Installation¶

If you already have the JavaScript Tracker enabled on your site, then you don’t need to make any additional changes to your article templates. You may choose to customize the look-and-feel of the widget using standard CSS or by contacting the Parse.ly team, as we regularly do custom theming work for our clients to reduce integration cost.

Popular Widget Styles¶

We have three default widget styles available that can be used by our customers. One is a simple link display, e.g.

A second is a subtle slide-out widget with one top article, and a way to cycle through recommendations.

A third is a more aggressive slide-out widget with image thumbnails and relevance scores. This design has the highest clickthrough rate and is especially recommended for users who have expressed interest in related content.

We are also considering other widget designs and are regularly testing new design ideas to get the highest possible CTRs for our customers. We also have an easy-to-customize widget framework that allows you to build your own styles and designs by using our JavaScript Binding (parsely-js).

Enabling Widget and Switching Styles¶

To switch between the widget styles, you need to use the Parse.ly Administration interface, which is called Parse.ly Dash. Go to the “Site Plugins” area and choose “Optimization Widget” to enable the widget and configure style settings.