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Do you want to add polls to your site?

October 20, 2008 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Blogging, Web Services, WordPress 

I have been thinking about adding polls and surveys to some of my sites, but haven’t had the time to research how to do it best.

Serendipity favored my efforts this morning when I read on Matt Mullenwag’s blog that PollDaddy Goes Automattic.

He announced that all the blogs hosted on WordPress.com now have PollDaddy features enabled and a new plug-in for WordPress has been released.

I just installed the plug-in on this site and this is my test post to see how well it works.

It took only a few minutes to sign up for free at PollDaddy.com and set up my profile there.

I have been wanting a way to create polls and surveys and to show them on my websites and blogs. Creating a poll with PollDaddy is very easy and there are several ways to link to your poll and/or embed it in your site, including javascript, a direct link, and a tag to use with the WordPress plug-in.

Here’s my first test of using a PollDaddy poll using the plug-in:

This is just a simple poll asking if you are a Squidoo lensmaster. It allows comments and I chose to moderate the comments before they are published.

I’m sure I’ll come up with better polls in the future, but I really love Squidoo and I like meeting new lensmasters and catching up with all the lensmasters I already know.

One thing I’m seeing that I don’t like is how the format of the poll changes as my blog page loads. At first, the answers are neatly lined up, but after the page loads completely, they change and no longer line up.

Are you seeing that, too?

It looks, to me, like I’m having a CSS conflict between this poll and one of the widgets I have on this blog.

You can compare what the poll looks like on this site with what it looks like on the PollDaddy site: Are you a Squidoo lensmaster?

Have you wanted to add polls and surveys to your sites and blogs? What tools are you using to accomplish this?

Act on your dream!

JD

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18 Comments on Do you want to add polls to your site?

  1. Testing new poll feature « Random Neurons Firing on Mon, 20th Oct 2008 9:38 am

    2. [...] I wrote about it here: Do you want to add polls to your site? [...]

  2. John Dilbeck on Mon, 20th Oct 2008 9:41 am

    3. I decided to test this poll on my Random Neurons Firing blog.

    I posted it here: Testing new poll feature

    Everything looks good on that blog, so that reinforces my thinking that there is a CSS conflict here.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  3. Dennis Edell on Wed, 22nd Oct 2008 6:27 am

    4. Yep I see it…if someone clicks yes fast, they will actually be voting no.

    Dennis Edells last blog post..Are You Like Jack?

  4. John Dilbeck on Wed, 22nd Oct 2008 5:43 pm

    5. Thanks, Dennis.

    I’m working on rebuilding another website today and when I finish that, I’ll turn my attention back to seeing if I can find the CSS conflict here.

    It’s not a huge problem for me. I can always create a poll or survey and link to it from here.

    At this point, I’m interested in, but not committed to, PollDaddy.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  5. Dennis Edell on Wed, 22nd Oct 2008 9:15 pm

    6. Either way it’s a nifty little gadget…thinkin’ if trying it myself. :)

    Dennis Edells last blog post..Are You Like Jack?

  6. Danny Cooper on Thu, 23rd Oct 2008 6:54 am

    7. These polls look really nice, I might just add some so I can gauge what my readers are thinking.

    Danny Coopers last blog post..Blog Commenting Is No Longer About The Comment

  7. Mitch on Sun, 26th Oct 2008 3:49 pm

    8. I haven’t yet thought about a poll, but it’s not such a bad idea from time to time. I’m not sure what I’d use, but I kind of like what you have, other than the fact that it didn’t totally line up properly on my browser. There are a lot of places one could do this on, though, including creating your own, though it probably wouldn’t post the results immediately. I guess I’d also have to figure out what I’d want to ask.

    Mitchs last blog post..Puppies And Kittens Websites

  8. Thomas Krimi on Mon, 3rd Nov 2008 7:07 am

    9. Two things that I like about PollDaddy:

    1. It actually looks nice. It isn’t overbearing, and it is cosmetically pleasing on a site.

    2. It doesn’t bring you to another page after you vote. One thing that really irks me about online polls is that when I cast my vote it will take me to a results page or something. I would rather stay where I am and continue reading. So I like that this poll shows the results without bringing you to another page.

  9. Caleb on Mon, 3rd Nov 2008 8:25 pm

    10. Polls do seem to be an effective way for return visits. Perhaps WP should include this within their next version as Blogger has?

  10. John Dilbeck on Sat, 15th Nov 2008 2:30 pm

    11. I think I’ve solved the formatting problem with using PollDaddy polls on this blog.

    It turns out that the CSS conflict was between the poll and one of the MyBlogLog widgets I’d been showing in the right column.

    Today, I deleted both MyBlogLog widgets and moved them to a new Social Networking page.

    Of course, adding another page resulted in messing up the row of page navigation links right below the header, so I spent a few minutes finding the code for that and deleting it. The pages are still listed at the top of the left column, so they shouldn’t be hard to find. Since I plan to add a number of additional pages, this was something I’d been planning to modify when I found the time.

    After making these changes, it looks like the poll is maintaining the appearance I expected, so maybe I can turn my attention to creating some interesting polls and adding them over the coming months.

    If you look at this page, does the poll look okay after the entire page loads?

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  11. Mitch on Sat, 15th Nov 2008 3:01 pm

    12. Not only does it look right, but I tested it and it worked right also.

    Mitchs last blog post..Imagekind – ShareASale

  12. John Dilbeck on Sat, 15th Nov 2008 3:24 pm

    13. Thanks, Mitch. I appreciate your feedback. I think I’m going to be making use of more polls here and on my other websites.

    Another of the nice things about using PollDaddy is that I can create one poll and use it on multiple sites.

  13. Dennis Edell on Sat, 15th Nov 2008 9:00 pm

    14. Very nice social networking page, how did you add the box like that?

    Dennis Edells last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

  14. John Dilbeck on Sun, 16th Nov 2008 3:16 am

    15. Hi Dennis,

    Thanks.

    All I did was add a line of javascript to show the MyBlogLog widget. There are two of them on the page.

    I searched for your name on MyBloglog, but it didn’t return anything? Are you a member there?

    If you are, or want to be, it’s pretty easy to add the services you use to your widgets.

    Log in to your MyBlogLog account, and then click the “My Account” link at the top of the page.

    Set up the services you use by clicking the “Services” tab.

    They can help you keep track of quite a few social networking services.

    After you set up that page, click the “Widgets” tab.

    I use the “About Me Widget” to link to the social networking services I set up on the “Services” tab, plus links to my communities on MBL. That’s the top widget on my Social Networking page and is the one surrounded by the box. I think that’s the one to which you were referring.

    I use the “New with Me Full Page” widget to show my recent activity around the web. This, again, depends upon the services that were set up using the “Services” tab.

    It takes some time to set things up at MyBlogLog.com, but it pays off later when you can easily syndicate your activities and sites using just one line of javascript for each widget.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  15. Dennis Edell on Sun, 16th Nov 2008 11:30 pm

    16. Hmm, I wonder if the underscore; dennis_edell is blocking search?

    i looked for that particular widget awhile ago when I saw someone else using it….I guess I’ll look again.

    Dennis Edells last blog post..UPDATED – We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

  16. John Dilbeck on Mon, 17th Nov 2008 9:02 am

    17. Good morning, Dennis.

    I don’t know what happened when I was searching for you on MyBlogLog. This morning, I had no trouble finding you when I searched for “Dennis Edell”, “dennis_edell”, or even “Dennis E”.

    I guess it could be that I misspelled your name when I was looking.

    Just don’t use those MyBlogLog.com widgets on the same page as a PollDaddy poll, unless you want to take the time to isolate and correct the CSS code.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  17. Dennis Edell on Mon, 17th Nov 2008 11:10 pm

    18. You searched for Denise Dell didntcha LOL

    I don’t actually keep the widgets on my blog anymore. i have the links above the fold for a better CTR and sign-up ratio.

    This particular widget I would make a separate page like ours. ;)

    Dennis Edells last blog post..$5 Paypal For The Best Favicon Idea!

  18. John Dilbeck on Wed, 19th Nov 2008 1:21 pm

    19. Good afternoon, Dennis.

    Not Denise Dell (grin).

    Now I remember what I did. At the bottom of your comment is the link back to your last article. The plugin isn’t properly adding an apostrophe where it says, “Dennis Edells last blog post…”

    I’m almost positive that I searched for “Dennis Edells” on MyBlogLog.

    I think we’ve strayed from talking about using PollDaddy to put polls on our site.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

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