Are you always looking for the perfect picture to add to your blog to enhance your post? Do you search Google images and hope that you find an image that is not copyrighted? I do!

Now there is a new plugin that will do all the work for you - Photo Dropper. Photo Dropper is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add Flickr photos to your posts. Follow these simple steps to install Photo Dropper on your WordPress blog:

1. Download and unzip the plugin. This will create a directory - /photo_dropper
2. FTP the the folder to your /wp-content/plugins directory for your blog.
3. In your WordPress admin panel, click on Plugins and Activate the Photo Dropper plugin.
4. Next, click on Options at the top of your WordPress admin panel and then click on Photo Dropper.
5. Set your blog preferences. Note: If you have a commercial blog you must check “Show only photos that can be used commercially” in the preferences.
6. When you start to write a new post, you will notice a new section under the editor entitled “Photo Dropper Browse Photos”.
7. Type in a keyword and click on “Search”. Photo Dropper will bring up related pictures for your blog.
8. Click on the size (S, M or L) under the photo that you want to display and the photo is automatically inserted in your blog.
9. Credits are automatically added to the photo.

I decided that I would try and see if I could add photos that I had uploaded to Flickr. Your photos will only show up if you have a Pro account and if you choose the right Creative Commons license. I choose the license: Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons. This means that the photo can be shared and remixed, only if the owner is given credit even if the image is altered.

If you are planning to use your own photos, make sure you give them at least three tags and use those tags for your keyword search. Here is the photo I took with the proper credit:

photo credit: cmpryor

My idea of creating graphics for my blogs and web pages is to use Paint.net. As I have discovered, this program does not have the full functionality that I need to create sharp and interesting graphics. Besides the fact that Paint.net does not have a lot of bells and whistles, it is also a bitmap graphic program. A better graphics program to use might be a vector based graphics program.  For the Graphic Design Group Writing Project, I decided to explore what the difference is between bitmap and vector graphics.

Bitmap Graphics

Bitmap graphics are the most commonly used form of graphics on the internet. The images are made up of pixels in a grid. The picture is basically represented by dots. Once you commit the line or shape, you must undo it to make any changes and bitmap images are difficult to resize. They have a fixed width and height and have a limited resolution. When you zoom in on a bitmap image, the image becomes blocky. MSPaint and PhotoShop are both examples of bitmap graphics programs.

This photo represents the originally image:

When I resize the image to make it larger, the image becomes blurry.

Bitmap Images:

• Reduced quality when resized
• Fixed number of pixels per image
• Easy to convert between different bitmap formats (jpeg, gif, bmp, png, pict, pcx, tiff, psd)
• Scanned images and pictures from digital cameras are bitmap images
• Only a few formats (such as gif and png) support transparency
• Good for photographic images

Vector Graphics

Vector graphics are not composed of pixels but are instead composed of points, lines and curves. These images are defined by mathematical formulas and thus can be resized without loosing quality. When you save a vector image you are saving how the image should be drawn, not how the image looks. While vector programs do not work as nicely with photographs as bitmap programs do, they are great for images that need many different sizes such as logos, web graphics and icons. Resizing a vector image will not effect the image quality. Popular programs include Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator and Xara Xtreme.

Here is an example of a vector image my daughter made in just two minutes using Xara Xtreme:

Vector Images:

• great scalability
• transparency functionality
• can be converted to bitmap images
• not great for realistic photos
• 3-D images can be made

Price

Bitmap programs are usually priced much lower than vector programs. Paint.net is a free program, but PhotoShop can run upwards of $400. Adobe Illustrator, a vector-based program lists for $499!

Xara Xtreme

If you want to try a vector based program but are unwilling to shell out $499 for Illustrator, Xara Xtreme might be the program for you. Xara Xtreme is a truly amazing program for a VERY reasonable price. Xara Xtreme lists for $79 and the more enhanced version list for $249. You can also download a free version for Linux (which I did since I have a Linux box). I have done some research on this program and it is very advanced and very easy to use. A search on YouTube will return a number of tutorials written for the program.

Have you made a list of keywords for your blog? Good for you! Now it is time to get your hands dirty. This part of the process can be frustrating and rewarding at the same time. It will take a little bit of patience, but once you get the hang of it the rest is cake.

Keyword Tools

Your first research project is to use a few keyword tools that will help you determine how often your keywords are searched. Let’s start with an online tool by Wordtracker.

Simply type your keyword in the Keyword: box and click “Hit Me” (there is an option to remove offensive words as well).

I typed in the word blogging and these are the results:

Noticed that the word blogging by itself generates 490 daily searches.  That word may be a little too competitive for my small blog.  Looking at the results, I notice that blogging tips generates 88 daily searches.  This might be a better niche.  Other phrases that interest me are blogging guides (66), define blogging (50), explain blogging (38), blogging advice ( 31), tips on blogging (20), blogging for dummies (17) and blogging how to (9).

This does not end my search for the best keywords for my blog.  I have to now turn to a familiar tool - Google.  Each keyword and/or phrase must now be searched in Google to determine how many pages exist for that particular keyword or phrase.   Here are my results:

Notice that the term blogging may have the most daily searches, but there is also the most competition for this keyword with over 61 million pages.  The next term - blogging tips - is also highly competitive with almost 2 million pages.  The third term - blogging guides - looks like a much better fit for me.  The term is searched 66 times a day and only 239,000 pages were found.   Some of the other phrases are also likely to be a good fit.  Stay away from tips on blogging.  With only 20 daily searches and over 31 million pages, this would not be a good phrase to choose.

My quest is not quite over yet.  I also check my results with Digital Point - Keyword Suggestion Tool. This tool will tell you the daily numbers for searched keywords from WordTracker as well as Overture.  You will notice that there are different keywords and phrases listed and that Overture has larger numbers.  The Overture data is based on more searches.

Again, look at the results, do some Google searches, and determine the best keywords and phrases for your site.

Here are the simple steps so far:

• Write down keywords and/or phrases for your blog
• Search those keyword and phrases in Wordtracker and Digital Point
• List the keywords and phrases that look good to you
• Use Google to determine which of these keywords and phrases have a lower competition rate and might be best for your blog.

Next:  How to use keywords in your blog.

Recently, I mentioned that using the post slug feature when writing a post can result in good search engine results for your blog.  How do you find the right keywords to use for the post slug or for a title for your post?   The answer is - Research!

There is no quick scheme for finding niche keywords you must relay on using keyword suggestion tools and good old fashioned leg (or finger) work.

I find that choosing keywords for a blog differs from a website.  First of all, your blog may be about many different subjects.  You may have blogging tips, recipes, personal stories and news items spread throughout your blog.  This is very different from a website whose only goal is to sell pet supplies.   However, you should come up with at least a dozen different keywords that describe what your blog is about.   For example, I might choose words such as blogging, blogging tips, beginning blogging, etc., for my blog keywords.  I open up a text editor and type each of these terms in the editor.

In that same text editor, I also write down keywords of topics that I would like to use in future posts.  For instance, this post is about keywords.  I might write down keywords, choosing keywords, seo, search engine optimization, etc.  Since I will probably write more than one article about keywords and search engine optimization, part of my research will be done for future posts.

You should now have a good list of keywords.  Your next step will be to research the keywords that you wrote down.   Stay tuned for Part Two of this series which will cover using keyword tools and search engines to narrow your choices.