The Facebook Like button lets your site visitors share your content with their friends on Facebook.
When the visitor clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website.
This is a good way of publicising your site (but it goes without saying that you must have good content that people actually like).
If, like me, you use Google Sites/Apps, then you will find that the Google HTML editor does not allow you to use the code provided by Facebook.
You will see an error message like this: "Your HTML either contains unsafe tags (iframe, embed, styles, script) or extra attributes.
They will be removed when the page is viewed.
" The workaround is to use a gadget called "Code wrapper" which has been written by a guy called Mori who is a guru on all things Google and shares his expertise with others without expecting anything in return.
Here is how you do it.
First go to Facebook to pick up their official code for the Like button.
Enter the requested information into the form.
Don't forget to include http:// in front of your web address, otherwise it won't work.
Click on the Get Code button and copy the code.
Facebook provides you with 2 types of code, xfbml or iframe.
I discovered that my iPad wouldn't show the gadget which used the xfbml code, so I have stuck to iframes for my own website.
Next go to your Google Site: Select Edit Page for the page that you want to insert the Facebook Button into.
Place your cursor on the spot in the page where you want to insert the Button.
From the menu bar click on Insert and then More gadgets.
A search box appears.
Type in code wrapper and an icon for the code wrapper gadget will appear.
Click on this icon and then select it.
Paste the code that you had copied from the Facebook page into the titled Embed Code.
Select the size of the window that you want to display.
This depends on the type of the button that you have selected.
I have used 80x20 pixels for the "button-count" option.
Make sure that the check boxes for showing the title and scroll bars are not ticked.
That's it.
Once you save the page, the Facebook button appears and works like a dream.
When the visitor clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website.
This is a good way of publicising your site (but it goes without saying that you must have good content that people actually like).
If, like me, you use Google Sites/Apps, then you will find that the Google HTML editor does not allow you to use the code provided by Facebook.
You will see an error message like this: "Your HTML either contains unsafe tags (iframe, embed, styles, script) or extra attributes.
They will be removed when the page is viewed.
" The workaround is to use a gadget called "Code wrapper" which has been written by a guy called Mori who is a guru on all things Google and shares his expertise with others without expecting anything in return.
Here is how you do it.
First go to Facebook to pick up their official code for the Like button.
Enter the requested information into the form.
Don't forget to include http:// in front of your web address, otherwise it won't work.
Click on the Get Code button and copy the code.
Facebook provides you with 2 types of code, xfbml or iframe.
I discovered that my iPad wouldn't show the gadget which used the xfbml code, so I have stuck to iframes for my own website.
Next go to your Google Site: Select Edit Page for the page that you want to insert the Facebook Button into.
Place your cursor on the spot in the page where you want to insert the Button.
From the menu bar click on Insert and then More gadgets.
A search box appears.
Type in code wrapper and an icon for the code wrapper gadget will appear.
Click on this icon and then select it.
Paste the code that you had copied from the Facebook page into the titled Embed Code.
Select the size of the window that you want to display.
This depends on the type of the button that you have selected.
I have used 80x20 pixels for the "button-count" option.
Make sure that the check boxes for showing the title and scroll bars are not ticked.
That's it.
Once you save the page, the Facebook button appears and works like a dream.