No matter how great your content, you need to have an appealing look to really make your website pop. The ins and outs of using stock photos can be complicated and buying assets is often expensive. However, savvy users can make great use of a free stock photo site. Stockio is a great choice for anyone looking to make their blog look better. [Read more…]
How the Right Visual Can Transform Any Landing Page
When it comes to landing page design – or any web page, for that matter – the images you select have the ability to make or break your conversion rate. The good news is that you have total control over the images you choose, so you can directly influence those conversion rates. [Read more…]
How to Use Pinterest to Spread Your Blog Like Wildfire
Pinterest and niche blogs go together like chips and salsa. In fact, it can be more reliable than Facebook or Twitter for reaching your ideal audience. Relevant pins are 100 times more effective than tweets when it comes to spreading your content. This is why you should always choose the right boards for promoting your blog. Pins also last significantly longer than regular Facebook posts; enabling you to maximize the gains for your original content. [Read more…]
The Ultimate Social Media Image Size Guide 2016
It’s the end of the year once again, and as with all things, a lot of changes have taken place in the blogging and social media landscape in last 11 (12ish) months. One can argue that there are some things that remain the same (e.g. Content. Content. Content!), but shifts in trends cannot be ignored.
In terms of social media, it has evolved into a complex, yet more useful tool. It’s a permanent part of everyday life now and is affected by things happening in the real world. Take Facebook for example, which is now monitoring itself in the wake of terrorist attacks. Social media is even being used by law enforcement to fight crime. [Read more…]
5 Tools for Making Your Content Visual
Editor’s note: Stephanie Norman is a freelance tutor from Sydney with 4 years of experience in professional writing. Also she is a content marketing specialist at Australian Writings, a company offering assignment help and assistance for students. Follow her at Facebook and Google+.
When you want to create killer content for your blog, website, or social media platforms, you spend hours in research, conceptualizing, writing, and editing. If you post the text without any visual incentives, you can rest assured that it won’t reach a great number of readers. The fact that photos attract over 50% more likes and over 100% more comments on Facebook should be enough to convince you to change your approach.
You cannot just locate any photo online and use it in your own publication. You can’t violate copyrights, remember? Thanks to this list of 5 tools to make visual content, you’ll be able to create your own images and attract a wider audience! [Read more…]
Social Media Image Sizes Guide 2015 [Infographic]
Writing an excellent, informative article or blog post is a critical building block in getting the eyeballs that you want, whatever your ultimate goal may be – selling your services or products, for example.
But no one can ignore the role that content marketing plays. Without this activity, the chances of your wonderful content reaching as wide an audience as possible are nil.
Enter social media.
Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Pinterest..the usual suspects.
In order to maximize your content marketing efforts, you want to do what you can to make your social media posts as attractive and attention-grabbing as possible. [Read more…]
How You Should Decide Which Images to Use on Your Blog
Because visuals can make or break a blog post, it is crucial that you choose the right images for each post. The photos’ subject, colors, size, and placement can positively impact your post’s success.
Usage
The most important part of any image is logistical over visual. Only choose images that you have the rights to use. For larger blogs, it may be worthwhile to invest in a stock photo site membership, like Shutterstock or iStockPhoto. If you’d rather go with royalty-free or creative commons photos, be sure you are using the right attribution and that you can use them. For example, some creative commons photos only let you use images for non-commercial use. If you use the image for a business blog, which counts as a commercial property, so you technically can’t use non-commercial creative commons images. [Read more…]
3 Sites to Get Free News-Related Images
The social impact of Bin Laden’s recent death has been incredible and it also became an incredible force across blogs and other Web sites. Countless bloggers, even those who usually don’t cover news-related topics, felt the need to peak out on the breaking story and, along the way, dip their toes into news and political blogging.
But with so much attention being focused on how blogging and social media is changing journalism, there are still scant few resources that give bloggers and other webmasters access to the media used by mainstream outlets.
The problem is that, while there are countless great sites on the Web for stock photos and other images, they are more targeted at providing attractive, but generic images for a blog post. If you need a photo to indicate friendship or represent something being locked down, these sites are great. However, if you need a photo of a recent rally in Washington D.C. or of a particular celebrity, they are virtually useless as most of the photos they have are not timely and not related to current events.
However, there are a few sites that offer news-related images for free on your site. All you have to know is where to look and how to search them correctly.
Here are some of the options to consider. [Read more…]
The 3 Most Common Copyright Mistakes Bloggers Make
Copyright is a notoriously confusing and complicated area of law, but one that also impacts nearly every part of our daily lives. As such, it is pretty much inevitable that well-intended people are going to make mistakes.
However, with copyright law, blunders can be very costly. In addition to the threat of a lawsuit, one can have their site shut down, access to some of their favorite services revoked and lose a lot of credibility. Even if none of those things comes to pass, a copyright dispute is still a major headache and one that most, if given the choice, would prefer to avoid.
As such, it’s important for bloggers to be aware of some of the more common copyright pitfalls that come from blogging and, more importantly, how to avoid them.
With that in mind, here are three of the most common copyright blunders bloggers make and what can be done to prevent yourself from falling into them. Fortunately, all are easy mistakes to see and avoid, if you know to look for them. [Read more…]
Flickr Removes Egyptian Blogger’s Photos Of Secret Service Documents
Social Media played a huge part in helping the Egyptian populace coordinate a revolution that the whole world followed. Despite the new defunct Mubarak’s attempts to silence the people by disconnecting all internet connectivity in the country, updates were still sent out by Bloggers using old school mediums such as faxing. Following Mubarak’s fall, we’re still receiving updates on the Egyptian revolution thanks to the brave Bloggers, Journalists and Photographers giving us an intimate view of a country going through a massive change.
Many photos were shared through Flickr but the photo sharing network has acted to take down an Egyptian Blogger’s photos of the revolutions.
