s the code. I’m going to

lift this code, then come back to my widget, and I’m going to put it right

in here. Then, I’m going to say, "Beautiful Sandos Vacation". That’s it.

 

I’m going to sidebar one, position one, then add a title to it and click

save. Now it’s put the text widget right up here in sidebar one. What

does that look like? You’ll notice this is the one we took out. We have

to refresh the page, and now I have an ad for Sandos. If I click on that

add it will take me to the Sandos site. If you buy a vacation from having

clicked that add, I get a commission. That’s how affiliate marketing

works. That’s the text widget.

 

The text widget can do more than that. Let’s say I want to add another

one, and I want to go below that and add a couple ads. I will come in here

and put it in position two. I will come up in here and come over to my

code that I’ve lifted, and I’ll try this one. Let’s see what this one is.

I’ll copy that, put it in, save the widget, and it’s now put another piece

of code in there.

 

Let’s take a look, go back to the site, refresh it, and now I have another

Sandos ad running, exactly the same one. That gives you an idea of how to

do that. I don’t want to repeat the same ad, so I would come down here and

I’d delete it.

 

Let’s say I have some specific copy I want to put in. I’ll add this. I

will now come down here to some code I’ve already created. I’ll take an

image. I created this image of a travel bag. I put it in HTML, copy it

with control-C, put it in here. Now I know I have an image there. I’ll

come down here and say, "This is the best travel bag I own. Get one".

 

Then what I would do in this particular case is, I have a piece of code, of

anchor text, again, in HTML I wrote that goes to my blog, it would go to an

affiliate site. Now I’ve created my own little advertisement here on my

own. I’ll come up to the travel site and refresh. Now it’s in position

one. I have the bag that I put in here, "This is the best travel bag I

own. Get one", and if I click it, it takes me, in this case, to my blog,

but in other cases I would put in a piece of code here for an affiliate

product that I’m associated with.

 

You can create your own ads, actually, and put your copy in here, put in

your own code and do that yourself. That’s what the text widget does. It

allows you to put ads and copy. If it’s not an ad, it could be a piece of

copy you want to put in there. What if I want to write a little of my own

post? "This is the best site for travel information. Please leave your

comments and queries. Thanks." Put whatever you want to in there. Then, I

would select that.

 

Let’s put it in position three, and I’ll save the widget. Let’s go up to

the site, refresh, and there’s my copy.

 

There are lots of ways you can use the text widget. It’s very versatile,

very useful, and I think you should learn how to use it, and you can become

a much more effective communicator and marketer. That’s it.

 

I hope this video has been helpful. This is the one about the text widget.

Go for it. This is Claude Pelanne at Affiliate Starting Line. Stay with

it and stay well. We’ll talk with you soon.