Picture Of The Day (POTD), Movie Of The Day (MOTD), Joke Of The Day (JOTD), Story Of The Day (SOTD), Quote Of The Day (QOTD), and more! By whatever names you know these popular programs, they all share one common denominator: they all provide your site's visitors with fresh daily content ~ and this creates a powerful reason for surfers to return daily to your site. If repeat traffic is your goal, then an xOTD program is for you:
One of the most effective ways to draw sustained repeat traffic on a daily basis is to offer surfers something new for free. xOTD programs can do that for you, and they come in many different flavors to suit many different tastes. Whether you use a free, sponsor-provided program, or wish to have your own custom solution, the use of xOTD content is a proven winner!
Paid for Free
The easiest xOTD option is to use the free services provided by many sponsors. Not only do most programs provide you with multiple daily content options, they usually contain your reseller code as well, and you are typically paid for any sales that the advertisements accompanying this free content make. Simply copy and paste a special URL and you're all set!
One technique that has generated a lot of sales for me is to make an xOTD page that appears as a mini-site or link list featuring the offerings of several sponsors combined. Effective presentations can easily be made this way, and if structured correctly, they can be some of the most effective Traffic Filters available. Using this method, you should easily be able to come up with well over 100 daily pics, plus videos, jokes, special features and more without incurring any substantial bandwidth hits, and with a check in the mail to boot! Easily customized, this snippet can also serve as a foundation for a larger, and more versatile script if so desired.
Roll Your Own
Perhaps you run a pay site and want to offer member's something "new" on a daily basis, or you wish to offer a free sample pic on your home or join page that rotates daily. The following simple PHP snippet will allow you to easily do this, and because of the way in which it was written, it'll allow you to rotate images, stories, jokes, banners — just about anything else you can imagine! Easily customized, this snippet can also serve as a foundation for a larger, and more versatile script if so desired.
Just remember that I'm not a programmer, and I'm sure that there's many different ways that this script could have been implemented, but this one works for me, and allows different content on different days by simply replacing the IMG tag with a page or other URL, and since any HTML can be included in the output, hyperlinks can be added as well — opening up further possibilities.
Insert this code where you want the daily content to appear:
?php dailyX(); ?
?php
/* xOTD Core (C) 2002 Paradise Multimedia : You are free to use this code on all your sites as long as this notice remains intact. Simply change the displayed HTML to suit your purposes. If the current date does not have an entry, nothing will be displayed. */
function getX($day) {
$x[1] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
return "$x[$day]";
function dailyX() {
}
?
$x[2] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[3] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[4] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[5] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[6] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[7] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[8] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[9] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[10] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[11] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[12] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[13] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[14] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[15] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[16] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[17] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[18] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[19] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[20] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[21] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[22] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[23] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[24] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[25] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[26] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[27] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[28] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[29] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[30] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
$x[31] = "IMG src=\"https://URL.com/images/FILENAME.jpg\">";
}
$day = date("j");
echo getX($day);
Being a server-side technology, this script is a more robust implementation than any JavaScript alternative, and while a simple "sprinkler" script could have dramatically reduced the amount of code, calling an ordered series of images or pages that were similarly named, i.e. 01.jpg, 02.jpg, according to the date, this is a much more versatile approach.
However you wish to use xOTD content, the important part is that you DO use it. Try it today!
~ Stephen
