As writers, we understand that we need people to read our articles and we work hard to make sure that we get traffic. We put together well-written, informative articles that are optimized for the search engines. We post our articles where other people post articles. We grab our lucky rabbit's foot (although lucky for us and not so much for the rabbit) and pray to the deity of our choice for people to notice our article.

What happens when that is not enough?

I am a firm believer that we can never have too many writing tools in our toolbox. One of my personal favorites is Widgetbox. Widgetbox allows you to create a personal HTML banner of your blog's feed and the ten most recent articles you've written. The banner at the bottom of this article is my personal Xomba Widgetbox.

The first step is getting the URL address for your feed. Once you have it, head on over to Widgetbox and type that URL into the box at the top of the screen. Once the website can find your address (takes a few seconds), it will begin to walk you through the process of designing your own banner. The banner is free, so you should click out of anything that says you need to do a trial of their paid services.

Personally, I prefer the black "skin" cover because I happen to post it places that have a white background. I also prefer to use my photo as the avatar because it has been proven that a photo likeness connects you psychologically to your readers.

Once you've decided on your final Widgetbox, you can simply get the code. I find it best to open up Notepad on your computer, cut-and-paste the code from Widgetbox onto a Notepad page, then save that page to your desktop. That way, you will always have quick access to the code to cut-and-paste into the articles you write.

(For you Xomba users, this is how you find your feed address. First, click on "View My Profile". On your profile page, move your mouse cursor over your Xomblurbs link. In the lower left of your browser window, you will see a URL with a four or five digit number in it. That number is your Xomba user number. Your feed address will be http://www.xomba/com/xombyte/XXXXX/feed, where the "XXXXX" is your user number. Just plug that whole link into the box at Widgetbox.)

If you have a personal blog, you can create a banner for that blog's feed, too. Or you can post a Widgetbox banner for your, say, Xombytes, to your personal blog.

The ultimate goal is to weave a web between the article people may have found through the search engines with your other articles and drive traffic to them, too.

Widgetbox is an excellent tool for putting the web in world wide web.