5 Best Popular Posts Widgets for Blogger

If you're using Blogger as the platform for your personal or business blog, you're probably looking for ways to customize it and make it your own. This way, you'll make your webpages unique and eye-catching and ensure they'll stand out from the many other pages on the internet. You'll also grab the attention of your target market, encourage them to browse through your blog and become your loyal readers and followers.

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to personalize your Blogger blog, and one of these is to customize your Popular Posts widget. Haven't installed this yet? Don't worry since putting it in your blog easy.

Adding the Popular Posts Widget for Blogger

Just click on your blog title, access the Layout menu, click "Add Widget" and choose "Popular Posts". A window will appear asking you to configure the widget by choosing which posts you'll feature (e.g. those that were most viewed in the past 7 days or 30 days or from the beginning of your blog). You'll also be asked to choose how many posts you'll feature in your Popular Posts section and select if you'll show the post title only or along with the image thumbnail and/or the snippet. (Remember that each widget style has different requirements, so follow the instructions carefully to know if you'll need the snippet and image thumbnail or not).

Once you've followed these instructions, you'll get to see the basic version of the Popular Posts Widget for Blogger in your blog. You can stick with this if it matches your blog design but, if it sticks out like a sore thumb or doesn't suit your taste, there's no need to fret since you can personalize it.

Popular Posts Style 5 - Numbered posts

If you love numbered lists, or if you'd like to make your blog more organized, this can be the perfect option. By using the code for this widget style, your Popular Posts will be automatically numbered and will feature clean, minimalistic boxes that include your snippet and image thumbnail.

CSS code:

<style type='text/css'>
.sidebar .PopularPosts ul {
counter-reset: popularcount;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts ul li {
float: left;
max-height: 130px;
min-width: 250px;
position: relative;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-thumbnail::after {
color: rgba(255,255,255, 0.63);
content: counter(popularcount, decimal);
counter-increment: popularcount;
font: 70px 'Oswald', sans-serif;
list-style-type: none;
position: absolute;
left: 5px;
top: -5px;
z-index: 4;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-thumbnail::before {
background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);
bottom: 0px;
content: "";
height: 100px;
width: 100px;
left: 0px;
right: 0px;
margin: 0px auto;
position: absolute;
z-index: 3;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-thumbnail a {
clip: auto;
display: block;
height: auto;
overflow: hidden;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-thumbnail {
width: 100px;
height: 100px;
margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px !important;
position: relative;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-thumbnail:hover:before {
display: none;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-thumbnail img {
position: relative;
padding-right: 0px !important;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
object-fit: cover;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-title {
font: 13px 'Oswald', sans-serif;
text-transform: uppercase;
padding: 0px 5px 10px;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-title a {
color: #000;
text-decoration: none;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-snippet {
font: 13px "Times New Roman",Times,FreeSerif,serif;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .widget-content ul li {
padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px !important;
}
.sidebar .PopularPosts .item-content {
padding: 5px 0px;
border-bottom: 1px dotted #dedede;
overflow: hidden;
height: 100px;
position: relative;
}
</style>

These are just some of the widget styles you can choose from. When you've picked a style you want, make sure to copy its CSS code. Once you do so, go to your blog, click "Template" on the left side and select "Edit HTML" under the template preview.

These next codes need to be pasted above the "</head>" or "</body>" tags, so check the instruction to know exactly where you need to put the code.

Adding the CSS

When the template editor has opened, click anywhere inside the code area and hit CTRL + F or Command F to search the following tag:

</head>

Just ABOVE the </head> tag, copy-paste the CSS code of one of the styles above.

Important: If the Popular Posts widget is located in the footer of your blog, remove the .sidebar class found in the CSS code in order to make it work.

Please note that most of the styles are using the Oswald font which you need to add to your template's code as well.

So, search for this tag:

<head>

Just BELOW it, add this line:

<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Oswald:400,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>

Adding the JavaScript

These styles also require JavaScript codes in order to resize the popular posts image / thumbnail and trim the post snippet and title. To add the JavaScript, search the </body> tag and paste the following script just above it:

<script src='//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js'/>
<script type='text/javascript'>
$('.popular-posts img').attr('src', function(e, t) {
return t.replace('/s72-c/', '/s350-c/')
});
$('.popular-posts ul li .item-snippet').each(function(){
var txt=$(this).text().substr(0,60);
var j=txt.lastIndexOf(' ');
if(j>10)
$(this).text(txt.substr(0,j).replace(/[?,!\.-:;]*$/,'...'));
});
$('.popular-posts ul li .item-content a').each(function(){
var txt=$(this).text().substr(0,60);
var j=txt.lastIndexOf(' ');
if(j>=6)
$(this).text(txt.substr(0,j).replace(/[?,!\.-:;]*$/,'...'));
});
</script>

Note: if you have already the jQuery library in your template, remove the line in red.

Once you have added all the codes in the right place, press the "Save template" button to save the changes.

That's it!

The five Popular Posts widgets for Blogger featured today are all great solutions for adding a popular post section to your blog. They all have different appearance for determining what makes a post popular, but the end result is the same: visitors are always one click away from your best content. Try some of these styles, find your favorite, and see how it impacts the performance of your blog.

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