Grin and Share It

I found a great way to share my Zipingo reviews with my friends and family...link to them from a personal blog. Here's how you can do the same.

If you've never coded anything in HTML, please ask a tech-savvy friend to help you.

Here goes...
1. Browse to http://www.zipingo.com/

2. Sign in to your Zipingo account

3. Click on the tab labeled "My Ratings"

4. Click on any business name

5. Find your user name next to a business

6. Click on "See all my ratings"

7. Click in the location/address field of your browser, highlight/select the entire URL and copy it (CTRL C on a Windows PC). It should look something like the following, but with different numbers at the end.

http://www.zipingo.com/jetspeed/portal/home.psml?hideshow=sr&raterID=10002

8. Now create some simple HTML code for your blog, complete with a Zipingo button. It should resemble the following, but with your ratings page address (you copied this earlier) for the 1st URL. FYI -- your raterID will be a different number that is unique to your account.

<a href="http://www.zipingo.com/jetspeed/portal/home.psml?hideshow=sr&raterID=10002"><img src="https://zipingo.typepad.com/photos/zipingo/myzipingo.png"></a>

You can highlight and copy the above code to get started, but remember to replace the raterID with your own.

To recap, the ratings link has two parts:
1. a specially-coded link to your ratings page
2. a link to the Zipingo blog button

If you did it correctly, here's how your link will look.

Tip: I strongly recommend downloading the Zipingo button (right click, Save Image As) and uploading it to your blog server, just in case the location of this image file changes. You can link to the icon on this blog, but don't say I didn't warn you. By the way, remember to change the HTML to match your new image location.

Now if you have a TypePad blog, add this link to a TypeList in your blog sidebar. Blogger requires you to add this into your current template -- probably under the links sidebar heading. If you've been using either of these blogging services for a while now, you know what I mean.

One note -- I'm not tech support for TypePad or Blogger, so please don't ask me to explain how to configure those services. On the other hand, if you're having trouble with the Zipingo part of these instructions, please let me know through the Zipingo feedback page and I'll be glad to help you out.

By the way, the above example takes you to the ratings page of our Product Manager, Jim. Hey, Jim! You're famous.

~ ZipingoKim