Widgets are the Internet’s answer to “knowledge on demand”. They are icons that give you easy access to information and areas of interest. Widgets are versatile tools that can be placed on websites, desktops, blogs, profiles and even mobile devices. Users can access and interact with the information they need for news, entertainment, weather, blogs, the stock market or any other area of interest.

Today’s Internet users expect more from a website. They want it to be proactive, drive traffic and develop more incoming links. Widgets help do this and more. These Internet “gadgets” are a great way to market your site and make it come alive. If you place widgets on your blog or homepage, visitors will be able to download your widgets to their desktop or add them to their personal sites. Another great thing about widgets is that they are viral and allow users to share and download them through their friends’ sites. With widgets, you now have a website that is more interactive with a tool that contains valuable information, is viral and creates more inbound links.

FaceBook, for example, revolutionized their site by recently adding the FaceBook Platform in May 2007. Now booming, FaceBook widgets range from political campaigns to zombie bites (a community widget that allows friends to bite and turn each other into members or “zombies”). Because of widgets like these, FaceBook has attracted more people and more advertisers. Other sites that have used widgets to their benefit include PhotoBucket and MySpace. Like the big boys, savvy webmasters are jumping on the widget bandwagon and using it for their customers benefit.

As long as you keep your widget useful and simple, they will drive traffic to your sites and work to promote your products and services. Widgets are cheap and effective ways to promote your business through direct response web marketing and through social networking.