Colorful Updates at Daily Freebies For All

Another wonderful blog for you to check out is Daily Freebies For All.  Not only is it laid out with vibrant, colorful images, graphics, and a gorgeous logo, but it's full of free samples for you every day.

What they offer over there is a one-stop-shop for just about every kind of free item you could ever dream of and the best part is that it's all free!  It's true.  They search the Internet for legitimate offers and companies who want consumers to try out their products.  I guess it's free advertising for the major companies, but it all works out for regular folks, I'll say.

They've got things like cell phones, food and grocery items, books, magazines, lots of things for babies and children, clothing items, you name it, they've got it.  If you're looking for coupons and coupon codes.  That's right, they've got that too.  The logo design is simple and sweet!  

One of the things that I really feel in love with on this blog is that each blog post is signed with an image signature.  This is a wonderful way to brand your blog or website.  Read up on how to use images for branding and identity on your blog or website in a previous post that I wrote.  This is very important.

Here's The Header Logo:

Here's The Banner:

Here's The Signature:

Let me know what you think of all of this.  I'll be writing a post on how to use an image as your signature and add it to every post on your blog real soon.

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Readysite.com Does Excellent Job With Branding and Banner Design

The people over at ReadySite.com provide a great opportunity for earning money online.  You can make money right from your own home.

You will get an instant $25 just for signing up, believe it or not!  People are always looking for creative ways to make and save money online and work from home.  This just may be your ticket.

The banners that they use to identify and brand their products are quite professional.  I love the coloring on this one, in particular.  The size of the banner is a standard 125x125 pixel design.  I've enlarged the image here for the sake of displaying the beautiful background details.

They have done an awesome job with branding and identity development for their company.  You can read more on this in a previous post right here on Google Image Blog.  Their slogan is ReadySite - Make Money!

Check out the program for yourself and see what you think.  If you happen to be in need of a logo or banner, just hit me up.  I can create one for you in a New York minute!

Also, if you would like to have your blog or website highlighted here in a review, just drop us an email at at1970alexander (at) gmail (dot) com or use the contact link on the main page.

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How To Make A Clickable Banner Image For Your Blog

You will see just how simple it is to create a clickable banner for your website or Blogger blog.  It is very important to have an image banner on your blog or website that your readers can copy and past on their own sites with a link back to you.

Why You Need A Clickable Banner:

This is perhaps even more important than the written content on your blog.  Think of it this way.  If no one comes to your site to read it, what's the use of doing all of that writing.  If you do not take the necessary steps to make people aware that your blog exists and enable them to share it with others, you will have no visitors.  Additionally, search engines are faster to index optimized images and other multimedia content like videos than the written word.

It's as simple as this.  You must add a clickable banner image  to your blog or website for visitors to post on their sites and link back to you.  When others add your clickable bannner image to their site, this will also enable their readers and visitors to find your site as well, thus increasing your traffic, link popularity, Google page rank, and SEO.

How A Clickable Banner Works:

How this works is that you create a clickable banner image (that links to your site), then post it on the home page of your blog, along with the html code, which will render the image display.  Other webmasters or blog publishers will then, copy and paste your link (that you provided on your page) to their blogs.  Whenever anyone clicks the image, they are taken to your site.  You will be surprised by how much traffic you pick up and how many more visitors you will get.

Let's Make Your Banner:

Create your banner using the same method used to create a blog logo, which I taught you in a previous post.  After following those simple, step-by-step instructions, come back to this page and follow the remaining instructions on how to make your banner.

How to Make It Clickable:

Now that your banner has been created, let's optimize it and make it clickable, and post it to your blog so that your readers can post it to their own blogs now.

Refer to my previous post, which provides an easy, step-by-step tutorial on how to upload and host your images on Blogger Blogs.   In that article, I also showed you how to get the URL or location of your image, which you will find in the browser bar by "right-clicking" on your image and then clicking "View Image."  The web address that displays is the image location.  Copy and paste this web address into a notepad file. Next, copy and paste the following code into the notepad file:

This will serve as your template.  Use this code as a guide anytime you want to create a clickable banner.

<a href="YOUR WEBSITE URL GOES HERE" target="_blank" title="NAME OF YOUR WEBSITE GOES HERE"><img border="0" alt="NAME OF YOUR WEBSITE GOES HERE" src="IMAGE LOCATION URL GOES HERE" width="IMAGE WIDTH GOES HERE" height="IMAGE HEIGHT GOES HERE" /></a>

From here, you will go back to your notepad file and fill in the details on you template.  Where it says "YOUR WEBSITE URL GOES HERE," replace it with the actual address of your blog.  For example.  For this blog, I would enter "http://googleimageblog.blogspot.com."  Keep all of the quotation marks in the code.

On your template, replace "NAME OF YOUR WEBSITE GOES HERE" with the actual name of your blog.  For instance, I would enter "Google Image Blog."  Keep in mind that there are two places for you to add the name of your blog.

Replace "IMAGE LOCATION URL GOES HERE" with the image location that you already copied down before.  This should end with an extension like .jpg or .png. 

Where it says, "IMAGE WIDTH GOES HERE," enter the width of your image and enter the image's height where it says, "IMAGE HEIGHT GOES HERE."  You find this by "right-clicking" on "View Image Info." or "Image Properties."  This step is not essential for the rendering of the picture, but it is very important with regard to optimizing your image for search engine results pages (SERPS).  The whole goal here is getting picked up by search engines, right?

Well folks, there you have it.  Your image is now clickable and people can link back to you.  Post this on your home page.  Good luck.  Let me know if you have any questions, need any assistance, or want me to do this for you.

Here's An Example:

This is my code and banner image.  If you find this article or others here on the blog at all useful, please link to me by adding my banner to your site.  I greatly appreciate it.  Thanks a bunch and happy imaging!

<a href="http://freelancejobsdailyupdate.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" title="Freelance Jobs Daily Update"><img border="0" alt="Freelance Jobs Daily Update" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4I5EuF1i11szIODVRC9K-q3Y3a9bBMj4QUQkA80QmVkE24HWylt2iV83dasGDuqZwmofitbNHxNcdiUIK6fyktIC1Z7Rwoc8TEjEJzFTm589iqvVLq2NCaKk0J95OBQGBCfFAUNmcAwv9/s320/Google_Image_Blog_Small_Banner.jpg" width="98" height="36" /></a>

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How to Host Images on Blogger Blogs | Profile Images, Logos, and Banners

Use a Blogger Blog to host your Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Meebo, Friendfeed, or other social networking profile picture, banner, or logo.  You don't have to pay for expensive image hosting to store or link to your photographs anymore.

Yes, you can use Google's Blogger platform or Blogspot Blogs to host your photographs and images.   It's very easy to do.  Let me show you exactly how to host pictures, images, logos, and banners using a plain-old Blogger Blog, by Google.

You can still link to and from these images, just like you can from other free image hosting sites like  Photobucket and ImageShack.  I like to use Blogger because it's convenient and increases the likelihood of your optimized images being added to Google Image Search results.  This, in effect, increases your subscribers, readers, and overall traffic to your site.

Here's How to Host An Image on Blogger:

1. Sign in to your Blogger Blog as you normally would.
2. Click "Posting," and then click on "New Post" to begin adding a post.
3. On your Blogger toolbar, click the "Insert Image" icon to add an image.
4. Click "Uploaded Images."
5. Click "Browse."  Choose the image that you want to add and click "Upload" to choose that particular image.
6. Now click "OK" to add that image to your blog post.  You have now added your image to Blogger for hosting.

How to Post and Share Your Newly-Created Image Link:

You are now ready to post, share, and hotlink this image anywhere on the Internet.  Here's how.

1. "Right-click" the image and then click "View Image." 
2. You will find the URL, or the domain name of this image in the browser bar.  This is the link location of your new image. 

Where Can You Use This Image Hosting Link?

You may display your image anywhere now, simply by providing this link.  Post it to your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google, or other social networking profile.

Examples of Banners Hosted on Blogger:

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Google Nexus One Phone Blog: Well Worth A Visit

Find out about the Google Nexus One Phone before anyone else does.  The best way to learn about this phone is by taking a blog hop and visiting Google Nexus One Phone Blog.

This site has beautiful images, and is described as the following:  Blog, news, discussion, support, review, accessories and comments on the Google Nexus One Superphone.  Learn more about the latest technology, trends, and products at Google Nexus One Phone Blog.

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How To Make Customized Header Graphic For Blogs : Make A Logo

Build your brand and get more search engine traffic by creating your own, unique, custom logo for your blog.  These easy steps will work on any blogging platform, including Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, etc.  Optimized images are often identified, indexed, and included in search engine results pages (SERPS) more quickly than even your best written content.

It is important to have a nice looking logo on your blog as it displays your identity and presents a great first impression to your visitors and prospective clients, as they have nothing else by which to judge you.  This contributes to building your brand, as well as adding a professional look and feel to your website.

I've been busy doing some photo editing, as you can see.  What do you think of these new logos that I created?  The first one is a header graphic and the other ones are clickable banner images that are optimized for search engines.  Creating an optimized banner or logo image for your blog will improve SEO, Google page rank, and more. 


Simple Steps to Make A Header Graphic or Logo for Your Blog: 

1. First, choose an image or several images that you want to include as a background for your blog logo.
2. Save the image (that you chose as your background image) to your hard drive or USB drive.
3. Open Microsoft Office Excel program.  If you do not have Excel, then you may use OpenOffice.
4. To begin creating your header graphic / logo, go up and click "Insert," then come down to "Picture," and click "From File."
5. Choose the  image that you want to insert.  This will be the background for your logo.
6. Once you insert the image, you will see that you can resize it, making it larger or smaller to your liking by clicking and dragging the edges of the photo, altering the height and width.
7. To add text, double-click on an open cell.  At the top of the toolbar, choose your desired font face and font size.  Then begin typing your text, which should be the title of your blog or website.  You may also want to add a slogan, but this is not absolutely necessary.
8. Copy and paste this text on top of your image.  Go up to the upper left corner of your screen, grab this text that you just created by placing your mouse on it, and then drag it onto your image, placing it where you want it to go.  If you want to resize the text, you may easily do this by dragging the edges just like you did in step 6. with your image.
9. Highlight the image by clicking around the entire outside of the entire logo, this includes the image and the text that you added.
10. Right-click, then come down and click "Copy" to copy your image to the clipboard.
11. Open Microsoft Paint program.  Go up to "Edit" and click "Paste."  You should see your image in Microsoft Paint now.  Do not be alarmed if you also see extra cells from Microsoft Excel on your image.  We will get rid of those later. 
12. Go up to "File," click "Save As...," choose the location where you want to save your file, and give it a name.  Now it is saved.  Remember where you saved it.  You will need to retrieve your file in the next step.  You may also, now exit out of Paint and Excel.
13. Open Microsoft Office Picture Manager.  Open your image file that you saved in step 12. from the location where you saved it.  
14. Click "Edit Pictures," and then click "Crop."  Crop the image to your liking, making sure to remove any extra cells that may display around the perimeter of your image and may have been copied from Excel. 
15. Now click save.  This provides you with a new, bitmap image with a .bmp extension.  I always like to save my images in .jpg or .png format also.  This is best because it creates a much smaller file size and will take a lot less time for your blog or website to load once you upload it to your site.
16. To export or save your image in (JPEG - File Interchange Format) .jpg or (PNG - Portable Network Graphics Format) .png format, just go up to "File" and then click "Export" in Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Go over to the right side where it says, "Export with this file format," choose "JPEG," and click "OK."  This saves your image in .jpg format.
17. You are now prepared to upload your blog header graphic to your blog.

I will teach you how to create a clickable banner image in a future post, so make sure to subscribe to Google Image Blog and stay in the loop.

I Will Create A Custom Graphic Just for You!

Contact me and I will create a custom logo or clickable banner for your blog or website.  My fees are very cheap, but my professionalism and the quality is great.  Contact me for inquiries at at1970alexander (at) gmail (dot) com.  I will make your graphic to your specifications today!  I will also optimize your images with alternative text, title, and dimension information, which is essential to indexing by search engines like Yahoo, Google, Excite, etc.

Examples:

Below, you will find some samples of logos that I have created.  Of course, I resized them to a smaller size just for the purposes of this article.  The first one is for this blog.

Just for fun, hover over the images for a second or two prior to clicking them and see how I optimized them with alternative text, title tags, etc.

The next header logo is for Freelance Jobs Daily Update, where you can get all kinds of contract, short-term, and long-term jobs in all fields.  

This one is for Nene Leaks It, where you can post anonymous secrets or pet peeves.

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Beautiful Graphics and Imaging | Watch "Lost" Online

The next blog you should visit is called Dark UFO.  The graphics on the blog are beautiful and a must-see!  The website is described as, "A collection of lost affiliate sites." They've got all the information you could ever want on "Lost," the popular television show, including where you can watch full episodes of "Lost" online for free, forums where you can discuss it with others who love the series, celebrity gossip about the show's cast, and so much more.

Dark UFO has lots of tools and information for you there and if you want to add your logo to the site, it's available.  It's definitely an SEO boost.

If you're not already familiar with the show, here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

"Lost is an American live-action television series. It follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, after a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles crashes somewhere in the South Pacific. Each episode typically features a primary storyline on the island as well as a secondary storyline from another point in a character's life, though other time-related plot devices change this formula in later episodes. The pilot episode was first broadcast on September 22, 2004,^[2] and since then five full seasons have aired, with a sixth currently in progress set to finish on 23 May 2010. The show airs on the American Broadcasting Company in the United States, as well as on regional networks in many other countries."

- source

Thanks for visiting Google Image Blog.   Please subscribe and visit often.  Don't forget to add your logo to this image directory.  Your image will be optimized for search engines and linked to your home page, as long as you link back.

Resize Images with Blogger | Easy Tutorial

As a webmaster, there are times when you need to resize a copy of your site's logo to a specific size so it can be included in blog directories, feeds, and links on other websites and blogs for better search engine optimization (SEO).  This tutorial will show you how to resize images.

Screenshot of Enspyre 1 American Pop Culture Blog

Working with images and photo editing is a lot of fun.  You can try out all sorts of things with pictures.  I needed to resize a blog logo for Feedburner to a much smaller size.  I was certain of a few things, but not so sure about others.  It would be trial-and-error from this point on, that's for sure.

I knew I could do it with fancy photo editing software programs.  I also knew I could accomplish this with websites like Photobucket and costly image editing software.

What I wasn't so sure about though, was whether or not I could accomplish my goal of creating a smaller, linkable image by using Blogger, which is owned by Google .  I started out by taking a friend's Blogspot blog logo.  It was a jpeg image and it was originally 718x181 pixels and 51.93 KB (53,172 bytes) in size.  I needed to get it down to exactly 468x60 pixels exactly, no more and no less.

Herein lies my dilemma!  We can solve the problem quite simply with this simple Blogger tip and trick.

Here's what I did, step-by-step:

1. I went to the blog's homepage.
2. Then I right-clicked on the blog logo.
3. I clicked on "View Image Info."
4. The "Page Info." opened and I was able to view lots of information about the photograph, as you can see above in the screenshot.
5. Using my mouse, I copied the image location.
6. Next, I started my post in Blogger, clicked on the image icon at the top, next to where it says, "Link."
7. The "Add Image" screen appeared, providing me the options of how I wanted to add the image.  I clicked "From a URL" and pasted the image location link from step 5 into the blank field.
8. Then I clicked "Add Selected" and my image appeared in my post.  Viola!  Of course the image was way too large, so now the real work begins to resize it to 468x60 pixels from a whopping 718x181 pixels.
9. Almost finished, I clicked "Edit HTML" at the top of the post editing toolbar in Blogger to edit the code and resize my image precisely to 468x60 pixels by adding the following:   width="468" height="60" to the image tag.
10. Lastly, I clicked "Publish Post."

Here's my resized image:

Please comment and let me know how this works out for you.  Try it out for size.  It won't hurt and it's lots of fun working with images!

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