Using Photos and Images on Squidoo and Other Online Sites

Using Photos and Images on Squidoo

as well as Other Online Sites

There are many ways to find images you can use in your Squidoo articles and in the next two articles, we’ll discuss some of the ins and outs of using images online.

The first thing a new writer needs to know is that even though there are many great images to look at online, using them in your own work might be copyright infringement if you don’t have permission from the image’s creator.  That means it’s technically illegal to place the image in your work if you haven’t asked.

So how do you illustrate your article.  Let’s take a look at some options.

Free Images You Can Use

Your Own Photos

First and foremost, take your own photos.  People love looking at real images.  Why not take your own and share.  They needn’t be professional grade to be interesting.  Using your own photos can a good choice in many circumstances.

Want to crop your photo taken from your phone into a square image?  A great option for iPhone and Android users is the free app at Instagram.   It automatically resizes all of its images into the square format you’ll want for your introduction photos.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is one of the best place to find photos that artists are willing to share.  Use the Creative Commons search engine to find a suitable photo that you will be using for commercial use.   

Amazon

If you want to use a product image or a logo, sign yourself up to become an Amazon Associate.  You can then not only use the image, but can link to a product .  If your reader clicks the link and buys the product, you’ll also earn a commission.  Now that’s a double duty image! 

Allposters

Allposters is a great way of obtaining photographs or artwork for articles.  Allposters  has a huge array of images that they sell on posters, pictures, cups, tee-shirts, etc.  Sign up for the Allposters affiliate program and you’ll be able to use the image.  In addition, if your reader would like to purchase an item with this image on it, you again receive a commission. 

Art.com, Zazzle and others

There’s a good amount of affiliate programs out there, so go and explore.  Check out the sites to see if you’d like to belong and if you do, suddenly you’ve got art.  

Other Trusted Sites  - Free Images Direct from Copyright Holder

The following sites allow commercial use within an article or website.  Some allow other use.  Always check the Terms of Use for revisions.

BigStock Photo

Microstock site which has some good free images.  Always check the licenses agreements. 

Crestock

This stock-photo site has a free daily photo from professional photographers/ artists.

Dreamstime

Free images from professional stock photographers.

Free-3d-Textures

Free images for many, many uses

License Terms are liberal.  Email with questions. 

Free Digital Photos

Free image site for stock photos.

Free Pixels

Free photos and images site.

Kozzi

Recent newcomer offering free stock photos

morgueFile

Free images for use directly from their creators. Images from professional photographers and amateurs.

Photopin

Searches for images licensed under Creative Commons.

RGB Stock

Free stock photos

Shutterstock

A professional microstock site where one can obtain free images weekly for a variety of uses.   Read the terms.

Seven Oaks Art

Wonderful artist providing free animated gifs he creates. 

RGB Stock

Free stock photos.

 

There you go.  Plenty of ideas.  Now, go out and get creative!

New Recipe Format is Now Available on Squidoo

Like to share recipes? 

Consider writing food articles on Squidoo!

Squidoo has just made it easier to become a food writer on their site with a newly revised Recipe Module. 

Ingredient lists are now a snap with the new module.   

The new program will allow you to auto-number your steps.   

You can add sub-titles to your recipe.  

And it’s really easy now to combine several items together in one line of text, something that wasn’t so easy to accomplish before.

While this is still just a modification for many writers, the module itself is undergoing a change and is coming to Giant Squids and Rocket Squids soon.  These folks will get first try at using the new recipe format. 

The new module gives writers a very nice proportional photo which you can re-position as you wish.

It will also allow you to include up to three Amazon products which relate to your recipe, giving you a way to monetize your article. 

As we said, some of the changes are still only available to the top contributors on Squidoo but the format change is ready and working for everyone. 

If you already have recipes published on Squidoo, you can work with this new format through your Edit mode. 

So pull out your recipe box and find your family favorites. We'd love to give them all a try.  

Wishing you a productive day!

 @SanneCollins

How to Promote Your Squidoo Lens or Article

You’ve heeded the call to action, written a few articles, and then published them on Squidoo. 

How do you now promote your new articles efficiently?

There’s basically two ways of getting readers to your work.   

The first is by advertising your article, and the second is through networking.

When I speak about “advertising”, I’m not suggesting you spend money on ads.
Advertising, in this sense, means to let the world know your article exists and to invite others to find and enjoy your writings.  

Let's go promote!

How Do I Advertise My Articles?

The first step is to “ping” your article every time you publish or update it.  Ping.In, Ping.fm, Ping-o-Matic, or Feed Shark are some good pinging sites.  Join Squid Utils, and use their Squidoo specific ping service.

Next, bookmark your article on Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, StumbleUpon, RedGage and Best Reviewer.com.  These services bring readers from areas you’ll not reach using other sources. 

Use Craigslist’s Community Page to place and a short storied advertisement / link to your lens where your subject matter allows it.   Craigslist will run your ad for 30 days for free.   Keep a calendar to track your ad and place it in different parts of the country. 

Use Squidoo keywords to link as many keywords as possible to your article.  Squidoo will allow you up to 40 keyword phrases.  Make sure you use all of those spots.  You can always modify your choices later.

Update your work frequently.   Updating doesn’t have to be time consuming.  Add a date line if needed and change it a couple of times each month.  That’s enough to have the search engines revisit you.  Every time you update you can re-ping your work.  That keeps things fresh and moving towards the top of the chart.

Networking for More Readers

The first thing you want to do is engage with other folks on the site you’re publishing on, and in this case it’s Squidoo.   Read articles, check out the forum, join a club. 

But if you’re like me, you don’t always have a lot of time and some of these options take plenty of that.  So here’s how you begin to find folks to read your work by working within the community.

Sign on to Squidoo and let’s find an article to read. 

I don’t want you to choose something that’s currently running on one of the main pages.  Those are too busy. 

So let’s go to the search box and find an article on a subject you’re interested in.  Let’s say “rabbits”.   Type in rabbits and up comes all the articles where Squidoo lensmasters have used the keyword “rabbits”.   Pick one that sounds good and go check it out. 

Be sure to choose one that has been either published or updated recently.  This tells you the author is still quite active on the site. 

Now, read the work, comment on the article, take polls and quizzes, and finally be sure to “Squid Like” the article, if you enjoyed what you read.  Squid liking is important.  Do that for your fellow lensmaster where you can.  Doesn’t this feel great? 

Now pick another one of this author’s articles and do it again.  I usually try to read 3 articles that I think I’ll enjoy from each author during each visit to his site. 

If you’ve done this much, most people will respond in kind and visit your page and read your work. 

That’s why you want to make sure you’re reading articles from an active author.  In most cases, if you take the time to read 3 articles, they’ll do the same for you.  Any more than 3 and you’re probably pushing it. 

As you gain more articles, you can take this a step further and maybe read some of their less popular articles listed towards the end of their list.  Most will then do the same for you.  If you’re interested in having people read your most popular work, read and like their most popular articles.  Be nice to the world, and they’ll be nice to you.

So picking an interesting subject gets you started in finding an author to read, but after that a lot of good authors are found from the comments they leave on others’ work.  What do I mean by that?

Look at the comment section of an article you enjoy.  Do you see active commenters?  We’re talking about comments from the last 6 weeks or so. 

Those people are authors you’ll want to check out.  It’s an easy way to find active Squidoo lensmasters willing to engage and critique your work.  Go down the line and visit 5 or 10 people.  Read, comment and like.  You can also comment on their profile page which is a good way to getting yourself known throughout the community. 

Log on to Squidoo every day.  Look to see who’s visited your page.  Make sure you go back and visit that author’s work too.  They may have found you before you found them and you certainly want to thank them for their visit.  If they’ve been kind enough to read several of your articles, make sure you do the same for them.  It’s only neighborly. 

Keep a list of lensmasters whose work you like.  Visit them often.  Keep a list of lensmasters who visit your page and visit and re-visit them.  This builds valuable friendships.  Networking can be a wonderful thing!

Visit, participate, and pay it forward.   You’ll find you find friends, mentors, and interesting articles this way.

Lastly, try using social media to provide a network of readers.  Start a Facebook page for your work.  Set up a Twitter account.   Blog.  Share every article you write on these networks.  Not everyone will come on by, but you’ll find a few and you know they’ll love your work.

What Not to Do in Promoting Your Work

There are a couple things you don’t want to do to promote your writing because these tactics are against the Terms of Service of either Squidoo or Google.

First, do not pay folks to come and like your article.  Don’t hire folks from Fivrr or anywhere else to Squid Like your article.  It will get you thrown off the site. 

Second, don’t come out and ask someone to like your article on Squidoo.  They don’t want you doing that either.

Third, don’t join exchange sites.  These are sites where members visit each other’s pages to run up their visitor numbers.  This practice cheats the advertisers.  Google will penalize you and so will Squidoo.  It’s not worth the chance to do this.

@SanneCollins

Leveling Up in Squidoo Brings You New Tools to Use on Their Website

Level Up on Squidoo!

From the time you join Squidoo, you begin to accumulate points.   

You design the layout of your article.  You publish your article.  Then you go out and promote your article.  

All of these actions help in adding to your point score and your point score is what determines when the lensmaster moves up to the next level.

Take a moment to move your cursor around the top of the Squidoo Dashboard.   

On the top right-hand side of the page next to the Search box, you’ll see your level score listed as something from L1 to L80.  This is the level you’ve attained so far on Squidoo.  This box will also tell you how many points you’ll need to move to the next level. 

As you move from level to level, new tools will be added to your toolbox.  As you look around Squidoo, you’ll see articles set on various backgrounds.  These are themes that will be open to you as you level up.  After gaining experience in the basics, new types of modules will become available.  Once you’ve learned how to promote your articles, the site will allow you to publish more.   

This is what leveling up is about.

To give you an idea of what you can expect, I’m posting a list of some of the levels and what you might find when you “level up”.   The one thing you can expect every time you reach the goal of a higher level is that you will be awarded points for your achievement.  You’re continually building your point score every time you reach your next goal.

Here’s a look at how it works….

Sample Squidoo Levels and What You Obtain for Reaching Them

Level 2

A new theme or two will be made available for you to use when designing your articles.

You’ll gain the opportunity to join in new Quests. 

Level 4

The lensmaster favorite “Amazon Spotlight Module” becomes available to you for use in your work.  Use it wherever you can.  You can even go back, edit your online work to include this module, then update and republish.  Amazon Spotlight lets you showcase a product, then when someone buys it, you receive a royalty. 

Level 5

You now have the ability to add more articles.  Once you’re at level 5, you are allow to publish up to 10 lenses.  You’ll soon be allowed unlimited numbers of lenses…but that’s still ahead.

Level 6

New widgets!  Play around with the new widgets you can use.  You’ll love ‘em!  Sidebar widgets are a favorite.  Black Box widgets are a good way to highlight quotes and other points of interest.  Give them a try!

Level 7

More themes!  Just in time for the holidays!  Add new backgrounds or use them to develop a new lens.

Level 9

Congratulations!  You now have the ability to publish as many good articles as your creativity will allow you!

Level 10

Welcome to the community!  With Level 10 you are given the power to nominate a Squidoo article for the award called Lens of the Day.

Level 11

The Featured Lenses module becomes available.  This is a great way to show off your other Squidoo work or recommend other people’s articles on subjects that relate to your topic.

Level 20

At Level 20 you’ll get your first Lens Rank Turboboost.  Squidoo will ask you to pick a lens and they’ll give it a small boost to help you in ranking.  This is a one lens, one time boost.

Level 25

500 Points and a second Lens Rank Turboboost.  Pick another lens for a one time boost.

Level 40

You receive a free Squid Ad!  Pick a lens and Squidoo will run it as an ad on one of their Topic Pages.

And so on until Level 80…

Higher Level Ranking Gives You More Confidence

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the obvious—that building rank, builds a writer’s prestige on the site.  Squidoo lensmasters gain more confidence and gain a stronger sense of presence as they make their way to Level 80 rank.  This comes, as expected, with time and experience.

So set your goal and build your brand. 

Next time I’ll address how to find people to read and enjoy your work—promoting your lens.

Keep on writing!

 

@SanneCollins