WordPlayBlog I Free Clip Art I Book Reviews

I’ve been conducting research and compiling images for a comprehensive review of a great free online imaging tool. But you’re not going to read about that now, because I woke up with a cold. Instead, I’m going to refer you to some tips for getting something on the page on the days when the content just ain’t happening.

Tip #1
Create a resource list using other people’s work. This post is an example. I found some posts that address finding inspiration for blog articles and voilà! Instant blog post.

Tip #2
Scan this exhaustive (and when you have a cold, exhausting) content resources list from Lorelle on WordPress that will surely have an idea or 10 that will point you in the right direction for content creation.

Tip #3
Check out these 18 types of blog posts from Darryn at ProBlogger. One of these ideas might jar your thinking process a bit so you can come up with something new.

Tip #4
Use Zemanta. If you have a self-hosted WordPress blog and you don’t already use Zemanta, you might want to start. Once it’s installed, simply go to the editing area of one of your old posts you think might be expandable (preferably a long one so Zemanta will have a good idea of the subject) and see which articles Zemanta recommends. One of these might inspire a new idea or give you stories to link to for your very own post like this one: a resources list. Read our Zemanta review for more information about how it works.

As always, it’s a good idea to make things look pretty by using images in your posts. Images can also do wonders if you don’t have time to write a lot. You can use Zemanta for this. But if Zemanta doesn’t have what you need, see our free clip art collection, free cartoons or Stock.Xchng review for links to lots of quality free images. (The image in this post is from B S K of Stock.Xchng.)

I hope this resource list helps you stay on top of your content!

I recently read about Zemanta’s ability to deliver free images and other resources right to your browser and thought, yeah, that might be cool. But then I saw it in action and I truly got excited.

For those who haven’t heard about it, Zemanta is a plugin for Mozilla Firefox 2 and 3 that can be used with WordPress.org, Blogger or Typepad. (This is yet another reason to use the vastly superior Firefox browser. A version of Zemanta also is in the works for Internet Explorer though. You can e-mail Zemanta at info [@] zemanta.com if you’d like to become an IE beta tester.)

What exactly does Zemanta do? Well, it’s hard to condense into a few words. I’ve seen it described as a “content suggestion engine” and a “semantic layer” but I think it’s best to let the folks at Zemanta explain their virtues themselves in this excerpt from their Web site:

* Pleasure: It’s fun to see your words paired with great links and pix
* Content: Pictures, links, articles and tags
* Convenience: No more trolling the web for content for your posts
* Traffic: Links to recent blog posts frequently result in return traffic

Still don’t know what the heck it is? Check out the photos below that show Zemanta in action. I took these screen shots this morning as I prepared a post for my movie trivia blog, Tricky Movie Trivia. I figured, why not go for some shameless self-promotion while I try to enlighten you about this cool new plugin?

So, here we go:

Zemanta places an interface to the right of the window where you enter your blog post. In this interface is a gallery of photos that are either in the public domain or are tagged as “Non-free, could qualify as fair use.” The former option leaves it up to you to check on usage permissions.

The more you write, the more Zemanta tweaks its image offerings to match your copy. In my case, the more I wrote about Bette Davis and All About Eve, the more photos of both I was shown as options.

There were some great photos, but in the end I opted for one that wouldn’t have been my first choice because it was the only one in the public domain. All I had to do to select it was click on it and Zemanta immediately placed it in the upper right corner of my post with the photo source (Wikipedia) underneath it. This feature alone made me fall in love with Zemanta. I use graphics/photos in my posts all the time and I’ve never known how to get the image credits positioned underneath them without creating a table.

There are, however, several minor negative aspects to the photo feature. One is that you can only use one image. If you try to insert a second image, no matter where you place your cursor Zemanta always erases the first photo you inserted and replaces it with the new one. The other downside is that you have no way to control which nine images are offered up.

In the case of All About Eve, I was lucky because that subject lent itself to photography. While writing this post, however, I got an odd assortment of images that kept changing as I wrote. I started with six photos of Bette Davis, screen shots of the Blogger and WordPress login pages, and a very large Internet Explorer icon. By the time I was done, I had one Bette Davis photo, Firefox and IE logos, and screen shots of various Web pages having to do with random subjects in this story. But Zemanta is new and expanding, so I expect to see the selection widen with time. And how can I complain anyway? I was able to find an appropriate photo for my movie review without even opening another browser window. As a bonus, I also found an image for another Bette Davis movie I had already reviewed.

Related articles

Zemanta also presented a list of related articles in its “Articles” section, which is situated underneath the photo “Gallery.” Although I didn’t opt to use one in my All About Eve post, I did choose an article for this post from about Zemanta from techcrunch.com, which you can see at the bottom of the page. Like the photo described above, the article link and its surrounding border and text were inserted with one click.

Links and keywords

Zemanta also presents “Links” and “Tags” suggestions underneath the post. Similar to the related articles links in the “Articles”section, if you click on any of the words Zemanta presents in the “Links” section, the words will automatically be linked to the source from your blog post. For the movie review, the resources were Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database, but I understand from the Zemanta FAQ that these resources will be greatly expanded in the future, along with the photo sources.

In the “Tags” section, keywords were suggested. I found this helpful, as I hadn’t considered some of those that were listed. Although you obviously can’t see the impact Zemanta had on my blog’s keywords in the screen shot of the final post below, and I didn’t use any of their text links, you can see the tidy way in which the source was placed under the photo. In my opinion, it gives the post a professional look. Even better, it was incredibly simple to do.

Additional notes

Zemanta places a small icon at the bottom of any post that has been “Zemified” but you can remove it if you’d like. Personally, I found their plugin to be so helpful, I don’t mind giving them credit.

To read their FAQ, which explains more about where Zemanta gets its resources and how it plans to expand the service in the future, click here.

To download Zemanta, click here.

You might also be interested in these other resources on WordPlay:

• Free clip art
• Free photos
• Free cartoons
• Avatar Central, your home for free images, image software and information about avatars

“Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!”
Blazing Saddles, 1974

Clearly the bandito who uttered that immortal line from Blazing Saddles didn’t have a blog. If he did, he’d be thrilled to have access to these free Web graphics, which include some pretty cool official-looking badges and seals.

I’m a real advocate of lightening up when it comes to blogging, which is neither rocket science nor the cure for cancer (unless, of course, you actually blog about rocket science or cancer cures). But even if your subject matter is serious, it’s often still appropriate to have a little fun with your content.

The following free Web graphics applications can help you interject a little of that fun into your blog. They allow you to choose your own text and colors to create badges and seals that can be used as icons, to illustrate a blog post or even as part of your blog design.

The Says-It.com Official Badge Generator offers three badge styles: fire, police and sheriff. You can use any colors you can think of, because they have an intuitive HTML hex-code color selector for each component of the badge.

If the term “HTML hex-code color selector” intimidates you, don’t worry. As you can see from the image to the right, their color selector only requires that you drag icons to the color you want. For me, playing with the colors was part of the fun; there’s just something humorous about a purple and teal sheriff’s badge.

I played with this tool for hours because it’s like a coloring book for grown-ups. Except when I was done playing, I had a collection of cool usable Web graphics.

The Says-It.com Official Seal Generator is equally fun. I played around with this for my movie trivia blog and ended up with an icon I now use on the home page. Here are some of the designs I came up with:

The Official Seal Generator uses the same interface and tools as the Official Badge Generator, so once you’ve used one, you’ll know how to use the other. They’re oh-so-easy to use, so as a newly appointed member of the Web Police (and I have the badge to prove it), I command you to go and have fun with these free Web graphics tools!

Update (5-21-08): New designs have been added, so there are now five badge and seven seal designs. 

You might also be interested in these other resources on WordPlay:

• Free clip art
• Free photos
• Free cartoons
• Avatar Central, your home for free images, image software and information about avatars

Anyone who reads this blog knows I’m a collector of free clip art and free photos. That’s why I fell in love with the Image Chef online free images generator. It gives you the opportunity to turn Image Chef’s large selection of photos into your own personalized clip art, and even create animated video clips with the text of your choice.

Image Chef’s slogan is “just add words and serve” and they aren’t kidding. If you can point a mouse and type a word or two, you can create amazing custom-looking graphics, perfect for blog posts or avatars.

The easy-to-use Image Chef interface >>

You can use Image Chef even if you don’t sign up for a free account, but you’ll have to save your images to your hard drive before you leave the site. (They only store images for account members.) But it’s worth signing up for, because members receive other free benefits. For example, you can e-mail your images or easily post them to MySpace, Hi5, Blogger, TypePad widgets and your Friendster profile. You can also use Image Chef photos on mobile phones for image-based chat, personalized wallpapers, video greetings and video ringtones.

Visit Image Chef

My Image Chef gallery
Here are some samples I created for WordPlay:

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And here’s an image I created for my cat Joseph who has recently started peeing all over the house:

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Visit Image Chef

Thanks to FronTools for bringing Image Chef to my attention.

You might also be interested in these other resources on WordPlay:

• Free clip art
• Free photos
• Free cartoons
• Avatar Central, your home for free images, image software and information about avatars

Although content really is king, it doesn’t hurt to have your blog look good too. In fact, it can make all the difference in the world when it comes to making readers feel at home.

But if you came to blogging through the wordsmith door and you’re not a designer, you might need a little help when it comes to creating images. WordPlay already offers resources for free photos, free clip art and cartoons, but if you’d really like your blog to stand out, the free BeFunky Web application can help you create free images that are uniquely yours — even if you have no graphics experience at all. You can use these free images in your blog header, in posts and, in some cases for your avatar (depending on the resolution in the image).

The Uvatar maker

BeFunky allows you to create strange and wonderful graphics. They feature two types of image modification applications: a Uvatar maker and a Cartoonizer. An example of a BeFunky uvatar is shown above. As you can see, the application allowed me to capture the moment when Woody Allen joined me at my palace while I was relaxing in my Catwoman outfit. I also made uvatars that chronicled my visits with other celebrities and a furry animal friend, which you can see at the bottom of this post.

The Cartoonizer

As fun as the Uvatar app is to play with, the Cartoonizer would probably have even greater use if you’re trying to create images for your blog. All you need is a good image to start with and the Cartoonizer does the rest.

Just upload your photo or clip art and click the SKETCH button. This creates a black and white sketch of your photo. You can adjust the settings on this feature, based on the image you’ve uploaded. Once the sketch is created, click the COLOR button, which takes the colors from your original photo and inserts them behind your sketch.

To the left you can see an original photo of some kind of wild space happening and how it turned out after being run through the Cartoonizer. I also used the same process with a piece of clip art (below) to see how that would work. I suspect this had good results because I used clip art that was originally from a painting and had a lot of detail. But you never know how an image will turn out, so it’s worth a try, even if you only have low-resolution clip art.

The original image (left) was used to create a cartoon image, and then had one of many BeFunky borders added.____

As you can see in the sample above with the red curtain, the Cartoonizer allows you to add a border to your image. Many of their borders are geared toward use in e-mail cards, but they can also be used for blog images. The Cartoonizer also gives the ability to warp an image, which can create some pretty strange effects.

So, the next time you want to create an image that’s truly yours, hop on over to BeFunky. You’ll probably have a lot of fun and generate some interesting images at the same time.

My BeFunky Gallery

I tried to convince Snoop Dogg to go roller-blading with me near the canals in Venice, but he told me that tiny wheels scare him. He also was a little leery of the ferret on my head.

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Here I am with Halle Berry, trying on dresses to wear to the Oscars. We both feel wearing fur isn’t cool, but that doesn’t apply to live animals, so the ferret stays.

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Hugh Grant has a reputation as a ladies man, so I felt it would be best to supplement the protection provided by the ferret and wear a black shroud on our date at the aquarium.

Go to BeFunky

You might also be interested in these other resources on WordPlay:

• Free clip art
• Free photos
• Free cartoons
• Avatar Central, your home for free images, image software and information about avatars

Copyright 2008 WordPlayBlog.com

We’ve already discussed the importance of having a compelling avatar for your blog. Even if you agree it’s a good idea to have an image that represents the true you; it’s easy to put off creating one. You might even be stuck in the mud because you can’t think of an image that would suit you.

Well, this might give you some incentive to move that project to the front burner: There’s a great online application called GIFWorks that allows you to create free images you can use as avatars and have a blast while you do it.

GIFWorks is easy to use, even if you have no graphics experience. The only requirement is that you modify a .gif file. (You probably already guessed that from the site name.) It also goes without saying that you have to have permission to use the photo. You can use one of your own, or you can choose one from Stock.Xchng, which offers quality photos for no charge.

There are are a variety of looks that can be obtained through the GIFWorks application. To show you its capabilities, I’ve taken a photo of my nephew and turned it into the following five distinct icons. The GIFWorks features used to create them appear next to each avatar. There are different versions of GIFWorks for Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE), so I’ve included the features paths for each. Click on any of the icons to see the full-size image.

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IE: Effects menu /Artist Medium / Cartoon Strip

Firefox: Effects menu / Cartoon Strip_

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IE: Effects menu /Artist Medium / Raster

Firefox: Effects menu / Raster

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IE: Effects menu /Color / Colorshift

Firefox: Effects menu / Colorshift

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IE: Effects menu /Sharpness / Sharpen/Unsharpen, then Effects menu / Offset / Shadow, then Warp / Sphere

Firefox: All on Effects menu: Sharp/Unsharp, then Shadow, then Sphere_______

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IE: E: Effects menu / Offset / 3D Glasses

Firefox: Effects menu / 3D Glasses___________

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These examples (plus many more that didn’t make the final cut) took under an hour — and I had a great time playing while I made them. I hope these inspire you to experiment with GIFWorks and create a little fun of your own!

You might also be interested in these other resources on WordPlay:

• Free clip art
• Free photos
• Free cartoons
• Avatar Central, your home for free images, image software and information about avatars

Copyright 2007 WordPlayBlog.com

OpTempo offers free interviews and 125×125 ads

If you want free publicity for your blog (and who wouldn’t?), check out OpTempo’s self-interview form. Just fill out the questionnaire and, subject to approval, the interview about your blog will appear on OpTempo.

Once upon a time, free blog reviews also were available but those are no longer offered. If you look at previous reviews, however, you’ll see that OpTempo owner Frank Carr took the review process seriously and did a thorough job. You might want to look through some of the recommendations he made to see if any apply to your blog.

UPDATE (courtesy of Y.S. of My MD Journey): OpTempo also offers free 125×125 ads to bloggers.

Copyright 2008 WordPlayBlog.com

It’s not enough to have your site or blog to rank well; it has to place highly for words that are closely related to your Web site or blog content. This is where an important part of search engine optimization comes in: keyword analysis, the art and science of identifying keywords that describe the focus of your Web property and are popular with the public. People who overlook this critical element usually have sites or blogs that don’t rank in search engines at all. If they do rank, they frequently do so for keywords that no one is looking for.

For example, if a broker sells condos in the Buford suburb of Northeast Atlanta and her Web site is “GreatSouthernCondos.com,” the search engines probably would rank the site well for the search term “great southern condos.” This is because those words are in her site name and there is very little competition for that exact phrase. But that wouldn’t help her much, because it’s doubtful anyone would search for those exact words. A Web site that ranks highly for search terms that no one is looking for might as well be invisible.

All keywords are not created equal

To allow the largest number of people to find her site, the agent’s keywords must be specific. She could try using the search term “Atlanta Georgia Real Estate,” which is somewhat specific and has an average of 130,000 people, per engine, searching for that phrase every month. But a search for “Atlanta Georgia Real Estate” in a major search engine also reveals that over five million sites are competing with hers.

This is why good keyword analysis is important. It’s essential to find search terms that accurately describe your business, are frequently searched by the public and don’t have too many competing Web sites. For example, if you found a keyword that had several thousand or more people searching for it, and the competing Web sites numbered two million or less, your site probably would rank very well. This is not to say that your site wouldn’t rank well if the number of competing Web sites were greater than two million; in fact it’s quite possible. But to do so, your site would have to have all aspects of Web optimization executed perfectly.

Since the number of key phrases anyone can use on a site before diluting their effectiveness in the search engines is limited, it’s critical to focus on words that give you the most impact. But here’s where it gets confusing: even search terms that are quite specific to your business can be duds. You might think featuring the phrases “Buford Georgia real estate” or “Buford Georgia condos” on “GreatSouthernCondos.com” would help the site rank highly when people search for condos in Buford. But you’d probably be surprised to know that virtually no one is searching for either of those terms. So, although it’s important to be specific with your keywords so you differentiate your site, again, if no one is actually searching for the terms you have on your site, it still won’t be found.

To analyze your keywords, you’ll need two tools: a keyword finder program, such as Wordtracker, and any major search engine. (Click here for a list of the major search engines.) Wordtracker will display which keywords are being searched for most frequently. As discussed above, without this information, everything you assume about what people are looking for would be a guess at best.

Once you’ve found keywords that are both relevant to your site and have a significant number of people searching for them, you can use the search engine to find out how many sites are competing with yours. Simply enter the final keywords you’ve chosen into the engine, one word or phrase at a time, to see how many sites come up under each term.

If you decide that the research is too much work for you, however, you can hire a keyword analyst. If you do, there are several ways you can help him help you:

Think about the elements that differentiate you from competitors. If you sell real estate, do you specialize in mountain-view, resort or historical properties, or even all three? If you’re a mortgage broker, do you specialize in hard-to-fund loans? If you’re an appraiser or a home inspector, do you have areas of specialization? You know your business better than anyone, so make a list of any words and phrases that might indicate how your business differs from others in your category. Although the keyword analyst is trained to track down the best words for your site, providing many options for him to search can make the results even more powerful.

Introduce your keyword analyst to the person promoting your site to the search engines. Usually, one party does both keyword analysis and Web promotion. But some Web promoters don’t focus on analyzing keywords. So, if you already have a Web promoter and you hire a separate keyword analyst, make sure the two parties are willing to work together for your benefit. If you haven’t hired a company to optimize and promote your site yet, someone who does both analysis and Web promoting would be a good choice.

Whether you do the keyword analysis yourself or hire someone, it should be done. This applies even if you’ve had your site for a long time. Since the search engines renew their listings all the time, it’s never too late to get better rankings.

To learn how to avoid some critical mistakes people make when implementing search engine optimization strategies, click here.

Article by Dave Schloss, who specializes in keyword analysis and Web site promotion, and is the founder of Super Web Site Promotion.

Copyright 2007 WordPlayBlog.com