ECO-SAFE Tries to Reduce Web Page Printing
I have to admit I am guilty of it. Haven’t we all done it from time to time? Working online, I come across an interesting article or research report, and rather than bookmark it (or often in addition to bookmarking it), I print it out for later reading. Over time, I’m certain I have been personally responsible for the death of several trees. As green-consciousness continues to rise, the ECO-SAFE Foundation is trying to do something to reduce all those paper printouts of Web pages. In the process, they’ve given marketers a free tool to increase both the viral marketing power and “shelf life” of their Websites. And it’s free.
The ECO-SAFE “Merit Badge” is a widget for your blog or Website that allows your visitors to e-mail themselves a copy of your Web page in HTML or PDF formats, or save a PDF file on their computer. It’s an interesting twist on the “Send to a Friend” technique, adding an environmentally friendly spin to viral marketing. As a bonus, if you tell ECO-SAFE where you installed the widget, you’ll get a post on their blog with links back to your site. Every link matters, so why not? ECO-SAFE will even send you a free song from iTunes for your trouble.
Whether or not ECO-SAFE’s strategy will actually reduce the printing of Web content is open for debate. But it is a quick, user-friendly way to offer your Website visitors the option to save and send electronic copies of your content. The Merit Badge is available as a plugin for Wordpress blogs (like this one) and as HTML code for other Websites. It comes in a number of different sizes and configurations to fit your site. To use the Wordpress plugin as a sidebar widget on your blog, you’ll need to copy and paste the code where you want the badge to appear, in addition to activating the plugin. Go get your Merit Badge. More than 2,556,795 other Web marketers, bloggers and others already have. Including 8 Alarm Marketing. Check out the bade in the right sidebar.
