This is the second in a series of six posts highlighting each of the six best practices discussed in the Best Practices - Driving Web Traffic & Monetization With Widgets webinar from earlier in the month.  This time around we'll talk about the importance of knowing your audience and selecting relevant content that will appeal to them. 

The first step is establishing who your target audience is and where live; are they local, regional, national or international?  Second is determining what they care about, and with this you can cater to the specific interests of users.  Since widgets are generally easily deployable, the best strategy may be to make several widgets that focus on separate topics (i.e., politics, the economy, sports). 

A key part of building a successful widget is encouraging interaction by using dynamic (and in some cases localized) content.  Enabling users to provide content can also make your widget significantly more appealing.  In addition, engaging users with a variety of content types (pictures, video, text) can make the user experience more robust.

In short, before deploying a widget, it is vital that you are familiar with your target demographic and figure out what makes them tick.  This step is critical to creating a successful, dynamic widget that users want to interact with.