Why add a poll?

For one, it’s incredibly easy to do.

Polls are also one of the best ways to get your readers engaged with the blog and the topic you’re blogging about. Whereas posting a comment requires the reader to put some thought into what they have to say — not to mention taking the time to type it out and open themselves up to feedback from other commenters — answering a poll takes almost no time at all.

And once you’ve clicked on a poll, you’re that much more likely to give other forms of feedback, like posting comments and sending in pictures. Consider polls a gateway to more blog conversation.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to add ‘em:

In addition to posting polls to your sidebar, you can also add them to individual posts. Simply paste this piece of code into a post: [poll id="2"]

(Get the poll ID from the POLLS menu.)

Tony Graham at the Asbury Park Press does a great job of adding polls to posts. Here are a few examples from Tony’s blogs: Down on the Farm / The Hawks Nest

You can also create a polls archive page, where you can showcase all your past polls. Just paste this code into a Page (not a “Post”): [page_polls]

Here are a couple example of poll archives: The Girly Blog / The Yankee Scrolls