The words free and advertising don’t often go together in real life. Getting more site traffic takes time and effort, finding a way to effortlessly gain more clicks is always good news.

A method for generating more traffic quickly was right in front of me. Banners brought a lot of attention to my site, but not every format allows this type of advertising. Then I discovered another way to use the same pull of a banner that did work in almost in any format.

Social media sites like Twitter, and Facebook, where typical banner advertising is not allowed does have another way to utilize the same drawing power.

Thumbnails can advertise your site as easily as a banner will. The best news is this tool is less expensive to have created and is welcomed with open arms on most social sites.

Smaller Package, Better Visibility

Since thumbnails are allowed on Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites, they become visible. Blogs, chat forums, and other social media sites enthusiastically welcome users to upload a thumbnail with open arms.

My guess as to the reason that thumbnails do not receive the attention they are due is because most people never realize how efficient they can be in helping to generate that click.

Using the Thumbnail to Generate Attention

The thumbnail is really a smaller, and more portable type of banner ad. While leaving a message through many types of social media such as posting on Facebook, or using Twitter your thumbnail works the same as banner ad would in giving anyone who sees it a view of your message.

Thumbnails can be designed and created in many different sizes. Having a selection on hand for the different websites you will visit that allow thumbnails is great idea. Common pixel sizes are 50×50, 80×80, 100×100, 170×170, or 200×200. The pixel that is recommended for iTunes is 600×600.

My wife Arlene created a popular website called EpilepsyMoms.com. She found out how well thumbnails could work in generating interest in her podcast by using professional and descriptive graphics.

Having thumbnails created by a professional could be done at a low cost, and Arlene had two sets created, one with her website address which is already descriptive in what the site is about and one that promotes her podcast.

Simple Ways to Generate Traffic

When working online the easiest ways often work the best for you. That is why the technique for promoting a product or service with a banner is very effective. It’s easy to use and can be re-used often. Thumbnails are just as usable and can bring that same exposure on sites where banners can’t be utilized.

Using Facebook and Twitter to Build Your Brand

Using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn business have found a natural for introducing their products and services to people via numerous exposures online. This is the best type of promotionfree!

A well thought out and carefully designed thumbnail can even offer a tempting link back to your website from many social media sites. A plain picture or name doesn’t necessarily carry the message you want, or create the desire of everyone viewing it to click the link and go to your site. Having a professional graphic can gain attention instantly giving those viewing it a reason to want to know more.

Businesses Gain Attention on Facebook and Twitter

Online retailers, affiliate marketers, promoters or really anyone using website promotions will find it’s smart to have a set of banners and thumbnails of various sizes.

In the same way, a carefully crafted banner draws attention so too does a well-designed thumbnail establish and build your brand, which can then increase click through rates to your site.

Your thumbnail can bring more people to your site wherever you blog, chat in a forum, or leave a comment on someone else site. No matter where you go online, this can work as a continuous draw for your site.

Get Tons of Traffic for Your Site

Thumbnails have the drawing power to bring thousands to your site. And because thumbnails have more applications in many more places, these smaller versions of banners are more versatile and adaptable.

Grabbing Attention is Key

Polished, professional, and personable thumbnail graphics grab attention. Thinking of thumbnails you might have clicked on or followed back yourself chances are good these carried an image that first caught your attention, and then made you want to know more. You can even give your photo some retouching from a professional.

Posts or Tweets With More Power

As you post a tweet on Twitter, or make a comment on someone else wall in Facebook a thumbnail speaks for you. The greater number of times you use these sites with your thumbnail representing you the more clicks you will see.

I have found this to be true on sites such as Kitcars where I am a frequent poster. Most major blogs where you write, post, or even simply respond to a message, as a commenter will allow the use of thumbnails. With the thumbnail, you are not a ‘John Smith’ type of poster, and people will want to know more about you. Following your interesting thumbnail link thousands will pick up the trail to your site’s door.

Creating a Dynamic Thumbnail Graphic

1. Use a Good Photo

You don’t need to hire a professional photographer to get the best feature all photos need most your smile. A smile is a welcome, and people instinctively respond to you. The background should limited and professional, and be sure there is enough light. A digital photo will work just as well as one taken by a professional camera. A photo retoucher can often help work out problems with a photo you want to use.

2. Find a Graphic Pro

Hiring a professional graphics designer will go a long way to getting the best thumbnail possible. Professionals will have software that can give your graphics a smoother, perfect look. A pro can even retouch your photo to look its best on a thumbnail. Arlene had several thumbnails inexpensively created for her by a professional and she was happy with the results.

3. Keep Text Simple

The wording on graphics should be short and get your point across. The name of the site and a word or two such as Arlene did with by using the name of her site and ‘Podcast’ conveys a clear message. Too much text will detract from the message.

4. Find a Style

Once you find a look that works for you don’t keep changing it. Changing too often will confuse those viewing it and they might not remember you as easily. Keep details between your thumbnail, website, and brand as similar as possible.
Give It Drawing Power

Should you think I’m making a big deal over something that is very simple consider this: the saying that people judge a book by it’s cover is true, and your thumbnail is going to be the cover for every Twitter tweet, Facebook and blog comment, or chat forum thread. Over time, this can number into the thousands of images all working for your site or other promotion.

As Arlene worked on her site and wanted thumbnails created, she decided to use a source she used previously with success. Since she had much of the work for her site done using a service provider site, she quickly found a professional do a touch up on her photo and use a few simple words to convey her message.

As the mother of a child with epilepsy, she wanted to reach as many other mothers as possible who might be facing the same challenges making this site important to her. This was a job she had to keep on a budget, and the results were exactly what she wanted.

She also had a professional graphic designer create banner ads, header graphics, and an image for the audio player she features on her home page. Using these types of sites, a professional is not expensive, because there are many professional writers, technical pros, and others all competing for jobs. Easily negotiating with someone to handle any budgeted job from clerical to a web design is not difficult.

Never Miss Your Chance –Gravatar

Not too long ago I found myself at a site and wanted to post my thumbnail after making a comment. Looking through the settings however, I wasn’t able to find how to add the thumbnail.

After some searching, I was able to find out that many places where you find blogs, chat forums, and commenting boards use a system called Gravatar service to place thumbnails.

Going to Gravatar.com I realized that all I had to do was upload the thumbnail on this site, and then give it an assigned email address. From that point on all I had to do was go to any place I wanted to comment or post and use my email address in the usual field and my thumbnail appears without my having to do anything else.

Not A Secret From You

A professionally created thumbnail graphic can provide you with a constant stream of traffic to your website at no cost. With a little effort getting your thumbnails designed, you will be ready to go.

Over to You

Are you satisfied with the thumbnail you have now?

This is a guest post by:

James Martell started his own affiliate marketing business in 1999. Now, a sought after speaker at industry conferences his insights into outsourcing, marketing and natural search are also shared in a popular podcast. James and Arlene live near the seaside in Vancouver with their children.

When I got my start in 1999, I constructed my first website with FrontPage software. Everyone I knew only had dial-up Internet and it was just tediously slow. Images took ages to load, so I was forced to keep the graphics on my site to a bare minimum.

Currently, of course, most folks are using high-speed Internet and are zipping around the Internet faster than ever. So Internet entrepreneurs have no excuse for not having the best graphics they can afford. Even the humblest site has graphics, so we all have to follow suit. The wise use of graphics is the key to outmaneuvering your competition and using freelancers to do so makes it very affordable.

If I was asked to recommend a single freelancer website to someone just getting started, I would have to say Elance. All you have to do is put all your website graphic ideas into one project (to save some dough), post it on Elance, and let Elance’s freelancers bid on it.

How the Process at Elance Works

Elance is home to professional graphic designers that know the ins and outs about making cartoon characters and other illustrations, icons, graphs, logos – whatever you can imagine.

The thing is, however, is that you have to put forth some effort up front. So in one sitting you have to sit down and focus. Brainstorm your ideas, really put your nose to the grindstone, look at some other websites for ideas, and get your project organized.

Don’t let the work involved put you off; think of it like you’re writing an exceptionally detailed email that you are going send to your graphic artist. The more details you give them, the closer their work will be to what you envision.

When the bidding process is coming to an end, you can easily shave down your list of possible choices by making sure every person on that list meets your criteria whatever they may be.

In the end, you’ll have to pick a freelancer and put the payment for the job in escrow so you can release funds as the graphic artist’s work arrives in your inbox. Soon enough, you’ll have a great-looking website and your revenue and conversion rates will be boosted as well.

Many people reading this will wrongfully believe that a simple freelancer cannot possibly handle the details of their project, but freelancers really are professionals. They are essentially small business owners (though some freelancers you find on Elance are actually composed of several individuals), and they know their chosen profession. It doesn’t matter if you need a simple set of images or the elaborate services of a professional infrared photographer you’ll find them on Elance.

My Tips for Outsourcing Graphics

Arguably, all site owners want their website to feature great graphics, but they often stop short because they don’t know where to start when it comes to finding a graphic artist or where they should focus when it comes to the various aspects of graphics. Featuring great graphics on your site, however, really does increase your websites sales and opt-in rates.

1) Header Graphic – Just about every website you go to has a header graphic that lets you know right off the bat that you are at the right place. When picking your header graphic, you should avoid one that is extremely large and flashy. Instead, you just should go for a simple graphic that serves to draw in the visitor. Personally, I always say that owners should put their smiling face on the site’s header graphic to simply let everyone know that a real person is in charge of the site.

You will see my wife Arlene in the examples provided. These graphics were created for her website which she developed specifically to provide support and assistance to mothers who are dealing with an epileptic child. I think you would agree that these graphics really help to get that point across.

2) Thumbnails - Thumbnails are cheap and easy to put together; just use your header’s headshot photo. Ask your freelancer to make different variations on your thumbnail for you to use on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter and you can also use them on blogs.

3) Banner Ads – Banner ads are the unfortunately often-irksome ads that splay across the tops and bottoms of various websites. Your banner, though, should not be display such characteristics; a friendly, polite message will be far more inviting and get you more visitors. Banners are easy to create; have your freelancer mock up a few options for you.

4) Signature File – All this is is your everyday signature in a digital file. Sign a blank sheet of paper, scan it with your scanner, and there you have it. Once you have this, you can put it below your website’s introductory message for a feel of authenticity.

5) Control Panel – Complicated control panels fall under ‘speciality graphics’ and are often the toughest graphic for any website. So before you hire a freelancer make sure they are confident in designing control panels. This interactive graphic is what lets people navigate your site, so you want one that is attractive and fully functional.

6) Promotional Graphics – You simply must have promotional graphics for your podcast if you actually want people to listen to it. No advertising equals no listeners.

I highly recommend podcasting if you aren’t already doing so. It’s a super way to get your message out because many prefer to listen to podcasts on their IPods while running on the treadmill, versus reading website text. My wife Arlene’s podcast, for example, has had over fifty thousand downloads!

7) Cover Art - A lot of Internet marketers out there have written books, some of which are only in PDF format. If your book is just in PDF form at this time, you can still have cover art created for it to get more people to take it seriously and download it.

Newsletter – A newsletter is a fundamental feature, if you aren’t already distributing one. Your freelancer can use the same graphics they used for the rest of your site to put together a consistent, attention-grabbing newsletter to send out.

Build Relationships with Good Freelancers

Don’t cut off all communication with your freelancer just because your website is up and running. Some day you may need them again. Who can say what the future holds? Some day down the road you may have to retouch a photograph in a graphic on your site. That same freelancer will probably be able to get this done for you cheaply and quickly.

I’m confident that your experience using graphics to boost sales and opt-in rates will be as fruitful as mine if you follow my advice. I welcome your questions and would love to hear about your experience in outsourcing graphics or any other job.

This is a guest post by:

James Martell has been a full-time affiliate marketer since 1999 and has been teaching his techniques and winning strategies to others since 2001. He is a renowned expert in affiliate marketing, natural search engine optimization, and outsourcing and is also a sought after speaker at industry conferences. James hosts the ‘Affiliate Buzz’ on WebmasterRadio.FM and lives with his wife Arlene and their 4 kids in a seaside suburb of Vancouver, BC Canada.

What Is Color Picker?

A software or program to create a desired color scheme? Well, not really. Color picker is a small wonderful piece of software which allows you to ‘pick’ a color anywhere on your screen. Yes! I mean just about anywhere on your monitor! You wanted to know the exact color of your toolbar? This is made possible with the magical color picker, which has been conceived by iconico.com.

Color Picker For KDE Linux Only?

Color picker, ideally, is for Windows-based operating systems. But the open-source community is so great that there exists a Color Picker for Linux systems too. But here there’s a catch. The Nix color picker is only for linux based on KDE desktop. For example, on Mandriva linux you just have to right-click on your toolbar and select color picker from the available executable programs ‘Add-able‘ on your panel or toolbar.

Gpick – An Advanced Color Picker For Gnome Desktop – Ubuntu!

In the open-source world, everything is possible and magical. There’s now an advanced color picker, named as Gpick, for Linux systems based on Gnome Desktop, for example, Ubuntu Linux!

How To Install Gpick On Ubuntu?

It’s as simple as downloading the .deb package of Gpick at linuxine.com
Once downloaded, you just have to double-click on it, provide your user password to proceed to the installation setup and voila!

How To Use Gpick On Ubuntu?

Once installed, gpick will most probably be placed in your Applications>Accessories>gpick.
Steps:
1) Launch the program
2) Select any color area on your screen that you want to know the value of
3) Let your mouse pointer remain still on that point or area
4) Now click on your Space Bar – The color value has been snapped and saved!
5) Right click on the color you find on the polygonal shape and click on Copy to clipboard. You will find your color values there. Enjoy!

Who Uses Color Picker Or Gpick?

Color Picker or gpick are mostly precious to people indulged in web design and graphics, where the need to know the exact Hex color and name of a particular color area is vital.

Most often while writing, some people are confused when it comes to capital letters; which word should start with a capital letter and under what circumstances?! This is because Capital Letter usage is mostly done by intuition by most of us; do you know exactly when to use capital letters? If yes, I invite you to see if you got it right – if no, you have come to the right place, continue your reading below.

When To Use Capital Letters?

1) Beginning of a sentence

This is the very basic and classical usage of capital letters in the english English language and any language since old times.

2) When using proper nouns

E.g:
Wakish, Duffy, London, Manchester, November Jupiter, etc.

3) For adjectives formed from proper nouns

E.g:
Elizabethan poets, Scotch whisky, the French language

4) When using ‘special proper nouns’

Please note that ‘special nouns‘ is not an official word class, but it is just how I’m personally tagging the following:
E.g:
God, Christ, Bible, Trinity, etc.

5) For a pronoun or possessive adjective applying to ‘God’

E.g:
“They trusted in God that He would save His people”

6) For the first person singular, I

But this does NOT apply for ‘me, my, etc..’

7) For personification (often used in poetry)

E.g:
- If Winter comes, can spring be far behind? (Shelley)

8.) For the chief words in title of people, books, plays, etc.

E.g:
Elizabeth the Second, Alfred the Great, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Tale of Two Cities

9) For salutations or forms of addressing (often in letters)

E.g:
Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss, etc.

10) In letters, for the greeting and complimentary close

E.g:
Dear Sir,…
Yours faithfully,…

11) When using abbreviations of degrees, titles, etc..

E.g:
B.Sc ==> Bachelor of Science
Q.C ==> Queen’s Counsel
M.P ==> Member of Parliament

12) For the opening words of direct speech

E.g:
“Blogging is my passion as well as my job”, said Darren Rowse

But the capital letter should not be repeated in the second part of a broken quotation:

“I am working hard now,” he said, “in order to provide for my old age.”

13) For the first word in each line of poetry

E.g:
First liner..
Second liner..
Third liner..

But this convention, as far as I remember, is however being disregarded by modern poets. (New generation, new styles)

Have I missed Any Other Uses Of Capital Letters?

If you think so, please do use the comment form below to add to this list, thanks.

Certain words tend to create confusions in the way they are written. Why is this? I have tried to think about it and I came with the reasons below.

Why Are Words Mis-Spelt?

1) Knowing more than one language == writing confusion

Words are written in different forms in different languages; for instance, for a person (like me) who makes frequent usage of French and English in my daily life, I tend to get confuse when writing some words. Let’s take the example of the word ‘enemy‘.
In English it is written as ‘enemy‘ and in French it is written as ‘ennemi‘ – so I used to write it as ‘ennemy‘.

Possible Solution:
From my experience, I had made a list of words which I tend to write wrongly and I tried to memorise them and at times doing the homework of writing them several times. This method proved to have been useful to me. (May be you have another solution? If so, please use the comment form below to let me know..)

2) Some people simply do not put enough effort in learning to write well.

What about people who know only one language? I have relatives living across different parts of the globe. When I see my cousins from France or England or U.S write, I see they do make mistakes (at times too silly a mistake) despite the fact that their written language is their mother tongue. Then why those mistakes?! The simple answer to this is: ‘These people are careless with the language, they are not enough attentive and not putting enough effort to learn their language. (Read Why Writing?)

3) Some words are written differently from their pronunciation.

4) Stop writing == emergence of poor writing

There is a fourth point which I have figured out. When a person is very good at a language but has not been writing for a long period of time, he/she still gets affected (I have experienced this myself). As goes the saying: “practice makes perfect” – You have to constantly keep in touch with writing too. (And this is one of the reasons why I blog )

List Of Words Commonly Mis-Spelt

Commonly Mis-Spelt Words