5 Top Tips For Optimizing Images For Google Search

Guest Post - Our host is August Drilling, August takes an in-dept look at optimizing your images for search along with tutorials for WordPress and Blogger.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog.

If you haven’t noticed, a new visual trend has hit the web, and Pinterest is a prime example of this image-based trend in action. High quality, engaging images receive tons of love on Pinterest, generating loads of traffic back to the originating website.

Besides Pinterest, though, even images found in the classic Google Image search provide great potential for increased site traffic. But, similar to ranking well in Google’s traditional search, your images must be optimized to win this extra traffic.

So to capitalize on the image-based trend, lets go over the top tips for optimizing your images for Google. It’s quick and easy, so let’s get started.
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jQuery 5 In One Image Effects For Your Photos On Blogger

Bloggers are always using images and photos on their blogs so in this post we will see how you can add five different effects to those images.The neat thing about this is you just have to add some jQuery and Css to your template (We make it easy) then you can easily add from 5 hover effects to add some spice to your blog images.

Lets look through the effects and you can also check out the demo to see it in action.

The five effects will be :

Effect 1 - Popout, this is a basic pop out effect on hover the image will pop out from the page.
Effect 2 - SliceDown, The image will have an dark overlay and on hover a slice effect reveals the image clearly.
Effect 3 - BoxRandom, The image has a light overlay and on hover the image is revealed by boxes randomly clearing.
Effect 4 - FoldLeft, Once again the image has a light overlay and this time on hover an accordion fold effect reveals the image.
Effect 5 - RainGrowReverse, This time on hover the image is revealed from corner to corner.

Add The Image Effects To Blogger

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Add Pinterst And Other Bookmarking Buttons To Images In Your Blogger Posts

On Spice Up Your Blog I have tutorials for lots of Social Bookmarking gadgets.We have posts showing how to add Social Bookmarking gadgets at the top of your posts, below your posts, scrolling beside your posts and in fixed positions.These are of course for readers to bookmark the content in your posts.But with so many Blogs having a focus on Images how about having the bookmarking icons appear on the actual images you have on your blog ?

People love to share images and the success of Pinterest has served to confirm this point.So in this post I have a tutorial to add social bookmarking icons from AddThis to your images, the icons will only appear when readers hover over the image and they appear with an overlay.

The buttons we are adding to the images are for Twitter, Facebook, Print, Pinterest, Google + and the Add This button which will cover all other services.

Check out the demo below then follow the tutorial.
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Make Your Blog Sticky With Images, Aesthetics and Content

The stickiness of your blog is one of the most important measures of its success. You may be able to drive a large number of visitors to your blog, but unless the visitors stick around and engage with your blog closely, and return repeatedly, you may not find sustainable success in the highly volatile and mercurial world of blogging.

Creative Use of Images

Many bloggers commit the cardinal mistake of over-emphasizing on the quality of written content while ignoring the importance of images in the process. Images help to arouse the curiosity of a new visitor, and get him or her drawn into your blog’s great content. An average blog visitor’s attention span is very limited because the choices for readers are too many out there in the free world of blogging.

Therefore, unless you make a creative use of images you may end up with a blog that appears drab, unexciting, and visually unappealing. Many visitors to such a blog may make a quick exit without waiting to check the quality of its content, if the design and appearance of the blog does not appear inviting, refreshing, and somewhat rewarding.

Images are easily obtained through sites like iStockPhoto, Jupiter Images or Shutterpoint. Tools like Zemanta can also help bloggers find images that fall under GPL and Creative Commons licensing.

Encourage RSS Subscriptions

In a highly competitive world of blogging, it has become very important to include an RSS feed and invite the readers to subscribe to the blog. This will help to create a loyal blog readership because the blog posts will drop directly into the subscriber’s mailbox. RSS feed is one of the biggest reasons of the success of prominent blogs around the world.

Tools like RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 are built right in to WordPress and Blogger so you can get a feed set up rather easily for your readers.

Smart Blog Design

Bloggers who are keen to enhance the stickiness of their blog for the long haul cannot afford to ignore blog design. New visitors tend to judge a blog within the first few seconds of their visit. If they find the blog confusing, cluttered, or difficult to navigate, a majority of them will not wait to stick around to read too much of the content even of the content that was read was marvellously written. If the placement of ads takes precedence over the placement of content, it can put off many visitors and kill the stickiness of a potentially impressive blog (see Myspace).

Clear Blog Branding

Your maximum effort should be invested in creating a great homepage that draws visitors into the blog. A new visitor should be able to know exactly what the blog is all about almost at the first glance itself. Blog design, title, headlines, taglines, logo, and navigational elements should all work to communicate effectively about the blog’s content.

Compelling Content

The backbone of any sticky blog, ultimately, is the quality of its content. A blog that makes outstanding promises at the outset and delivers little in terms of content is likely to fizzle out soon. The content must be relevant and sharply focused to the tastes and preferences of the target audience.

Furthermore, it is critical that the content must be updated regularly. Each time the blog should have something new and exciting to offer to the readers. In a fast-paced world of blogging, the blogger cannot afford to take it easy or become complacent about dishing out and providing new content consistently.

While any one of these techniques can help keep your readers engaged longer on your site, a combination of them will help keep your readers focused on what your site has to say to them and will develop a much stronger community around your blog.

By Guest Author -Jon writes about Promotional codes and discounts for different coupon blogs that share Jupiter Images coupon and iStockPhoto promotional codes. Currently, he writes a coupon site that offers the latest Jupiter Images coupons and iStockPhoto promotional codes to help people save money on stock images.

Lightbox Image Overlay Effect Is Now Default On Blogger Blogs

Back in May this year i showed you how to add a jQuery Lightbox Image Overlay Effect For images on your blog.Today the Blogger team have made a version of this default on all blogs.Previously Images when clicked opened as a seperate page, with the lightbox effect images pop up with the background darkened also thumbnails of other images within the post are listed below.So just upload images as normal and they can be viewed in a brand new way.

Introducing Lightbox, the latest in a series of Blogger updates aimed at giving you an improved and modernized blogging experience. Lightbox is a whole new way to interact with photos. When clicked, images now expand into a shiny new overlay that displays them at their full size for optimal viewing.

Click the images below to see the effect in action.

Another great new feature for Blogger, check out the Blogger post on lightbox Here.

Drop your comments and questions below.

How To Add Stacked Polaroid And Other Cool Effects To Images

There are hundreds of image editing and resizing services available online so finding a quick and easy option can be hard.One service i use regularly is Dr Pic as it has just a few quick editing options and a re size option with an instant preview.The stacked Polaroid effect is probably the one i use most and i have received a few Emails asking how it's done.So i have created a short video to show you how to use Dr Pic to edit and re size your images.
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Adding Simple Stylish Css Captions To Images On Blogger

In this blog tip we will look at a quiet simple way to add captions or descriptions to the images used on your blog.On Blogger there is an option when you click on an image uploaded to the post editor to add a caption.This adds the caption below the picture using a table.However with just a few lines of Css we can have the caption across the bottom on top of the image with an neat opacity background.You can also change the colors of the caption to suit your blogs design, You can see some examples in the demo below.
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Blogger And Wordpress Spectacular jQuery Image Zoom Effect

A few weeks ago i published a very popular post featuring an Amazing jQuery Image Zoom For Blogger.That effect allowed you to display an in dept zoom in a container beside images.In this post we have the same in dept zoom but this time it appears within the image in whats called inner zoom.So if you uploaded an image to your blog that's displayed 200x200 pixels the zoom appears within that space.Lets look at the demo so you can try it out.
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Blogger And Wordpress Spectacular jQuery Image Zoom Effect

A few weeks ago i published a very popular post featuring an Amazing jQuery Image Zoom For Blogger.That effect allowed you to display an in dept zoom in a container beside images.In this post we have the same in dept zoom but this time it appears within the image in whats called inner zoom.So if you uploaded an image to your blog that's displayed 200x200 pixels the zoom appears within that space.Lets look at the demo so you can try it out.
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jQuery Lightbox Image Overlay Pop Out Effect For Blogger

Recently we have been looking at the images you use in your blog and making them display better and more interactive.This has included an Image Zoom Effect and Featured Image Slideshow.In this post we will cover perhaps the more popular image plugin.The lightbox plugin really is a 'Must Have' for blogs that use pictures in their posts.At the moment when a user clicks on an image you uploaded on your blog they click through to the image URL page which is just the image on a blank page.With this lightbox effect when your images are clicked they smoothly pop up into a container in full size with an optional description.If you have the effect added to more than one image users will have the option to scroll through each with next previous buttons.Lets look at some Demos.

While testing this i had to make a few demos so i kept two for you to check out, just click on the images in the demo posts.You will see the next and previous buttons when you hover over the image when popped out.
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An Amazing jQuery Image Zoom Effect For Blogger

Many of the latest posts have been looking at Css effects and Image effects so in this post we will continue with the images but bring some jQuery into the mix.If your a beginner thinking whats he talking about don't worry we will have all the steps set up for simple copy and paste.The effect we will achieve in this post is very cool.When you add an image to your blog you can allow users to hover over that image and a larger version appears.Users can then move the cursor around the small image and see it zoomed.The demo below will show you exactly how it works.



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An Amazing jQuery Image Zoom Effect For Blogger

Many of the latest posts have been looking at Css effects and Image effects so in this post we will continue with the images but bring some jQuery into the mix.If your a beginner thinking whats he talking about don't worry we will have all the steps set up for simple copy and paste.The effect we will achieve in this post is very cool.When you add an image to your blog you can allow users to hover over that image and a larger version appears.Users can then move the cursor around the small image and see it zoomed.The demo below will show you exactly how it works.



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An Amazing jQuery Image Zoom Effect For Blogger

Many of the latest posts have been looking at Css effects and Image effects so in this post we will continue with the images but bring some jQuery into the mix.If your a beginner thinking whats he talking about don't worry we will have all the steps set up for simple copy and paste.The effect we will achieve in this post is very cool.When you add an image to your blog you can allow users to hover over that image and a larger version appears.Users can then move the cursor around the small image and see it zoomed.The demo below will show you exactly how it works.



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Add A Simple Css Bump Effect To Your Blogs Images

We all like images effects and adding some style to the pictures we use in our blogs posts.Some effects can be quiet elaborate (I have the very cool light box effect just about ready to publish) but sometimes a simple hover effect looks great.In a recent post i showed a rollover effect with some social icons changing one image to another on hover (we may look at using Css Sprites in future), in this post we will make your images simply Bump !
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Add A Simple Css Bump Effect To Your Blogs Images

We all like images effects and adding some style to the pictures we use in our blogs posts.Some effects can be quiet elaborate (I have the very cool light box effect just about ready to publish) but sometimes a simple hover effect looks great.In a recent post i showed a rollover effect with some social icons changing one image to another on hover (we may look at using Css Sprites in future), in this post we will make your images simply Bump !
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Use Snipping Tool To Take Screenshots On Windows 7 And Vista

On Spice Up Your Blog i use screenshots in nearly every post to make it easier for people to follow tutorials.In the past i have used a FireFox Add-On to take the screenshots but now i use a great tool built into Windows 7 and Windows Vista called Snipping Tool.With snipping tool you have no need to download any plug-ins or add-ons and you can take professional and customizable screenshots.

How To Find And Use Windows Snipping Tool

Snipping Tool is easy to use and i have created a video to show you how to find it and start taking quality screenshots.

That's Snipping Tool a great way to take screenshots for your blog.Make sure to Check out more of our Image Tips and Blog Gadgets.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

Use Snipping Tool To Take Screenshots On Windows 7 And Vista

On Spice Up Your Blog i use screenshots in nearly every post to make it easier for people to follow tutorials.In the past i have used a FireFox Add-On to take the screenshots but now i use a great tool built into Windows 7 and Windows Vista called Snipping Tool.With snipping tool you have no need to download any plug-ins or add-ons and you can take professional and customizable screenshots.

How To Find And Use Windows Snipping Tool

Snipping Tool is easy to use and i have created a video to show you how to find it and start taking quality screenshots.

That's Snipping Tool a great way to take screenshots for your blog.Make sure to Check out more of our Image Tips and Blog Gadgets.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

Beautiful Animated Hover Effect Captions For Images On Blogger

In this post we have not only an amazing effect you can add to the images you use in your blog posts but it's amazingly simple and amazingly fast so wont slow down you page load time.The effect is similar to what you will see on many Featured Posts Gadgets, when you hover your cursor over the image a caption scrolls up from the bottom with your selected text.

So, you can have the title of the image, a description, date taken, credit or anything you like.The code we will use has No Javascript this ensures it will load fast and as i said not slow down your blog.The code is all Css3 (Don't Worry I Will Keep It Simple) so you have a flowing and transparent effect with the caption.There is also a stylish Shadow edge around the image On-Hover.

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Important Information On Images You Upload To Blogger

Since Google took over Blogger in 2003 they have fully integrated almost every part of the system with their other services.In fact if you stand back and look at it Blogger was the perfect acquisition for Google as they can run so many of their other products alongside it.

Let me show you why I'm referring to :

Blogger - Your Blogger account is now part of your Google account.

Picasa - The images you upload to your blog are hosted on Google's image hosting service, once you upload your first image a picasa account is created for you.

Feedburner - Google own the most popular Rss Feed service and have recently taken advantage of this to offer extra options for Blogger users.

YouTube - Videos you add to your blog will be hosted on YouTube and recently you got the option to add YouTube videos directly from your post editor.

AdSense - You can monetize your blog with AdSense directly from your blogs Design > Add a gadget page.Many people with websites and other blogs find it hard to get approved for AdSense, in fact some people create a Blogger blog in an effort to get approval.


Google Fonts - Google have recently integrated their web fonts with the template designer allowing users to use a wide selection of fonts on their blogs.


AdWords - Over the Christmas Google offered a free $100 voucher to Blogger users.I actually took them up on the offer and have to say I'm delighted with the results, i had to add $5 to get the campaign started but i then had $105 of AdWords advertising.

Webmaster Tools - Blogs you create are now automatically added to your webmaster tools account, when you log in you have a one click option to add a blog rather than going through the verification process.

Google Friend Connect - Also known as Followers, the Followers gadget is added to each blog and other gadgets can also be added from the directory.

Remember your Google Email or Gmail you use to log into Blogger is actually your Goolge account an can be used to log into all these services and more.

This is part of how Google manage to grow, they acquire websites and services they know they can connect with other sites they already own.Other Google services i also use in connection with my blog include Google Code, i host all the scripts i share with your on Spice Up Your Blog on Google Code, Google Affiliate Network, Although i don't use it as much as previously.

So by using Blogger, Google are introducing you to many of their other services that you may continue even using if you stop blogging in the future.

Google Accounts

This brings me to the point of this post and how having all these services connected to one account can cause trouble down the line.In a recent post on The Real Blogger Status a great Blogger related blog by one of the top moderators in the Blogger Help Forum called Nitecruzer or Chuck he made a great point about the images you use on your blog.

As all images you upload to your blog are hosted on Google's images hosting site Picasa, if for some reason you closed your Picasa account all those images would vanish.That would be a disaster to any Blogger, but you may ask why would you close your Picasa account ? Chuck makes a few examples.

If you are a member of a team blog (Blogs can have up to 100 contributors, more info can be found via Settings > Permissions) and in the future you have stopped contributing and decide to close you Google account.

If you transfer the ownership of your blog you may decide to delete the Google account that was connected.

Probably the most common occurrence would be changing the account you use to log into and post to your blog.I am the perfect example of this, when i created Spice Up Your Blog i was using the Email PaulCrowe77(at)Gmail.com, as the blog grew i decided to have a unique Email attached to the blog and everything related.So i created Spiceyourblog(at)Gmail.com, i then gave that new Email permission to the blog and still use that every time i log in.Now...I had published around 40 posts before i changed so if i were to delete PaulCrowe77(at)Gmail.com all the images from those 40 posts would be gone !

I hope i haven't lost you, if you don't understand the permissions process of inviting people to your blog it could be hard to follow.But i guess the best thing to do is simply don't delete any Google account and you will never have anything to worry about.If your not using a Google account just let it sit there in obscurity, it's not like it will effect you in any way.

Drop Your Comments, Views And Questions Below.

Create An Animated Flash Flickr Photo Stream Gadget

Flickr is a very popular service among Bloggers and as well as being an Image hosting service Flicker works like a social network.Many Bloggers like to display their latest Flickr photos and videos in their Blogs sidebar or footer, I'm sure you have seen Flickr gadgets on some of your favorite blogs.In this post i will show you how you can have an Awesome Flickr stream on your blog that uses Flash Animation to constantly scroll through your images.As well as having the option to display Images from your Flickr account you can choose to display images from all Flickr accounts via key words and tags.You also have the option t create a standard html gadget that will simply display some of your most recent uploads.

Live Demo - Click To See The Demo : Animated Flash Flicker Photo Stream

Add A Flicker Image Stream To Your Blog

Step 1. Follow this link to Flicker Gadget Page.

Step 2. Choose the Html Gadget For A Standard Gadget or The Flash Gadget for the animated effect.



Step 3. Follow the easy steps to set the photos to be displayed, choose the colors and generate the code.



Step 4. Copy the code and add it to a Html/JavaScript Gadget in your sidebar or footer.You can also add the gadget within posts or anywhere that accommodates script.

That's your flash Flickr Gadget, Check out more of our Best Blog Image Tips And Best Blog Gadgets.

Leave Your Comments, View And Opinions Below.