As all of our readers know, we love to provide new surprises here at Online Clock.
The newest virtual freebie is a countdown generator for your blog or website. Countdown timers are a good way to draw attention to any web page. Some graphic designers and other website building services charge to create these counters, but OnlineClock.net has decided to take on the task of creating a generator that will give you a free countdown timer. This blog post will explain some ways you might choose to utilize a countdown, as well as full instructions for obtaining one!
Business websites benefit from countdown timers for sales and other promotions. Consider this scenario – your business is running a sale and it is only for a set number of days or hours. Instead of alerting customers that the sale will last for several days, use the online countdown timer to indicate the amount of time left in the sale. When counting down instead of counting forward, this puts into perspective how much time is really left in the sale. Most customers won’t look at a page and count down the number of hours and minutes that are left in its duration; they will usually assume it is a matter of days. Every web business owner knows that there has to be a cut-off point for sales. Sometimes consumers assume the wrong time for the end of a sale, especially when there is a time zone difference, which is a major issue with online shopping. If a consumer misses out on a sale, they may be less likely to come back to the site – and they will likely not buy anything right away after being disappointed about miscalculating the end of the sale. With a countdown timer, the amount of time left in the sale is clearly stated, ensuring there is no confusion to customers in another time zone.
Special events are another great reason to use a countdown timer on a website. Bands, bars and even businesses that promote special performances, events or seminars will benefit from this form of time display. As in the last example, most consumers may not factor in time differences – or they may simply forget how much time is left between the present and the anticipated event. The countdown timer is efficient because every time a visitor comes to the page, they are able to see exactly how much time is left until the event. For personal blogs, the countdown timer could be used to measure the time left in each post until a wedding, new baby arrival, mission trip, vacation or any other highly-anticipated event.
A screenshot showing the easy-to-use interface for the Countdown Generator on OnlineClock.net.
If you wish to be creative, there is another way to use a countdown timer. Simply place it on the page and post a mysterious message along with it, hinting that the timer is counting down to something great – but the “something” is a surprise. The timer could be counting down to a new promotional special, sale, event, birthday, anniversary or any other important occasion. Along with promoting this time, encourage website customers and visitors to sign up for a contest, notifications or simply to keep visiting the site. Try to offer incentives also. For example, when the countdown timer reaches 0:00:00, the first visitor to post a website comment will win a prize associated with the event being counted toward. This will not only draw more website traffic, but may make the countdown event a popular subject for sharing via social networks. In this way, countdown timers may assist in drawing more business.
Countdown timers can also be used for company websites. They can be used for employee networks, designed to encourage productivity. For example, a sales company could set a goal to gain 500 new sales in 10 days. Set the timer for 10 days and encourage employees to visit it to see how much time is left, possibly offering a prize for the employee with the most sales. Once again, it is much easier to gage how much time is left when the time is being counted down instead of forward. However a countdown timer is used in a workplace, it should be creative. New and refreshing ideas can give workers the motivation to accomplish more tasks.
We encourage all of our readers to use OnlineClock.net’s new countdown generator. It is fairly simple to do. Whether you plan to use it for a personal blog or your business site, we think it will be just what you need to give your readers something new and fresh. Following are the steps for use of the generator:
- Enter the date and time correctly by typing the numbers in the field in 12-hour format. Don’t enter the current date; type in the date and exact time of the event that you plan to count toward. For example, if you’re counting down to a specific holiday, enter that date and choose a specific time you want for a marking point.
- If you’re counting toward an exact hour, you’ll need to subtract the right number of minutes and seconds toward that day. Be sure to select “AM” or “PM” to match with the correct time. To see what your countdown timer will look like exactly at the second it begins, click the “Preview” button.
- Once you’re satisfied with your countdown timer and the correct time has been entered, click on the “Generate” button. As soon as you do this, an HTML code will appear in the white box below the button. Copy the code by clicking the long button below the box that says “Highlight Countdown Code For Copying.”
- You will need to log in to your website to edit it. Decide where you want the code to be and paste it in the correct spot by right clicking on the area and selecting “paste” from the menu – or press Ctrl + V for a quick keyboard paste command. (Important! Most website or blog systems offer a “HTML View” or “Code View” button in their online text editors. The countdown code should always be added using such a HTML View or Code View, if possible. Otherwise, the countdown may not work properly once published.) Some websites have pre-made templates, making this an easy process. If you have a paid site builder who runs your website, simply give that person the link to Online Clock’s countdown generator and request that they use it.
- Once you have added your countdown timer to your website, you have the freedom to post a notification on your blog, home page or social networking pages to alert your fans and customers about the countdown. You may choose to keep them in suspense about the purpose of the countdown or tell them what it is for. If you want another code, just come back to Online Clock’s generator and make a new one.
We hope you will enjoy adding a free countdown timer to your own website or blog!
As a way of saying “thank you” to our valued readers, OnlineClock.net enjoys providing fun time-related applications and information.
If you have some friends who could benefit from our countdown, please feel free to share it via blog or social networking.
There are one-click share buttons on the countdown generator’s page for your convenience.
BTW, the wonderful image at the very top of this blog post is a photo of a Steampunk piece of art made by the genius artist from Australia known as Don Pezzano.
Add A Countdown To Your Website Or Blog is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.
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