How To Add the Outbrain Ratings & Recommended Posts Widget to A Blogger Blog

Using the Outbrain recommended posts and ratings / thumbs up widget is a great way to gain additional exposure. Outbrain also helps you gauge which posts your readers find most enjoyable or useful - meaning you are able to plan future articles catering to your readers exact needs and preferences. This article will in instruct you in how to add the Outbrain ratings and recommended posts widget to a Blogger blog.

You may have already noticed the Outbrain widget operating on websites or blogs you've visited. It appears at the bottom of each post, in the form of images and links (as used on this site), or links only, to recommended articles or blog posts. These suggestions are supplied based on popularity and relevance, and the widget can be set up to display articles from your own site only, or to also display recommended articles from other websites. Displaying posts and articles from other blogs and websites means you risk losing a reader, but providing useful links makes your blog more useful to visitors, so you'll need to weigh up the pros and cons and decide which system is best for your blog. 

The Outbrain widget also provides an optional ratings or recommendation system, allowing readers to rate an article from 1-5 stars, or give it a 'thumbs up,' depending on how the widget was set up. This is a brilliant way for Bloggers to learn which of their blog posts are enjoyed by their readers, which will be a great aid in planning successful future posts. You can easily change all settings at any time, without reinstalling the widget, so don't worry if you change your mind about anything later on.

How To Add Outbrain Widget to A Blogger Blog:

1. Visit the Outbrain website.
2. Choose your preferred settings for image or text, and ratings or recommendations. 
3. Check box to accept terms and conditions and Click 'Blogger' as your chosen platform (Note: the latest version of Mozilla Firefox is unable to install the Outbrain widget - and any others I've attempted to add from external sites - so use the Google Chrome browser (which works perfectly), or another of your choice.
4. If you'd like to see traffic reports on your Outbrain views and ratings check the box saying 'Get access to advanced settings,' and sign up using your email address (this is optional).
5. Click 'Install,' at which point you will be redirected to your Blogger account to sign in or choose which blog you want to add the widget to. 
6. Click 'Add Widget.'

You should now have successfully added the Outbrain widget to your blog, and (if so) will see the recommended posts appearing directly beneath each of your own blog posts. If you have any problems you can contact customer services through live-chat, who should be able to rectify things for you.

Note: The Outbrain widget is set up to automatically use the CSS (colours and style) already used in your own blog template, but if it isn't appearing as you would like it to the Outbrain staff are happy to stop by and edit the CSS for you, should you have no prior experience doing so.