How to Create Videos for Your Blog

April 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Over the past 4-5 years, I’ve created over 100 video for my websites. Today I want to share some strategies I use to create videos that other people will watch.

How to create videos for your blog: @BEECHRetreat

If I’m going to share tips about vlogging, I thought it would be best to create a vlog for you.

To summarize the strategies from the vlog above.

  1. Introduction
    Introduce yourself and your URL. I add an annotation to my video that includes my URL so a viewer can read my URL as well as hear it on the video. Some people are visual & others area auditory, so I include both in my videos.
    Remember that I did all my video editing on youtube.
  2. Props
    Use props or action to illustrate your points in the video. “Show” your viewers what you are trying to say.
  3. Call to Action
    All good marketing has a call to action. Tell your viewer exactly what you want them to do when the video ends. This may be click on the link, call & make an appointment or buy this product.

How do you use videos on your blog? I would love to hear your experiences or any tips you may want to share.

 

encourages moms with fun activities & homeschooling advice on How To Homeschool My Child. She wants to give you a free copy of her ebook, Everything You Want To Know About Homeschooling by clicking here. She also offers a free video, “Making Your First $1000 Online!” at her husband’s website: StephenBeck.com

You can connect with her on facebook,twitter, pinterest or youtube.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: , ,
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Five Ways to Decrease the SEO of Your Next Blog Post

February 20, 2013 By

For the most part, bloggers want their sites to be optimized so that they can get search engine traffic.

SEO means search engine optimization. Most bloggers desire search engine traffic from people looking for a solution to their problems. People who visit from search engines are more prone to buy than those coming from other avenues. And it is obvious that the potential for searchers landing on your page far outnumbers your band of loyal subscribers no matter how large that may be.

But if you are one of those in the minority who doesn’t care about SEO, go ahead and make these five blunders.

5 Ways to Decrease SEO:The Beech Retreat

1. Don’t Use Subheadings

Ignore the fact that search engines give preference to  what is inside <h2> and <h3> tags. Just make your posts how you want them to be. Forget subheadings altogether. Who needs ‘em? A waste of pixels.

Or if you like the look of them, just use bold to make words big. It looks the same as using <h3>, and that’s all you care about, right? As long as it looks nice to humans, it doesn’t matter how Google sees the post.

2. Don’t Edit the Alt Attribute of Images

You love using images on your blog, but it’s just too much trouble to edit the  alt attribute. Google should be able to see exactly what that image is. After all, you and your readers can see it!

But Google can’t “see” images. Search engines rely on the words written in the alt tag to determine what the photo contains.

Ah, who cares? You make your images for people, right? Not for search engines.

3. Leave Metadata Blank

Metadata? What is that? It sounds technical and scary. You might break your blog fooling with that kind of thing. Besides, it takes so much time to create a post and pinnable images that who has time for summarizing the post in a sentence or two inside that box below the editor?

Really! What a waste of time. Just let search engines pull whatever they want from your post to show in search results. After all, you don’t want to micromanage your blog by telling Google exactly what to show to potential readers. That’s so bossy and controlling. Ick.

4. Don’t Refine your URLs

Mile-long URLs are cool. The more words the merrier! Long links never get broken when people copy and share them.  And search engines should be able to decipher which words in the URL are most important.

It’s just too much trouble to click and edit a URL to make it short, memorable, and keyword rich. Yeah, forget about refining your URLs.

5. Don’t Link to Your Other Blog Posts

Linking to previous content in today’s post? Seriously? Are you supposed to remember what you wrote last year?  Who can keep track of that?  If your readers want more of your posts, just let them subscribe to your feed or use your search function. They should have to work a little for these posts. You work hard writing them; the readers can work hard finding all your valuable content, forgotten deep within the archives.

This post is obviously written with a healthy dose of sarcasm and humor. These five small tweaks really do take time in a busy blogger’s schedule. Even a couple of minutes for each task can add up over the course of the week. But these mistakes will weaken your efforts at getting search engine traffic.  Then again, if you aren’t blogging for SEO, then feel free to ignore all five actions in the list. Other bloggers will happy to optimize their posts and take the traffic that you could have had.

 

Filed Under: Blogging Tips
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

What To Do After a Blogging Retreat

February 11, 2013 By 1 Comment

BEECH 2013 is over, and life is back to normal. We have traded our evening luaus on the beach for  reheated leftovers in the kitchen and chats among fellow entrepreneurs with little kid giggles. But that doesn’t mean that BEECH is over. There are plenty of things to do after the event itself is complete.

What to do at after a blogging retreat or conference

Organize Your Contacts

Pull out all the business cards you gathered during the retreat and act on each one. Subscribe to blogs and follow your new friends on social media platforms. Add emails to your contact list, making sure to notate details about each person and where you met.

Review Your Notes

Take time to read over all the notes you took during the retreat. Highlight or list the action steps you need to take based on what you learned. Maybe you need to do more research or hire some help. Write it all down.

If a certain word or phrase from the event really spoke to your heart, make a mini-poster and display it near your computer so you can focus on it all year long.

Prioritize Your To Do List

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when you have a huge list of action points. Prioritize the steps you need to take, not worrying about the actions lower on the list until you get to them.

Get Accountability

Set personal deadlines for your action points. Divide them up into manageable chunks and start marking them off as you complete them. Better yet, involve another small business owner or blogger to hold your feet to the fire with your goals.

Nurture Connections

Be sure to stay in touch with your retreat buddies. Make a special Twitter list or Facebook interest list of your new contacts so that it is easy to keep in tune with their latest online ventures. Reach out and connect with them via blog comments or social media.

Generously promote your new contacts. Give and you will receive.

Did you promise anyone to send an email with the name of that favorite plug-in or book? Be sure to follow through with your promises. Go beyond expectations and people will remember you.

Start Budgeting for Next Year

Calculate your expenses for this year’s retreat and make a financial plan for next year’s event. Whether that includes saving or getting sponsors, don’t wait until the last minute to find the money to invest in your business and blog.

And while you are thinking about money, collect all your receipts from the event and start a spreadsheet so claiming the expenses will be easier at tax time.

Thank Speakers and Partners

Throughout the months following the event, be sure to thank the speakers and partners who made a difference. If a keynote inspired you, let him know with a shout-out on your favorite social media platform or by email. If you truly love a partner’s product, be sure to let your audience know too. Use the power of Instagram and Vine to create images that show the value of the swag you received at the retreat.

If you had personal sponsors for the event, go above and beyond to fulfill your end of the agreement. Foster the existing relationship  and be a positive example of what bloggers can do to harness social media influence.

A blogging event may span only a three day period, but the ripples from that short time radiate outward with impact for months to come. Make the most of your investment by following through on the experience.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: ,
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Why You Need a YouTube Strategy

January 17, 2013 By 2 Comments

Do you have a YouTube strategy? In case you didn’t know, it’s the 2nd largest search engine on the planet and your audience is there every day. More video is uploaded there every hour than is housed in the Smithsonian. So I ask again, “Do you have a YouTube strategy”?

Youtube Strategies

The Nashville Symphony has a very active strategy. Their goal is to post a new video every week. Wow! Imagine how much work that must be. But the Nashville Symphony’s goals are definitely aligned with that strategy. They want to be there to engage with their fans, and videos help create that engagement. And the demand of 1 video per week means every department in their organization gets involved at some point or another.

Another strategy is to set-up your channel like your website and drive traffic to your channel as a resource, not to specific videos. To use your YouTube Channel as a resource for your audience, first create playlists for each of the categories you feel would be useful to your audience (hint: look at your website navigation bar). Then when you’re customizing your channel check the box that says “show playlists” and uncheck the box that says “show uploaded videos.”

The nice thing about playlists is you can put any video in them, not just yours. So if someone else filmed you, you can add that to a playlist and it will show up on your channel page. Then your channel page will look a bit like your navigation bar with category buttons they can peruse.

A little known but extremely effective YouTube strategy harks back to the days of “Choose your own Adventure” books. Unlike those books however, we’re not going to be funneling people to the end of an adventure, but helping them find what they’re looking for. This strategy involves the use of the “annotations” feature in YouTube’s video editor.

Annotations are the boxes you see in videos that say things like “Subscribe to my channel”. YouTube allows you to put these boxes in videos and use them to link to your channel, your subscribe button, and other YouTube Videos.

To do the “choose your own adventure” strategy, you really need to plan it from the beginning. When you’re shooting a video, start by leaving an extra 10 – 20 seconds of dead air at the end of the video. That dead air at the end of the video is going to be where we put “annotation buttons” linking to other videos.

For instance if you are in the health niche and create a video about “Best Foods to Eat in Winter”, you could put links two links at the end of the video to divide your audience. This is the choose your own adventure part. One of those links might say “Top 10 Foods for Weight Loss” and the other “Best Exercises for Six-pack Abs.” Now your audience will divide themselves between those interested in exercise and those interested in nutrition.

Then at the end of every ensuing video, include links to two more of your videos. The great thing about annotations is that you can change them at will. Got a hot video? Take advantage of that traffic and move them to your newest video.

This strategy does one very important thing. It takes the eyes off the sidebar and keeps them on you. Once someone has seen two of your videos, you have the opportunity to become the expert in their eyes. When you keep moving them to subjects that appeal to them, you start making fans. And that’s where the gold is.

So, do you have a YouTube strategy? If not, do you sense the value you could provide if you did?

Dan R Morris is the founder of LettersFromDan.com, a website dedicated to improving your revenue stream from online efforts. Dan is an infomercial producer, niche website owner, product developer, author and Mastermind leader. Dan actively encourages marketers to take that extra step so that “Hope” doesn’t become the marketing plan.

 

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Social Media
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Purchasing Advertising From Bloggers

December 12, 2012 By 2 Comments

As the owner of a small homeschooling curriculum business, I look for several things in a blog when I am looking to buy ad space and work with that blogger. My advertising budget is limited and I hope to find places to broaden my market in a way that makes sense and helps spread my brand name. This past year was my first year to actually purchase advertising and I am happy with how it has helped grow my customer base and make my brand name, Harmony Fine Arts, more recognizable.

Advertising on Blogs: A Small Business Persepective

Yes, I look at numbers when I am considering a blog as an advertising partner but the numbers all by themselves are not the most important thing. If I have a relationship with that blogger, I am more apt to advertise with them. That relationship can be built as they purchase a product from me and they use it and blog about it. They could be frequent commenters on my blogs. Bloggers who participate in my blog carnival or contribute to my newsletter also draw my attention. I also notice bloggers who write and share in other carnivals that I read like the Weekly Wrap-Up, the Homeschool Showcase, or Collage Friday. Good writing and a personal relationship will always trump numbers in my world.

 

Relationships-Well Written Blogs-Passion

I look for bloggers like Maureen at Spell Outloud . She has wonderful content and consistently delivers relevant and practical tips for her loyal readers.. Her blog is well organized and her media kit was readily available when I asked for more information.. Before I placed my ad with Maureen, I read her other reviews and I could tell she actually used the product and talked about her actual experience with the product. I look for advertisers that offer more than just an ad on the sidebar.  As part of Maureen’s advertising cost she includes a review, mentions in social media, and is active on Pinterest which are important to me as a growing curriculum business.

Another blogger that I purchased advertising space from is Amy at Living and Learning At Home. Amy reached out to me and asked if I would be a part of her Trivium Tuesday Link-Up. After reading her blog, I began to participate in her link-up and we have grown a relationship through that venue. She has a wonderfully practical and well written blog that she consistently posts to each week. Her blog is well organized and pleasant to look at and read. She may not have the big numbers but that means that I can purchase an ad space for a small amount to the loyal readers she has built up around her excellent content. She is also enthusiastic about Harmony Fine Arts (read her review here) and that shines through when she talks about it with her readers. I am willing to grow with Amy.

Choosing Blogs From Databases

 

Homeschool Blogging has a data base where bloggers of all sizes and homeschooling companies that are looking for ad spaces can link up. When I view the list there it is a little overwhelming and I can’t spend a lot of time digging for places to investigate.

  • I eliminate blogs that don’t seem to have completed all the fields in the sign up process.
  • I then look for blogs that seem to match up to my product which is a Charlotte Mason/Classical styled art and music appreciation program. If they list either of those things in their description, than I check out their blog.
  • I look for blogs that are posted to consistently, that are organized and appealing, and blogs that talk about homeschooling. In other words, at first glance, would this blog be a good match for me as an advertiser and bring me a new audience? If not, I move on quickly.
  • When I do find a match, I am going to look for a button or tab that says, “Advertising” or “Promotion”. I want to quickly find out a little more about their advertising strategy and cost. The more information I can glean easily from a blogger, the more apt I am to contact them for more detailed information.

What About Small Blogs?

Even if a blogger has small numbers, as a small homeschooling company I would welcome bloggers who would approach me and pitch me for an advertising space or campaign. I have grown my company slowly as my homeschooling years have wound down and I am still learning the ins and outs of promotion myself. I would gladly pay a smaller passionate blogger to help me spread the word about my business. If you have a few hundred loyal readers and consistently write quality blog entries, you will catch my attention. I can build a relationship with you and we can help each other grow and provide for our families.

My best advice is to overcome the idea that you are too small to start selling advertising. Work on building a loyal readership by consistently providing excellent content that is well organized. If you want to be seen, be active in social media, write for blog carnivals, and reach out to companies that are a good match for your homeschooling style and have products you can be passionate about.

 

barb from Harmony Fine ArtsBarb McCoy (also known as Harmony Art Mom) is the owner of Harmony Fine Arts , a growing art and music appreciation curriculum plan for homeschoolers. She hopes to share her passion in the fine arts with other homeschooling moms and inspire them to keep art and music appreciation as a regular part of their homeschooling week. She blogs as at Harmony Art Mom and Handbook of Nature Study. She will be attending the BEECH Retreat this January and hopes to build relationships with bloggers who will help carry Harmony Fine Arts even farther around the world.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: ,
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Ways to Promote Your Blog Advertisers

December 6, 2012 By

Some bloggers make a decent amount of money from selling ad space. But advertisers are often bombarded with offers and are going to seek the greatest value from their ad dollars. If you desire to attract these advertisers, you may have to sweeten the pot with additional promotion beyond a static graphic in your sidebar.

Here are some possibilities for promoting blog advertisers beyond ad space.

Sponsored Blog Post

In a sponsored blog post, you write about or mention a brand in a post on your blog.

Product Review Post

Ask your advertiser for a sample of his product so that you showcase it in a detailed review.

Text Links

Besides dedicated posts, you can use more subtle text link mentions to casually refer to your advertiser in a meaningful way.

Sponsor Shout-out Post

If you have multiple sponsors, you may want to create a monthly or quarterly shout-out post where each company is described in a single post.

Text Ads in Feeds

Take advantage of the loyal subscribers who read your blog via email subscription and via RSS feed by adding text link ads in the feed footer. (WordPress has plug-ins to make this easy.)

Social Media Mentions

Take your advertiser’s name beyond the blog with links and mentions on social media platforms.

  • Pinterest
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Google+
  • Twitter

The more platforms the better. But keep it organic. Don’t flood every platform with a barrage of identical posts. Spread your promotion over both time and platforms, using variety in what and how you share.

YouTube Video

Video is hot; readers love it. And better yet, Google loves YouTube and gives it preference in search engine results. Be sure to optimize your title and description with your advertiser’s keywords to make this a huge perk.

Real Life Promotion at a Local or National Event

If you blog in a particular niche, odds are you have real life events related to that same niche. You can leverage your participation in those conferences or meetings to be a spokesperson for your advertisers.

As always, be sure to disclose your affiliations with your advertisers. It’s both the law and the ethical thing to do.

Besides offering potential advertisers packages of promotion, you may also want to use some of these strategies for giving back to your most loyal advertisers with no strings attached. If you really value that advertiser’s sponsorship of your blog, why not express that by going above and beyond what you agreed to do?

Going the extra mile to endorse your advertiser’s products goes a long way towards building the relationship between a blogger and a brand. That relationship can be a mutually beneficial one, far beyond the exchange of money for sidebar real estate.

You are invited to learn more about blogging and social media at BEECH Retreat, January 31 – February 2, 2013. Soak up wisdom from keynote speakers Michael Hyatt and Crystal Paine. Implement new blogging strategies in hands-on workshops in the luxurious South Seas Island setting of Captiva Island, FL. Your ticket includes resort lodging, all meals, and airport transfer.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Google Alerts are Invaluable for a Blogger

November 30, 2012 By

How Google Alerts are Invaluable for a Blogger: BEECH Retreat


Google alerts are free email notifications that you can receive about any topic you desire.

What? More email? Another daily message in your inbox may not sound like a productivity tool. But wait. Google alerts are valuable for bloggers.

  • Google alerts are automatic. You set them up once and never have to think about them again. (Of course, you can modify the settings anytime you want.)
  • Google alerts are customized. You tell Google what you want to know about. Choose a few keywords, select how often you want to receive an alert, and you are in line for daily doses of information, tailored to your particular situation.
  • Google alerts are free. At no cost to you, you can get what would take you many minutes of research to find.

Here are some of the ways to use Google alerts as a blogger.

Monitor Your Personal Brand

With a Google alert for your name and site’s name, you will know who is talking about you. Your blogging dashboard may give you a list of mentions, but it is not as thorough as Google’s list.

Keep Up to Date on Your Niche

Using a few narrow keywords within your niche will deliver daily links to browse.  In this way, Google alerts become a continuing education course right in your inbox.

Find Links for Blog Posts

Google alerts are invaluable for any regular round-up or link list posts that you write. Everytime you find a new link, add it to your draft. By the time the next post is due, you have amassed a very meaty collection of themed links.

Build Your Reputation as an Authority

To be known as a trusted authority in your field, you not only need to stay up to date but also share that information with others.  You can grow your reputation on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ by consistently sharing quality links that you discover via Google alerts.

You are invited to learn more about blogging and social media at BEECH Retreat, January 31 – February 2, 2013. Soak up wisdom from keynote speakers Michael Hyatt and Crystal Paine. Implement new blogging strategies in hands-on workshops in the luxurious South Seas Island setting of Captiva Island, FL. Your ticket includes resort lodging, all meals, and airport transfer.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Dealing with Blog Guilt

November 19, 2012 By

Most bloggers begin blogging as a hobby — an outlet of expression or a way to stay in touch with far away relatives. But as that hobby grows and consumes more of your energy, the blog can take on a life of its own. Sometimes it even seems that the blog is demanding attention that you never anticipated investing.

Before you know it, you are dealing with blog guilt.

Obligation to Blog Readers

As your subscriber numbers grow, so can the feeling of obligation to your readers.  You begin to be concerned that your readers will worry about you if you do not publish your normal three posts a week.

You imagine your readers impatiently waiting for the next installment in your blog series.

You don’t want to disappoint your readers, and guilt sets in.

Answering Comments

As much as we all love comments, there is a point in the blogger’s life when comments can evoke tremendous guilt. When there were three comments on a post, it was joyous to reply to each one both by email and on the blog post.

But when comments increase to twenty, fifty, seventy, or one hundred, personally acknowledging them becomes a tremendous investment of your online time. You face the choice of replying to comments or creating more content.

That is a terrible place for a blogger. And the blog guilt washes over you.

Obligation to Sponsors and Advertisers

If you have formed partnerships with companies you love, there can be an added pressure to keep churning out posts even when the muses are not whispering to you. After all, that advertiser wants eyeballs. No new content means no new eyeballs on his ad.

In the excitement of scoring another paying ad slot, you may have agreed to publish sponsored posts that later (once the money is spent) don’t excite you at all. Now it’s time to deliver what you promised. But your heart isn’t in it, and you feel guilty about that.

Meeting Your Own Goals

Guilt can also stem from your own unrealized goals. Maybe you had lofty new year’s resolutions about blog traffic, editorial calendars, social media interaction, and SEO. Now that the year is almost finished, you realize that  virtually no advances have been made. It feels like you are spinning your wheels and that you are a blogging failure.

You can get bogged down in the guilt of not following through on your personal blogging goals.

Measuring up to the Expectation of Your Online Peers

Online networks can be a powerful force of encouragement. But if you feel that you are not measuring up to their expectations (real or perceived), the sense of community is marred by guilt.

You want to support all your blogging friends by reading their posts and promoting them via social media. But as your network grows, it becomes clear that there is no way you can read their blogs and maintain your own as well.

You fall into the pit of guilt over your failure to give back to your online peers.

Answering Blog Guilt

Everywhere you turn, there is potential for blog guilt. It can transform a pleasant hobby into a nightmare of duty and never measuring up.

Here are two easy steps to nixing the blog guilt and restoring the joy of blogging.

1. Regain ownership of your blog

Your blog is yours, not your readers’ and not your advertisers’. It belongs to you. So what you do with it is your choice. You are not under any obligation to meet the expectations of your subscribers or commenters. (In fact, most of your readers probably do not have those expectations anyway. You may be creating all of that in your mind.)

Set limits for yourself — realistic limits — and stick to them. You may even want to share them on your blog so that your readers are crystal clear about how much of yourself you are offering online.

2. Learn how to say no.

While you should be careful not to succumb to a false sense of obligation, you also must guard against promising things you cannot fulfill. It’s flattering to be invited to guest post, contribute to a group blog, run social media for another organization, and join a special group of bloggers. But if you are worn so thin that you cannot do anything well, you are going to feel guilt. And rightly so.

Saying no means you can say yes to the things you are truly passionate about and prevent the guilt of not following through. Learn your limits and stay within the guilt-free boundaries of them.

I’d love to hear what areas of blog guilt plague you and how you tackle them.

You are invited to learn more about blogging and social media at BEECH Retreat, January 31 – February 2, 2013. Soak up wisdom from keynote speakers Michael Hyatt and Crystal Paine. Implement new blogging strategies in hands-on workshops in the luxurious South Seas Island setting of Captiva Island, FL. Your ticket includes resort lodging, all meals, and airport transfer.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: , ,
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

Three Reasons You Want Search Engine Traffic

November 14, 2012 By

Are you a blogger who is intimidated by search engine optimization (SEO)? Does it seem cold and technical or maybe even a bit manipulative?

It shouldn’t.

Search engine traffic is a must for the serious blogger.  It is not about being sneaky but about speaking the language of the search engines so that they can determine what your blog is about and direct the right people there.

Here are four reasons why you should invest in learning about SEO and work to get more search engine traffic.

1. You Have a Limitless Readership Base

You have your loyal readers who subscribe to your posts, visit your blog, comment, and share. But that number is a mere fraction of the possible audience online.

Dream big. Think beyond your own subscribers. What if you could reach twice as many people? Three times as many? Ten times?

With SEO you can. If your valuable content on topics that people search for is properly optimized for search engines, you will be discovered by hundreds and thousands of people who otherwise would never land on your site.

2. You Can Survive Periods of No Posting

If you are relying only on your loyal subscriber base, you will have traffic mostly when you publish a new post. But what about holidays, vacations, or family crises when you don’t publish new posts? Your traffic will fall off, and you have to keep churning out the content to hold up your numbers.

If you have a steady stream of search engine traffic, your blog will still be getting hits even without fresh content. Remember that there is a limitless audience out there. You have the potential of reaching the entire world if they are searching for what you write about.

3. You Do Not Have to Rely on Social Media Promotion

If you have steady search engine traffic, you don’t have to work so hard at attracting visitors through social media. When you take a break from Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, your numbers don’t bottom out. People are still accessing your helpful articles through the help of search engines that direct them there.

Are you convinced yet that search engine traffic is advantageous to your blog? You increase your audience potential and remove some of that pressure to constantly crank out content and promote it on social media. Once you build up a base of search engine optimized, evergreen content, you can coast smoothly on a consistent traffic base, growing all the while.

You are invited to learn more about SEO, blogging, and social media at BEECH Retreat, January 31 – February 2, 2013. Soak up wisdom from keynote speakers Michael Hyatt and Crystal Paine. Implement new blogging strategies in hands-on workshops in the luxurious South Seas Island setting of Captiva Island, FL. Your ticket includes resort lodging, all meals, and airport transfer.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: , , ,
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email

When and Why to Link Images

November 5, 2012 By

According to split testing and heat maps of online behavior, Internet users frequently click on images even if they are not linked to anything.  As a blogger, you can use this tendency to your advantage.

When writing a post, ask yourself if you want your readers to go somewhere as a result of clicking on a particular image?

Don’t Link Your Images

More than likely you do not want your readers redirected elsewhere after a click on an image. Your image is in the post to accentuate or illustrate your text. You want your reader to stay on that blog post and dig deeper into your blog, reading additional posts.

That means that as a general rule, you should unlink images on your blog.

As default, when you insert an image on a WordPress blog, the image is linked to the photo URL. However, you can easily unlink it.

Look at the example below of an image of Michael Hyatt, a keynote speaker at BEECH 2013. To unlink the image, either delete the highlighted URL or simply click the NONE button. Your image will still be there, but it will not be clickable.

A big problem with images linked to their image URL is Pinterest.  Imagine your reader loves your latest tutorial and clicks on the photo of the finished product. Because your image was linked to the image URL, she lands on a page with just the image. From there, she decides to pin your image on Pinterest.

Great, right? You are getting social media love.

No, it’s not great.

That pin will now refer back to the image URL on your blog and not the actual post where you used the image. The image on Pinterest is now isolated from the directions. Most visitors will not take the time to search for the original post and will leave in frustration, feeling rather cheated. You got a click to your site, but it is not going to convert into a reader or subscriber.

Do Link Your Images

But is there ever a time to link your images? Yes, there are.

If you want that image to redirect to another post or page on your blog, link to it. This is a great way to propel readers deeper into your content. Remember that Internet users like to click on images, so link your images exactly where you want them to go.

If you are selling a product, always make the product images link to a sales page or shopping cart.

The bottom line is to be deliberate about the linking of your images. If you want to link an image, link it to something useful — a sales page or more great content. If you want your image to just be that — a pretty accessory– unlink it.

You are invited to learn more about blogging and social media at BEECH Retreat, January 31 – February 2, 2013. Soak up wisdom from keynote speakers Michael Hyatt and Crystal Paine. Implement new blogging strategies in hands-on workshops in the luxurious South Seas Island setting of Captiva Island, FL. Your ticket includes resort lodging, all meals, and airport transfer.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: , , ,
Subscribe to BEECH Retreat by Email
« Older Posts