Day 5: Globalize Your Blog

One of the most popular widgets out there is the Clustrmaps. It tracks your visitors and adds dots to the map corresponding where they hail from. It’s always fascinating to see where your visitors are coming from, and I don’t think I’m alone when I say it’s kind of a thrill when you see that you had a visitor from a land on the other side of the globe. If you haven’t installed a Clustrmap on your blog yet, you can consider that to be a sub-challenge for the day. It doesn’t take much time, and it’s another one of those little gifts to yourself that keeps on giving. If you do have a Clustrmap already, consider this a reminder to check it periodically and see where your visitors are coming from.

So why do I mention Clustrmaps if that isn’t specifically today’s challenge? Quite simply, to remind you that it isn’t just the people in your state, country, or even continent that are going to find your content. When you publish your thoughts and ideas on your blog, you are publishing for a global audience. It’s entirely possible, and even likely, that you are getting visitors from around the world without you even realizing it. So shouldn’t we be making our content as accessible as possible?

Of course, even without considering visitors from around the globe, if you live in a culturally diverse community, you may have parents who aren’t native English speakers. There’s one district nearby me that has a school where over thirty different languages are spoken by the different students. Publishing the great things that your students have been doing on your blog doesn’t do you much good if your parents are unable to read it.

That’s why today’s challenge is to provide visitors a means to translate your blog into their native language, no matter what it is. Google Translate, while not perfect, does a very adequate job of translating web pages into other languages. However, we can save visitors more than a few steps by putting the Google Translate widget directly into our sidebars. Once it’s in there, with a single click, people can translate your content into their native tongue. All you need to do is visit this page, copy the code and paste it into your sidebar wherever you want to display it. If you are targeting a specific language (for example, if many of your parents speak a specific language) you may want to call attention to the widget in both English and that language.

Just in case you don’t know how to embed HTML into your blog, here are a few resources for you. If you’re using Edublogs.org, click here to see how to embed code into your sidebar. If you’re blog is hosted by Blogger, visit this article to see how to do your embedding. If you’re using Wordpress.com to host your blog, unfortunately you’re going to need to do a workaround. They don’t allow you to embed in the Google script (for security reasons), but if you visit this thread, you can see how to make a small widget full of text links for translations, or if you scroll about midway down the page it’ll show you how to display a series of flags that will provide one click translation.

That’s it for today’s challenge! Leave a comment when you have done so and let us know where some of your visitors happen to be coming from! What’s the farthest away location or the most interesting? Or will you just be starting to track that today? Good luck!

31 Comments

Jay
11/5/2008

I added the Clustrmaps no problem and I added the code for the Google translate. I now have both the map and the translate, thanks Steve!

Jay´s most recent blog post.. Day 4- Own your CContent

Chandell Asuncion » Blog Archive » Challenge: 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger
11/5/2008

[...] Day 5: Globalize Your Blog using clustermaps. Clustermaps allow you and your visitors to see who is visiting your blog and where they are in the world. [...]

Kelly B
11/6/2008

Did it!

On wordpress, it doesn’t look as good, so I added it as another page, rather than a sidebar widget. I like it though.

http://www.shortcomp.edublogs.org

Pat
11/6/2008

I have had Clustrmaps for a long time but never thought about tranlating my blog for others. Thanks so much for this idea. Now I have both added to my page and I hope it will make my blog more accessible to people around the world.

Pat´s most recent blog post.. Day 4 of 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger

Patrick Balck
11/6/2008

I added the Clustrmaps, and love the way it looks. I also added the google translate. As of now my furthest vistor is from Switzerland (but that’s from feedburner).

Patrick

30D2BBB

Patrick Balck´s most recent blog post.. Adapted Learning.com

Nancy
11/6/2008

I’ve had the Clustr map on my blog, but didn’t think to add a translator widget, which is odd, since I do have one on my school-based blog. Thanks for the reminder!

Nancy´s most recent blog post.. 30D2BBB – A Heartfelt Thanks

Sean Nash
11/6/2008

I’ve only used ClustrMaps for a couple of months. However, as a part of 30D2BBB, I got a really cool response from the folks at Clustrmaps. (tried to change link below to the one about Analytics- to no avail) Bit here is the comment left on the article:

”

Thanks for using (and mentioning) ClustrMaps! You’re right that we’re all about the ‘quick gestalt’ and showing off your users, rather than about the fine-grained statistics of the wonderful Google Analytics. Our dots are accurate, and we take pride in showing ‘impossibly many dots in an impossibly small space, impossibly fast’.

Another key differentiator from the other tools is typified by THIS posting – we are fanatical about our loyal users, and beam in to thousands of blogs around the world to keep up with their comments!

Anyway, thanks for sticking with us… come to think of it, while I’m in such a positive mood, I’ve just given you a free upgrade to ClustrMaps+ (better continent-level maps, no ads), which will take effect after the next overnight update.

Enjoy!”

Pretty cook, huh?

Sean

Sean Nash´s most recent blog post.. Take That, 20th Century

Natalie
11/6/2008

Wow! That was easy. I’ve had ClustrMap since I first started my blog and enjoy that quite a bit. Steve, you’re right about providing Google Translate. I think I will apply that to my websites as well. My district has 85 different languages. My school has at least 20.

Natalie´s most recent blog post.. Day 5: Go Global

Pam Shoemaker
11/6/2008

I didn’t know about the Google translate widget. I just added it to my blog. My daughter speaks fluent Spanish and I’m going to have her check it out tonight to see how accurate it is. I added a clustermap about a year ago and am still amazed that people from all over the world visit my blog. Thanks again for the tips; this is fun!

Pam Shoemaker´s most recent blog post.. Broccoli Brain

Theresa White
11/6/2008

Thanks for your great articles! I’ve jumped in today but completed the last 5 days. Very excited about this – I’m hoping it keeps me up on my posting!!! You’re doing a great job, thank you!!

Day Five - Thirty Days To A Better Blog « Virtual High School Meanderings
11/6/2008

[...] the evening. Anyway, day four in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series asks us to look at Day 5: Globalize Your Blog. Specifically to make our blog more accessible to a global [...]

RJ Stangherlin
11/6/2008

Have only limited time I may be online, so I save it for the 30 Days challenge. I had installed a ClustrMap a few weeks ago, and the farthest away location is in the middle of the ocean, some place I cannot identify. I have not yet attracted a global audience, but I am happy that the midwest and CA have found me. Loved adding the translation feature; noticed cliotech had one a while ago. I just feel a bit presumptive about adding a translation feature, but perhaps it will help build an audience. Love these tips, Steve.

RJ Stangherlin´s most recent blog post.. Saying Thank You

Mike
11/6/2008

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the tip but I did not add Clustrmaps for two reasons:

1. The more of these widgets that get added, the slower the page loads, especially when they are pulling data from another site on the web.

2. I don’t want to overload my sidebar with stuff to the extent that people can’t find things like the archives, categories, etc.

I’m not saying widgets like this aren’t useful for everyone – just not for me. Your other tips have been great – thanks!

Kate Tabor
11/6/2008

Hi Steve,

I added the translator droid for wordpress. Very cool indeed. The Site Meter has a cluster map, so I can have that without adding it to the page. Where is my farthest visitor from? I have some plurk pals that are in Australia and NZ, so one of them shows up, and then there is Seoul, South Korea – American ex-pat Clay Burell who I tend to pester with comments so he returned the favor. On to Day 6!

Kate Tabor´s most recent blog post.. Thank you notes

Nancy
11/6/2008

@RJ, is the dot to the west of California? Then that would be someone in Hawaii!

Nancy´s most recent blog post.. 30D2BBB – A Heartfelt Thanks

Karen Montgomery
11/6/2008

I have Feedjit http://feedjit.com/ for Live Traffic Map and Live Traffic Feed and Babel Fish http://babelfish.yahoo.com/free_trans_service for translation.

Karen Montgomery´s most recent blog post.. Election Reflection

Robin Martin
11/6/2008

I have feedjit.com widget on my page to track visitors. I am ALWAYS amazed where people come from to visit this little blog I created to share links with my colleages at school! So I found a translator on converythis.com last week and put that on my page. Not really very hard with blogger.

Day Six - Thirty Days To A Better Blog « Virtual High School Meanderings
11/6/2008

[...] school, virtual school Day six in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series asks us to look at Day 6: Get Some Fresh Perspective On Your Blog. The direct instructions ask you to get someone who is not familiar with your blog to look around [...]

Michelle Bourgeois
11/7/2008

OK, this is a challenge that I really thought wouldn’t apply to me. While I’d like to think of myself as global, I pretty much figured my audience would be centered in the United States with a few outliers in Australia, New Zealand and the UK where I have friends. Until I looked at my stats and realized I have visitors from China, Russia, Greece and even from Tunisia. Wow. Lesson learned.

Michelle Bourgeois´s most recent blog post.. Textbooks are Hard

Kate Tabor
11/7/2008

Update***
Suddenly receiving spam in many languages. I’m removing the widget to see if that halts the Russian and Finnish spam. Have saved html in hopes of reinstalling.

Kate Tabor´s most recent blog post.. Thank you notes

Steve Dembo
11/7/2008

Really??? That’s pretty crazy. Never heard of that happening. Has that happened to anybody else?

Steve Dembo´s most recent blog post.. Day 6: Get Some Fresh Perspective On Your Blog

Jennifer Dorman
11/7/2008

I definitely like the Google Translate gadget much better than the WidgetBox translator I had been using. I switched out the old widget for the Google gadget.

I was DEVASTATED last Feb. when ClustrMaps archived my blog’s map and started me off with a blank map. I felt like I had really earned those dots and I wanted to keep them . . .

Still, since the archive I have some very far flung readers:
Republic of Mauritius (I admit, I had to look up this one)
China
Russia
South Africa
Indonesia
Japan
Saudi Arabia
Tajikistan
Pakistan
Oman
Chile
Peru

Most of my readers are from the Americas and Europe, but I love when a dot pops up that prompt me (a former social studies teacher) to check an atlas

Topsy-Techie
11/8/2008

Had a lot of fun with this one! Head over and read about my attempt to globalize my blog if you get a chance. Really enjoying your series – - thanks Steve!

Topsy-Techie´s most recent blog post.. How Do You Translate Wacky?

Dave S
11/10/2008

Added! This translator just makes sense – thanks for the tip!

Dave S´s most recent blog post.. Tech Integrators like Bunko

Jo Schiffbauer
11/10/2008

Clustrmaps and Google Translate added. I never thought of adding a translator! That’s one of those ideas that makes sense AFTER someone suggests it!

Jo Schiffbauer´s most recent blog post.. Field Trips Too Expensive This Year? Try a Virtual Tour!

Lorna Costantini
11/16/2008

Clusture maps are good but I am partial to http://feedjit.com/ I can follow you has been on for the day and get a tracking report for all vistors

Lorna Costantini´s most recent blog post.. Cindy Seibel – Featured Teacher

Michael Walker
12/2/2008

Steve,
Thanks for all the time and effort to put this together. I’m just now getting back to it after a hectic November. I did add the Clustermaps widget back in November, and I have been amazed that people in China and India have viewed the blog. Is it possible that these are spoofed IP’s or should I be flattered?!

Michael Walker´s most recent blog post.. 2008 Edublogs Nominee

Dave MacLean
12/5/2008

I have had Clustermap up for some time and it is great to see when you jump a continent. Google Translator is a great idea. I have added it. Better yet, I added it to our school website because we have over 15 languages spoken at homes of students in our school. Great tool for flattening the world.

Dave MacLean´s most recent blog post.. Digital Citizen Project