Last week a lot of sites picked up on a revamped IE Gallery at http://www.iegallery.com/ where you can submit your own site that is ready to be pinned to the Windows 7 Taskbar. There are three key elements of being able to allow users to pin your site to their taskbar.
- The user must be using Windows 7
- The user must be using Internet Explorer 9
- You must add the pinning features to your websites coding. This can be done manually in the sites source code or if for instance you use WordPress to power your site several plugins are available.
Once you have done your part to add the right code to the site, whether manually or using a plugin, you are ready to submit the site to the IE Gallery.
You must sign into the IE Gallery site with a Microsoft Account (formerly known as a Windows Live ID) and then go to the submission page. You will be required to provide information about your site and include several graphics for the gallery to use. These will include a website logo, favorite icon (favicon) and a screen capture of your pinned website focused on the upper left hand corner of the site. Optionally you can also include a shot of your pinned jump list.
The submission process for WindowsObserver.com took just less than a week and once approved your site will appear in the gallery based on the category, popularity and how recently it was submitted to the gallery.
Here is what WindowsObserver.com looks like in the gallery:
I like the fact they provide an easy way for anyone browsing the gallery to drag your sites icon to their taskbar and pin it for future use. This is apparently a worthwhile effort as well because the stats show that site pinning can result in upwards of a 200% increase in traffic to your site.
For now the jury is still out on that for us! Is your site pinnable or in the IE Gallery? Share a link in the comments below so we can check it out.
Thanks.
