Month: January 2008

Why Shouldn’t I Grab Photos from Google Images For My Blog?

heidic11 Comments on Why Shouldn’t I Grab Photos from Google Images For My Blog?

Emerald Skies by Janusz L
Photo by Janusz L

Google Images, what a great way to find photos, just search on your keyword and the images appear. But should you just grab and freely use any image you find? Not unless you want copyright issues.

As a photographer (hobby) imagine my surprise to see my photo of a red rose with snow being used as the avatar of a young lady who said she was a photographer on a social networking group. No mention anywhere that the photo was not her own nor where she got it. Irked me! My photo, I want credit!

I checked with some professional photographers in one of the photography forums. Yes, my photos, even if I post online, are my property, copyrighted unless I say otherwise. I could press charges if I wished. Others have been known to give the offender bad press. Often it is done out of ignorance, best to educate your fans, if they weren’t a fan of your work, they wouldn’t be posting it on their site.

I strongly advise against grabbing any image from a google image search without permission. Unless it says otherwise, you don’t have permission to use it. My 11 year old daughter was working on a famous rock page. She wanted pictures of famous rocks, when I told her about needed permission to use she was frustrated, too many were not free to use.

Images add visual appeal to your blog posts. Not everyone is a photographer or graphic artist. I like using others photos along with my own. Today I was very happy to find a
A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images by Skellie. Check it out!

Thanks to her advice, y’all can enjoy and share the beauty created by others while spreading a little fame and link love.

Don’t Miss Blogging Seminar

heidic1 Comment on Don’t Miss Blogging Seminar

“Blogging? I hear about blogging all the time. What is a blog?”
“How does having a blog help my business?”
“What do I need to do to get started blogging?”
I hear these questions all the time.

Want answers?
Check out next Thursday’s blogging seminar hosted by Beverly Mahone, expert media consultant.

This teleseminar is for you if:

  • You’ve been thinking about blogging but don’t know where to begin.
  • You’re not sure what to “blog” about.
  • You want to learn more about how to attract more readers.
  • You don’t quite understand the “technical” aspects
  • You want to make money from blogging

    • These are just a few of the topics that will be covered with a panel
    of experts:

    Heidi Caswell Connect Simply
    Betty Lynch My Country Kitchen
    Karlyn Karlyns
    Kathie Thomas VA Directory

    Details and sign up information can be found at Talk2Bev.

Motivation–What motivates you?

heidic4 Comments on Motivation–What motivates you?

I’ve always had at least one child on our local school’s swim team. I think it has become a family tradition. They work hard year around. During Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, they are in the pool and gym first thing in the mornings, working out. Races have been won and lost by as much as a fraction of a second.

At practice one day the coach challenged my 16 year old to swim a series of laps each under a certain time, something he hadn’t done before. The reward for meeting that goal was a fully loaded breakfast sandwich. Guess what? My son was soon enjoying his breakfast sandwich. Saturday we had a swim meet, one of the strokes my son swims is the 100 yard breast stroke. This coach gave him a new challenge. To swim this event in under 1 minute 10 seconds. He has never done that before either, but if he knocks a few seconds off his time he has a good chance of making it to the state meet. Another fully loaded breakfast sandwich was promised. His time 1 minute 7.9 seconds!

Lesson learned, this 16 year old is very motivated by food. (But what do you expect from a 6 foot and growing, active, 16 year old?)

We are each motivated by our desires, the goals we want to reach in life, who we are, who we are becoming. As the new year starts we are busily making and breaking resolutions. Take one goal you want to reach. What will motivate you to taking action and following through on that goal?

Some people thrive on rewards. Lose 10 pounds and have that large piece of chocolate cake. (No wonder they call it a yo-yo diet.)

Others thrive on challenges, competition, a deadline to meet. And I’ve seen others get all stressed with deadlines. Fear of loss is another motivating factor. The thrill of personal victory motivates others.

My question to all, What motivates you to taking action? Accomplishing more? Being the best you can be?

More Business? Just Ask

heidic2 Comments on More Business? Just Ask

Do you want more business?
Do you even have to think about that question?
How about more of your ideal customers?

I’ve always been told that the fortune is in the follow-up. One of my favorite newsletters is by Felicia Slattery, Communication Consultant, Speaker & Coach. Today I was pleasantly surprised, (well maybe not totally, I know she writes good stuff), to read Felicia’s article on how to ask for more business. For Felicia’s examples and tips on how to follow up and ask for more business, click on the more button and read her sage advice.

Read More “More Business? Just Ask”

Why You Should Always Own Your Own Domain and Host Account

heidic6 Comments on Why You Should Always Own Your Own Domain and Host Account

It makes sense to hire someone to build and maintain your business website. Much to learn otherwise and will slow down your growth.

It is easier for your web developer to purchase a domain name for you and host on their reseller account. Less techie stuff to explain to the business owner. BUT. . .

Your domain name is your business. You want to be in control of your business. Even if you use a blogger blog for business purposes, you should own your own domain name, what happens to your traffic if blogger closed your account or your needs changed and you out grew blogger.

Even if you hired great web help, stuff happens. Lets say you have a successful website that is bringing you traffic, income. One day it is down and when you call your webguy you found out he died suddenly months ago, and hosting service ran out. If you don’t even own the domain, you’ve got a mess on your hands. OWN YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME

What happens when you decide to move your website to a new host, or hire a new web person? You don’t have control of the files. If you own your own hosting account, you have control.

Take ownership of your business, own your own domain and webhost.

“Appreciation Wins Over Self Promotion”

heidicLeave a comment on “Appreciation Wins Over Self Promotion”

“Appreciation Wins Over Self Promotion” I hear it at SendOutCards all the time.

More than just words, it is one of those universal laws. Think about it for a minute who would you rather refer your friends to, a business that sends you a bunch of junk mail, or the one that did a super job and let you know how much they appreciated you? And who would you rather buy from, someone who treated you as a friend or a company who saw you as just one more number?

Watch this video about Relationship Marketing Today!

How to add BBClone to a WordPress Blog

heidic7 Comments on How to add BBClone to a WordPress Blog

I like being able to see the stats of my blog, who is visiting, amount of traffic, how do visitors find me, how long do they stay, which sites send me the most referrals, which keywords, etc. I was surprised to see my new blog Heidi’s Cards, place in the search engines for several phrases which included keywords from my category names and post titles. Just a trickle of traffic, but encouraging just the same.

Different stats program show different things, and I’ll be the first to admit there is much I don’t know about the various stats programs, what they do, how they work, which one is the best, etc. I’ll probably never be an expert at all of that. BBclone does what I want for now, which is good enough.

I’m posting this information here as I don’t want to lose the steps, and others may find it useful. As I moved to a new host, I wanted a web stats program, and discovered a quick easy way to add BBClone to the wordpress blogs I’ve moved to my new webhost . Now I know which pages visitors enter/leave, where they com from, I can even click in the detailed stats and see which search engines searches referred them to me, what keyword or phrase was used, whose site referred them, how long they visited, which pages, etc.

Read More “How to add BBClone to a WordPress Blog”