Polls are an excellent way to add the level of interactivity in your blogs. Polls are good discussion starters and one of the best ways to increase reader participation. Polls can also be great for helping you to determine which direction to take your blog in. Attractive polls can be a good source of incoming links because webmasters may link to those polls when the results are announced. Bloggers love statistics and case studies and will help continuing the discussion happening around your poll. Also polls are a good way to increase the number of visits from your RSS subscribers. The RSS subscribers have to come to your blog for voting and viewing the results.

There are a lot of ways to add polls to your blog. All of them doing the same function without much difference in features offered. But with the level of customization possible and the number of features offered I felt that Poll Daddy is the best service to create polls for your blog. Polldaddy is an easy to use service with tons of features. While most other poll services give a simple white template for your polls, Polldaddy comes with a set of stylish poll templates which will encourages readers to vote.

How to create a poll using Polldaddy?

1. Go to Polldaddy.com

2. Choose your plan. Polldaddy comes with 3 pricing plans – Free, Pro and Corporate. The paid plans have much better features than the free version but the free version have all essential features needed for a blogger.

3. Create an account at Polldaddy. You can also use Facebook connect.

4. Login to your Dashboard. You can create both surveys and polls with Polldaddy. Now chose to create a poll.

5. In the create poll page you can add the question of your poll and the choices. You can also add images or videos along with the question and choices.

8. Select your poll widget size

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9. Give poll options.
Add the details like poll closing date and whether to show results to voter etc. There is option to block repeat voting. There are two methods for this. One is by using cookies and the other is by using both cookies and IP. You can also set cookie expiry time.
Another notable feature of Polldaddy polls is that users can add comments in your polls. There is also an option for social sharing.

10. Embed your poll
There are varieties of options for embedding your polls. You can embed Javascript code or as a flash object. Also there are ways to integrate your polls in social networking sites like facebook, twitter, ning, myspace etc. This is another unique feature of Polldaddy because most of other poll services uses Javascript for embedding which is not allowed in social networking sites.
Wordpress users can use Polldaddy WP plugin for easy embedding of polls.

A sample poll I created with Polldaddy is embedded below. So Vote now and share your experiences

6. Add details like whether to allow multiple selections, randomize order, whether to allow users to enter their own answer etc.

7. Select a poll style – this is the feature which keeps Polldaddy standout from the other poll services. No more boring poll styles, chose a stylish, attractive poll template.

8. Select your poll widget size.

9. Give poll options.
Add the details like poll closing date and whether to show results to voter etc. There is option to block repeat voting. There are two methods for this. One is by using cookies and the other is by using both cookies and IP. You can also set cookie expiry time.
Another notable feature of Polldaddy polls is that users can add comments in your polls. There is also an option for social sharing.

10. Embed your poll
There are varieties of options for embedding your polls. You can embed Javascript code or as a flash object. Also there are ways to integrate your polls in social networking sites like facebook, twitter, ning, myspace etc. This is another unique feature of Polldaddy because most of other poll services uses Javascript for embedding which is not allowed in social networking sites.
Wordpress users can use Polldaddy WP plugin for easy embedding of polls.

A sample poll I created with Polldaddy is embedded below. So Vote now and share your experiences

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