improve your blog

Photoshop Your Images for FREE?

 

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Lightbulb

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Thanks to Cynthia LaLuna I found the next best thing to my expensive Photoshop program that rests currently on an older computer: During the last years I had changed several models of computers and laptops – not being able to switch this prohibitive expensive Photoshop program to more than three devices.  Sure Adobe wants to sell more of its premium software – but this can also backslash – dozens of new and mostly free programs offer image enhancements.
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Webresizer Tool
“Real” graphic designers need Adobe Photoshop, no question, but when you just need to crop, sharpen or re-size images Web Resizer – the free online photo resizing tool does the job – online and ***without having to download any programs!***  And it does even two functions in one shot: sharpening and re-sizing.

I tried it out, as I needed an image for a website in a certain size – and received amazing results. The image was not only much “sharper”, but also 97% “smaller” (exactly the amount I wanted), with less pixels but with way more contrast.
I only needed to choose the file, upload the image and got it back in a second, ready to download. Everything was done online, I did not need to upload complicated software. I remember very vivid what a hassle this was when I downloaded the Adobe Photoshop program.
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More Success with Enhanced Photos
Which types of image characteristics drive more likes, and are re-pinned or re-tweeted more often?  Curalate  found a few interesting results when their science finding team looked at over 8 million image features on Instagram and Pinterest, such as lightness, color, texture and background ratio.

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Which Images are Most Popular:

  • Images with multiple dominant colors have 3.25 times more re-pins per image than images with a single dominant color.
  • Textured images and close-ups also generated more engagement.
  • Very light and very dark images are not re-pinned as often.  The re-pinning rate for images of medium lightness is 20 times higher than for images that are mostly black, and eight times higher than images that are mostly white.

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How Else Can Webresizer Help
Besides optimizing*  images for fast upload on websites, blogs and your avatar, (and the automatic sharpening) you can choose the image quality, rotate the image, crop to a new width and height. Another feature I like, is changing photos to monochrome colors. Exposure, contrast and color saturation can also be changed and you can add a border and edges.  Click “apply changes”, and on top of it, next to the image, click on “download this image”.  You will see the letters “opt” in your image name, which means optimized.  However, always keep the original image for your files, don’t discard them.  You never know how you might need them one day.
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*Cynthia LaLuna explains this most important feature to have faster websites: “For the best performance, you never want to upload an image to your site that is LARGER than you need it to be and just tell WordPress to make it 70% of its original size.  That puts load on the server to do the math each and every time the image is loaded, and users are actually downloading the oversized image over and over again.”

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If you would like to get a mentor and support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer for three months all this and more for only $179 – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please read also “Book Marketing on a Shoestring” http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UAVL3LE

 

Book-Marketing

 

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3 Simple Changes to Improve Your Articles

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Ice-on-Trees.

Not really happy with the response to your blogs?  Try these three changes for your blog posts, website or article writing. It will make a huge difference between articles being read or going viral.  Implementing these tips only half-heartily - starting with better headlines - I already gained almost 300,000 blog visitors in the last year.
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# 1 The Secret to Writing Great Headlines
Studies have shown that you can increase your conversion rate on a blog article, tweet or link by 73% if you use a great headline. People read blog posts because the title catches their attention. Create headlines that will captivate readers. Posts don’t go viral, but headlines do. It’s the headline that people share on Social Media.

  • Use Promises
    Readers will click on headlines that promise a reward, such as a solution to their problem or a sure path way to success. The most popular headlines are starting with numbers, such as “How to” or “Tips for”. You have seen lots of titles like: “99 Top Websites to Show Your Book“……… “77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected” ….. or “The Benefit on Using Google+” ……
  • Use Celebrity Names
    All the top tweets feature celebrities, such as Obama or Oprah. For example: ”Oprah uses this visualization technique. Should you?”
  • Use “New”
    Your headline should promise something new. ”How a New App is Changing the Way we Edit Books.” or ”5 Social Media Trends You Need to Know.”
  • Use Best and Worst
    Jeff Bullas, writing at the same topic, not only suggests to use new, celebrity, promises or numbers, but also best and worst: “Top 10 Google+ Posts or 2013.” or ”Biggest Social Media Mistakes of 2013.”

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# 2 Quote an Expert – or Several
If you read the most popular blogs on the Internet, you will notice that they have quite a few outbound links. People take you seriously when they know your information comes from an insider or a specialist in a certain field.
Theoretically, one can compile blog posts together on subjects she or he knows absolutely nothing about. As long as one knows how to quote and cite the right people, one will be taken seriously. Gather expert knowledge. This is how journalists make money with their articles (after thoroughly researching the topics).

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# 3 Tell Stories or Write About Your Learning Experiences
Point to your own mistakes / experiences or to stories of companies or individuals that had done what you recommended, and how it worked for them. Readers like to listen to real stories. Which are much more likely to go viral than just blank information.
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If you change only one thing about your blog content, this one should be it: Sprinkle a few stories and examples into your blog posts to justify what you are saying.
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Last but not least: don’t get discouraged. Many bloggers write a couple of posts, don’t see much traffic, and give up. Building a readership takes time and experience. It takes effort to find ways to get your particular audience to visit, comment on your posts, and recommend you to others – but it’s worth it.!  Read More Blog Posting Tips:

http://writetodone.com/3-secrets-to-writing-blog-posts-that-go-viral/

http://www.startupbros.com/32-ways-to-make-your-blog-post-go-viral/

http://mycrazygoodlife.com/5-ways-im-making-my-blog-content-go-viral/

http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/06/24/get-more-retweets/

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/
to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 970 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: blog posting, content marketing, how to be a successful blogger, improve your blog, Quote an Expert, social networking, tell stories in your blog, Write About Learning Experiences, Writing Great Headlines

3 Simple Changes to Improve Your Articles

.

Ice-on-Trees.
Not really happy with the response to your blogs?  Try these three changes for your blog posts, website or article writing. It will make a huge difference between articles being read or going viral.  Implementing these tips only half-heartily - starting with better headlines - I already gained more than 300,000 blog visitors in the last year.
.

# 1 The Secret to Writing Great Headlines
Studies have shown that you can increase your conversion rate on a blog article, tweet or link by 73% if you use a great headline. People read blog posts because the title catches their attention. Create headlines that will captivate readers. Posts don’t go viral, but headlines do. It’s the headline that people share on Social Media.

Use Promises
Readers will click on headlines that promise a reward, such as a solution to their problem or a sure path way to success. The most popular headlines are starting with numbers, such as “How to” or “Tips for”.
You have seen lots of titles like: “99 Top Websites to Show Your Book“……… “77 Reasons Why Your Book Was Rejected” ….. or “The Benefit on Using Google+” ……

Use Celebrity Names
All the top tweets feature celebrities, such as Obama or Oprah. For example: ”Oprah uses this visualization technique. Should you?”

Use “New”
Your headline should promise something new.
“How a New App is Changing the Way we Edit Books.” or ”5 Social Media Trends You Need to Know.”

Use Best and Worst 
Jeff Bullas, writing at the same topic, not only suggests to use new, celebrity, promises or numbers, but also best and worst: “Top 10 Google+ Posts or 2013.” or ”Biggest Social Media Mistakes of 2013.”
.

# 2 Quote an Expert – or Several
If you take a look at most of our blog posts, you will notice that they have quite a few outbound links. People take you seriously when they know your information comes from a specialist in this field.

Theoretically, one can compile blog posts together on subjects you know absolutely nothing about. As long as you know how to quote and cite the right people, you will be taken seriously. Compile expert knowledge. This is how journalists make money with their articles (and thorough research about the topics).
.

# 3 Tell Stories or Write About Learning Experiences
Point to your own experiences and stories of companies or individuals that had done what you recommended, and how it worked for them. We like to listen to real stories. Which are much more likely to go viral than mere information.
.
If you change only one thing about the blog content itself, this one should be it: Sprinkle a few stories and examples into your blog posts to justify what you are saying.
.

Last but not least: don’t get discouraged. Many bloggers write a couple of posts, don’t see much traffic, and give up. Building a readership takes time and experience. It takes effort to find ways to get your particular audience to visit, comment on your posts, and recommend you to others – but it’s worth it.!  Read More Blog Posting Tips

http://writetodone.com/3-secrets-to-writing-blog-posts-that-go-viral/

http://www.startupbros.com/32-ways-to-make-your-blog-post-go-viral/

http://mycrazygoodlife.com/5-ways-im-making-my-blog-content-go-viral/

http://blog.crazyegg.com/2013/06/24/get-more-retweets/

.

<><><><><>

.

If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $159 for three months! Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/
to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 970 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://www.111publishing.com

http://www.e-Book-PR.com/

http://www.international-ebooks.com/

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

.

Hyper Smash

Pingate


Tagged: blog posting, content marketing, how to be a successful blogger, improve your blog, Quote an Expert, social networking, tell stories in your blog, Write About Learning Experiences, Writing Great Headlines