This is the post I mentioned in my earlier post, How to encourage audience response.
First off, I must tell you that I am not a great fan of polls, but for the purpose of testing I signed up for a free account with PollDaddy.com.
A free PollDaddy account restrictions has restrictions like having my polls linked to PollDaddy, 100 survey responses per month and 10 questions per survey. To me, these are good enough for purposes of testing.
After signing up, I created a new poll. Framed a question. Wrote possible answers, etc. Initially, I designed a poll at the PollDaddy website. Then, I realized that once you signed up with a PollDaddy, you can perform all these tasks right in your blog’s dashboard.
Here is a sample poll embedded on a post. (Don’t mind the question and answers. They are here for demo only. Feel free to use the Vote button or the text links to explore it.)
Poll settings
The PollDaddy comes with various options like:
- How you want to order the answers whether multiple choice, random order, etc.
- How you want to display the poll results
- How you want to block repeat voters
The PollDaddy also comes with various settings for display styles. The one you see above is only one of many styles.
Can I embed a poll in my blog’s sidebar?
Yes. But you cannot embed the same poll you embed in your post like the one shown above if your post page and sidebar have different dimensions which is the case most of the time.
You need to set up a different poll although with the same question and possible answers with a different size and style to match your blog’s sidebar.
How do I embed a poll?
On the post page, that is easy. Click Edit on the left control panel under Polls to show the list of polls. Select the HTML code which outputs two ways of embedding the poll, a shortcode and a javascript.
Use the shortcode for WordPress.com-hosted blogs like this one.
How do I display a poll on the sidebar?
If you are like me who set up the sidebar using widgets, you would be wondering where the PollDaddy widget is. There is none.
To embed a poll on the sidebar, use the Text widget. Enter the shortcode of the poll.
Where is the poll on this blog’s sidebar? I don’t have one. I don’t want to have a poll displayed all over this blog. Remember, I said at the start, I am not a great fan of polls?
Hope you found this post useful.
The more I look around the more it seems...
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, thanks for this. I’m having trouble embedding a poll into the sidebar. It shows up as a link to the poll, not as the actual poll. Any ideas? The script tags automatically get removed.
Thanks so much for sharing, I couldn’t figure out what the heck to do with the poll, read this and copied the short code into a post!
Thanks for dropping by. Assuming that you are using the Text widget, simply enter the shortcode of the poll on the widget. Hope this helps.
Here is a screenshot of a Text widget with a PollDaddy shortcode (highlighted) embedded in it > http://romycayabyab.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/polldaddy-sidebar-shortcode.png
The screenshot is grabbed from my other experimental site “WHEN ON THE ROAD” at http://moblogon.wordpress.com
You may wish to visit to see how it displays.
You’re welcome Dianna.
You may wish to check these screenshots:
1. A screenshot of the PollDaddy shortcode (highlighted) used in this post > http://romycayabyab.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/polldaddy-shortcode.png
2. A screenshot of this post HTML editor showing how the PollDaddy shortcode (again, highlighted) is embedded > http://romycayabyab.wordpress.com/files/2009/11/polldaddy-post-shortcode.png
Romy
Thanks Romy. I was entering the html instead of the shortcode. All working well now. Cheers, David
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