Collection Of The Best ScreenCast Tools For Screen Recording

In the last post I listed the best screen capture tools for taking images of your computer screen.In this post it's the turn of ScreenCast tools.A screencast is a video recording of your computer screen with audio or annotations often seen in online tutorials.Regular readers will have seen many screencast tutorials I have posted here on Spice Up Your Blog.

A screencast is a great way to create tutorials and unique blog content.The main factors I look for in a screencast tool is for it to be simple to use, have good editing options and quick options to save online or publish to YouTube.

So let's get to the list, I have listed 5 screencast tools I have personally tried.As with most online tools there are free and paid options so this will be part of your decision.

ScreenCast O Matic (SOC) - Free/Paid

I start with this as it is the tool I have been using for the last few years.As I stated above I have a few features that I require and I feel SOC provides them.SOC uses Java which might not suit everyone but I find it no problem and it means there is no download required.The edit features are easy to use and you can save the video to your computer, SOC, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, Box, Drop Box.Another feature I like is you can turn short videos into animated Gifs.

Now there is a free and paid version and the free version is very limited and the video will contain a watermark.I use the pro version and it costs $15 per year which I feel is reasonable.

Link - http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS)- Free

This is a tool a lot of people recommend as it's free and open source.OBS has picture in picture (add your webcam feed to the corner of the screencast) among it's many options.OBS also has good post record edit options and being open source new features are being added all the time.

Link - http://obsproject.com/

Camtasia Studio - Paid

Camtasia Studio is probably the most popular with professionals and has some amazing options and has a windows and mac version.Like ScreenCast O Matic you have lost of edit options and the options to upload to the same sites including YouTube HD.I guess the reason many people look for a different option is the price tag of $299.

Link - http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html

Screenr - Free/Paid

Screenr is in some ways similar to ScreenCast O Matic, it runs on Java which again requires no download.Screenr also has a paid and free version with the free version lacking in many areas, however if you just want a quick screencast it will do the job.

Link - http://www.screenr.com/

CamStudio - Free

Not to be confused with Camtasia studio Cam studio is a freeware screen recorder.Cam studio has many of the features of paid tools but maybe lacks some of the video edit tools.

http://camstudio.org/

So that's my list but I would like to hear what you think, are you using a great screencast tool I have not listed ?

Author - Paul Crowe is the owner and main author of Spice Up Your Blog.Paul lives in Ireland, has been blogging since 2006 and writing Spice Up Your Blog since 2009.You can find him in the usual social networks.

Collection Of The Best Screen Shot Image Tools

For me with this kind of blog the use of images and video is very important but not just your standard video and images.I have always relied on screen capture image and scree cast video to make it so much easier to get my message across.Screen capture images are as the name suggests were you will capture an image of whats currently on your computer screen and Screen cast video is were we can record a video following what we are record our actions on a computer.In the next two posts I will be listing a collection of the best tools for screen capture and screen casts kicking off here with screen capture tools.

There are a number of tools you can use for example some tools are built into your browser while others can be downloaded onto your computer.Also options to edit the screen grab and add annotations is important.So we will go through all the options you have so your can get the perfect screen capture tool for your needs.

Screen Capture Built Into Your Computer

For Windows :

Snipping Tool
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6 Firefox Add-Ons That Can Help Bloggers Improve Their Blogs SEO

Guest Post By Chris.

Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers available. Comparing it with Google chrome it has many features that can be useful for bloggers and webmasters.So it's a good idea to install Firefox add-ons that can help your blog, and improve it's SEO, performance, errors etc.I believe you guys know, after installing or updating, new add-ons in Firefox we have to restart the web browser for the add-ons to work.In this post I provide the following Firefox add-ons with links to the download page.

List Of Firefox Add-Ons For Improved SEO

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About.Me Create A Unique About Page For Your Blog

Most blogs now have an 'About Me' or 'About Us' page.The days of using pen names and writing your blog anonymously are all but gone.Readers of your blog are interested in who you are and by being open you create a level of trust between you and your readers.I think having an about and contact page are now very important and people expect them.In general your blogs about me page will be a simple page on your blog with some general information and maybe an image but how about trying something different ?

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Get The Blogger Buddy Gadget And Post Directly From Your Desktop

Many of you will be familiar with desktop gadgets on windows vista and windows 7 and you may have visited the Windows Live gadget gallery.Gadgets such as Games that you can play on your desktop are very popular along with gadgets you may also use on iGoogle such as Weather gadgets, Clocks and Calenders, YouTube Video gadgets and so on.If you ain't seen them as the title suggest they are gadgets that you can have on your computers desktop, they load when you turn on your computer and you don't need to open a browser to use them.One gadget you may be interested in is the Blogger Buddy Gadget.
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6 Great Tools For Better Blogging

Blogging for the most part is fun and rewarding but it can also be time consuming and frustrating.From researching the topic for your next post, Formatting the post and the very important promotion of your posts once published.Over the years i have picked up a few tools that have made life a lot easier.In this post i will share 6 of these tools and gadgets that can speed up the process of blogging and blog promotion.All are totally free or have a more than adequate free version.
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Is Tynt The Answer To Stop Your Blog Content Being Copied ?

Blog content is constantly being copied by unscrupulous amateurs looking for an easy fix to their stupidity.While almost all blogs built on copied content never get off the ground it is frustrating seeing your hard work blatantly copied.In this post we will look at a website with a unique answer to plagiarism.Tynt offer a script you can add to your blogs template that will add a link to your content when copied and pasted elsewhere.

As well as a link back to the original content you can add a Creative Commons link.Creative Commons is a licence service that you can use to indicate what parts of your blog if any can be copied and in what circumstances it can be copied and used elsewhere.You can add a CC licence as well as the link and i would recommend doing so.While someone can remove the link Tynt add to the content the CC link may stop them from using the content in the first place.
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Floating Back To Top Button For Blogger

The 'Back To Top' button is quiet popular on Blogs and websites and i this post we will see how to add a back to top button to Blogger.Once added the Button Will float down the page as the reader scrolls n rest at the foot of the page until needed.Adding the Back to top button to blogger just requires some code added to a html/javascript gadget in your design page.We will be using an image button for the back to top and i will show you how you can change this image to any button you like.

Demo - Check Out A Demo Of The Back To Top Button Here , you should see the button fall as you scroll.

Add Back To Top Button To Blogger

Step 1. In your dashboard click 'Design' > 'Add A Gadget' > Choose 'Html/Javascript' from the pop up menu.

Step 2. Copy The Code Below And Paste It Into The Html/Javascript gadget.

<a href='http://www.spiceupyourblog.com'><img alt='Best Blogger Tips' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYqm6xBxp5E1rd4O1aT12fj-dLN-q80OAJ6XqEuhA3xy8Z9sq5bB5SLPNsaP6BSHYZWCHG3fizpfJbCqFftz-1evmQcUCbupu_I-TekVKuOM7HEggqFjkT97zU6gkD78Cm0OcDAJuLX6K/s1600/best+blogger+tips.png'/></a><script type="text/JavaScript">
var topMargin = 300
var slideTime = 1200
var ns6 = (!document.all && document.getElementById);
var ie4 = (document.all);
var ns4 = (document.layers);
window.setInterval("main()", 10)

function floatObject() {
if (ns4 || ns6) {
findHt = window.innerHeight;
} else if(ie4) {
findHt = document.body.clientHeight;
}
}

function main() {
if (ns4) {
this.currentY = document.floatLayer.top;
this.scrollTop = window.pageYOffset;
mainTrigger();
} else if(ns6) {
this.currentY = parseInt(document.getElementById('floatLayer').style.top);
this.scrollTop = scrollY;
mainTrigger();
} else if(ie4) {
this.currentY = floatLayer.style.pixelTop;
this.scrollTop = document.body.scrollTop;
mainTrigger();
}

}
function mainTrigger() {
var newTargetY = this.scrollTop + this.topMargin
if ( this.currentY != newTargetY ) {
if ( newTargetY != this.targetY ) {
this.targetY = newTargetY
floatStart();
}
animator();
}


}
function floatStart() {
var now = new Date()
this.A = this.targetY - this.currentY
this.B = Math.PI / ( 2 * this.slideTime )
this.C = now.getTime()
if (Math.abs(this.A) > this.findHt) {
this.D = this.A > 0 ? this.targetY - this.findHt : this.targetY + this.findHt
this.A = this.A > 0 ? this.findHt : -this.findHt
} else {
this.D = this.currentY
}
}
function animator() {
var now = new Date()
var newY = this.A * Math.sin( this.B * ( now.getTime() - this.C ) ) + this.D
newY = Math.round(newY)
if (( this.A > 0 && newY > this.currentY ) || ( this.A < 0 && newY < this.currentY )) {
if ( ie4 )floatLayer.style.pixelTop = newY
if ( ns4 )document.floatLayer.top = newY
if ( ns6 )document.getElementById('floatLayer').style.top = newY + "px"
}
}
//-->
</script>
<div id="floatLayer" style="position: absolute; height:20px; width:15; left:650px; top:400px; z-index: 100"><a href="#"><img vspace="0" border="0" hspace="0" alt="Back to Top" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmkESYH2UDOozYq9kIrB6UOB95LNphV6IKPZafuJqvhRROJsaXT3DmzFmd7TCQ1x_PMaIxQKvLdiyr_0KA9KZxXcvVAokSlzChYwJibqwFxAlv8_rooNEmGI69ECxs40zoI8IPmEkqfN_3/s1600/TOP+BUTTON.gif" title="Back To Top Of Page" /></a></div><a href="http://spiceupyourblog.com" target="_blank"><small>Blogger Top Gadget</small></a>

Important 

If the button stops in the middle of your page and not at the bottom increase the number in red at the start of the code, for example in the demo i had to set that number to 500.

left:650px; = How far from the left the button appears you can increase and decrease it to suit your blog.

top:400px; = How far from the top it appears.

You can change the image used for the button by changing the image URL in blue to any image you wish to use.

Step 3. Save your template - You can drag and drop the gadget to the bottom of your design page as position wont effect the gadget.

That's it your Back to top button has been added to your blog.Check out more of our Gadgets and Resources for Blogger.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

Why Alexa Rank Is Important How To Increase Your Blogs Alexa Rank

Alexa has been around for 14 years checking and ranking the traffic levels for every site online.Alexa use toolbars installed on millions of users browsers to track the hits sites are getting.Every time someone with the Alexa Toolbar installed lands on your Blog it increases your Ranking.That's all interesting and it's fun to check out the top 10 sites online or the top 100 in your country but why is it important to have a high Alexa Rank and what can you do to improve your blogs Alexa rank ?

Why Alexa Rank Is important

The major advantage of a high Alexa rank comes into play when you look to sell ad spots on your blog.Ad Networks and Advertisers take Alexa rank very seriously when it comes to buying advertising on your site.Webmasters and Blogger also take Alex rank into consideration when it comes to linking to your site, exchanging links, submitting posts and connecting in other ways with you.Even if you don't currently sell direct Advertising on your Blog you will more than likely want to in the future so working on improving your rank now will be of great benefit.

How To Increase Your Alexa Rank

When i researched for this post i found lots of articles with huge lists of Alexa Tips And Tricks.However as i looked deeper and even in the comments for these posts a lot of these tips were shown to be bull....The first ting to do and a guaranteed way to increase your Blogs Alexa rank is Install the toolbar.

Install The Alexa Toolbar

Chances are nobody visits your blog more than you, once you install the toolbar all those visits will be ranked on Alexa.The toolbar is quiet compact and on the Chrome browser you wouldn't even know it's there.Once installed it's actually quiet interesting to have an instant ranking on every site you visit - Get the Alexa Toolbar here.

Make Your Blog Your Homepage

Once you install the toolbar set your blog to your homepage to ensure even more hits.If your family or friends didn't mind you could install the toolbar on their browser and set your blog to the homepage also.

Write A Post About Alexa

By writing a post about Alexa you may convince some of your regular readers to install the toolbar.Now when they visit your blog it's helping your blogs rank.

Others - Most of the people using the Alexa Toolbar are experienced Internet users,Webmasters and fellow Bloggers, Submit your blog to Digg, Stumble, Design Float, Reddit and other bookmarking sites these guys hang out.It's suggested adding the Alexa gadget to your blog will help but i have seen this refuted.It's suggested getting people to write a review of your blog will help, i have also seen this refuted.

That's it, Since i installed the Alexa Toolbar only 2 weeks ago i have seen Spice Up Your Blog climb from over 110,000 to under 95,000.You can find many more Blogging Resources Here, If you have any tips you think are worth considering let us know.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

How To Add A Free Forum To Blogger Blogs

A forum is a great way to interact with the readers of your blog and let them connect with each other.In this post i will show you how easy it is to add a free forum to your blog using Nabble and Blogger Static Pages.Nabble allow you to create and customize our forum then provide you with a snippet of code, by adding the code to a static page you can have the the forum within your blog.OK so lets look at the steps to add a forum to your blogger blog.

Add A Forum To Blogger

1. Follow this link to Nabble.Com and click 'Start A Free Forum' in the right sidebar.

2. You will be brought to the registration page, add the required details.The Forum Name will Appear above your Forum and the description just below the name so pick something good.You will receive a confirmation Email with a link to finalize the registration process go to your inbox and click the link.



3. Once you click the Email link you will return to your forum within the Nabble Website.You can use the 'Options' link to edit your forum Name, Description appearance etc..

4. Now we will bring your forum into your blog.Click the Embedding Options in the top right corner of your forum page and copy the Javascript code.

5. Back in Blogger create a Static Page for your blog and paste your forum Javascript code into the post body while in Html mode.Name your static page and publish.

Note you can add the forum to a post but it will work better in a page.For more info on Pages Check out this post - Complete Guide To Static Pages.

That's it check out your cool new Forum ! Check out more of the Awesome Blogging Resources we have covered.Any Questions, Have you added a forum to your blog ?

Use Foxy Form To Add The Most Simple Contact Us Page To Your Blog.

Last year i wrote a post on creating a Contact Me or Contact Us forms and adding them to your blog.In that post we looked at using "Email Me Form" to create your contact form and while the version they provide worked very well in this post i will show you a much easier quicker Contact form your can use.While Email Me Form required you to register and had a limit on the number of forms you could create this new contact form can be created in seconds without the need to register and not limits are in place on the number you can create.

With Foxy Form you simply choose the fields you want included in your form, add the Email address you want to be forwarded to messages to and generate the code.You can optionally use the advanced options to change the appearance of the form like fonts and colors.Once created you can add the form to a page on your Blogger or Wordpress Blogs.

Demo - See a working demo on Our Templates Site : Contact Form Demo

Get A Contact Form From FoxyForm

To get your contact form for your blog first follow this link to www.FoxyForm.com.

Fill in the contact form Settings, Extra options and enter the Email you want messages forwarded to then click create.You will be provided with the Html code for the form which you can copy and add to a Static page on your blog.


That's it very easy and it's very  important you provide readers with a way to contact you in a more private manner than comments.Once you have the code for your form you can paste the code into a page on your Blogger or Wordpress blog.

Drop Your Comments And Questions Below.

Auto Share Your Posts On 35 Social Networks

When you add a new post to your blog you want to update your friends and followers on Social Networks and Social Bookmark sites.The more sites you share your latest post on the more visitors you get to your blog but updating lots of sites often takes longer than writing the post in the first place.

That's were ping service Ping.Fm comes in.Ping.Fm can automatically update 35 social network and bookmarking websites with one click.So when you publish your latest post you can auto update Facebook, Facebook Pages, Twitter, Google Buzz, Myspace, LinkedIn, Posterous, Delicious and more..


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Best Blogger Templates

Many of you will be aware of the Blogger Templates Blog we connected to Spice Up Your Blog back in May this year.I had set up this new free templates blog using a Sub Domain of Spice Up Your Blog namely 'www.Templates.SpiceUpYourBlog.Com' and added templates periodically.The reaction was fantastic and over the last few months the number of visitors has risen to almost match Spice Up Your Blog itself !

With that in mind over the last few weeks i have put in a lot of work to Improve the templates site.The name was changed to Best Blogger Templates and a complete redesign was added.I made it much easier to navigate and find the template you want quicker and easier, over the last week a unique Facebook page was added, a new unique feed address and today i took off the shackles and added a sparkling new Domain - www.BestBloggerTemplates.Net .

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Yahoo Mp3 Music Player For Blogger

Many Bloggers want to have some music on their blogs especially Music based blogs and blogs kept by musicians and bands.One of the easiest yet most effective ways to add some songs to your blog is using the Yahoo Music Player.Of course it does not have to be music you can add other types Mp3 files like short story's, poetry etc..With the Yahoo Music player you can add a play list to your sidebar or elsewhere on your blog but also add a link to play an individual song.So in a post when you mention a song you can make that song play just by clicking the title.A small play icon will be beside the title to let readers know they can listen to it.The player itself is hidden until someone wants a song then it slides out and plays with controls to pause, toggle, volume etc..This is a great option to play music on your blog.

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Top 20 Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Websites

I know most of you Bookmark and share your blog posts on the top social bookmarking and social networking websites.Bookmarking your blog posts is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get some exposure and let people know about your latest content.Almost all bloggers follow the same routine of sharing their posts on their Twitter and Facebook profiles and pages.Many also add their links to the other popular bookmarking websites such as Digg and Stumble Upon.But did you know you would be much better served Bookmarking your posts on other often less known Bookmarking sites ?

The top Bookmarking websites add a No-Follow attribute to links shared by members.This results in the link not being indexed by the leading search engines and having no effect on Google Page Rank.So basically apart from people seeing the link and clicking it you get nothing in the way of improved search ranking etc.By bookmarking on the top 20 sites listed below you get your links followed by Google and the other search engines and improved search rank and page rank.Sounds Great lets look at the list..

The Top 20 Do-Follow Social Bookmarking Websites

1. Slashdot.org - Slashdot has a Google page rank of 9 and Alexa rank of 1,272.

2. Reddit.com - Reddit has a Google page rank of 8 and an Alexa rank of 244.

3. Technorati.com - Technorati has a Google Page rank of 8 and an Alexa rank of 895.

4. Mixx.com - Mixx has a Google Page Rank Of 8 and an Alexa Rank of 1,194.

5. Folkd.com - Folkd has a Google Page rank of 8 and an Alexa rank of 2,691.

6. Metafilter.com - Metafilter has a Google Page Rank of 7 and an Alexa rank of 2,309.

7. Wikio.com - Wikio has a Google Page Rank of 7 and an Alexa rank of 2,793.

8. Current.com - Current has a Google Page Rank of 7 and an Alexa rank of 3,749.

9. Connotea.com - Conntea has a Google Page Rank of 7 and an Alexa rank of 4,628.

10. Tipd.com - Tipd.com has a Google Page Rank of 7 and an Alexa rank of 12,098.

11. Clipmarks.com - has a Google Page Rank of 6 and an Alexa rank of 3,524.

12. dZone.com - dZone has a Google Page Rank of 6 and an Alexa rank of 2,833.

13. Buddymarkd - Buddymarks has a Google Page Rank of 6 and an Alexa rank of 5,722.

14. Sphinn.com - Sphinn has a Google Page Rank 6 of and an Alexa rank of 7,110.

15. Kirtsy.com - Kirtsy has a Google Page Rank of 6 and an Alexa rank of 8,351.

16. Kwoff.com - Kwoff has a Google Page Rank of 6 and an Alexa rank of 18,455.

17. A1-Webmarks.com - A1-Webmarks has a Google Page Rank of 5 and an Alexa rank of 4,929.

18. Indianpad.com/ - Indianpad has a Google Page Rank of 5 and an Alexa rank of 7,386.

19. Designfloat.com - DesignFloat has a Google Page Rank of 5 and an Alexa rank of 6,679.

20. Spotback.com - SpotBack has a Google Page Rank of 5 and an Alexa rank of 7,703.

Thats your list, take the time to use some of these sites and encourage readers of your blog to bookmark your posts by making links to them available.You can add a All In One social bookmark tool on your blog that will offer all services - The 5 Best All In One Social Bookmarking Gadgets.

More On No-Follow 

This is how the main search engines see a Nofollow link :

"Google states that their engine takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. However, experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. These studies reveal that Google does follow the link, but does not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page).
Yahoo! "follows it", but excludes it from their ranking calculation.
Bing respects "nofollow" as regards not counting the link in their ranking, but it is not proven whether or not Bing follows the link.
Ask.com also supports the attribute"

The above information is from Wikipedia you can see the full article here - Wikipedia No-Follow Article

Feedback And Help - The list is made up of 20 Bookmarking sites i know Defiantly use Do-Follow links.If you know of more bookmarking websites ranked higher than those in the list let us know.

How To Make An Animated Scrolling Text Favicon

A Favicon is an image that appears in the Address Bar and Tab when you are on a website.The Favicon you use can become a kind of Logo associated with your blog.On Blogger the Blogger Orange B Logo is used as the Favicon on all blogs but you can easily change it.In a recent post i showed you how you could use a Favicon you found on other websites, so i wanted to add a post showing you how to make a totally unique Favicon.Here i will show you how to create a 'Scrolling Text Favicon' for your blog.A scrolling text favicon is just as it sounds, you can have the name of your blog, URL of your blog or any text scrolling across the Favicon.Along with the text will be a icon, logo or any image you choose.

Below is an animated Favicon for a Test Blog with the text 'This is my blog' and an image of the Blogger 'B' within a folder .You can see how that Scrolling text Favicon looks in action here : Test Blog



So lets see how you can create a Animated Scrolling Text Favicon for your blog, and then how to add a Favicon to your blog.Many Bloggers have not changed their favicon and stick with the default Blogger B, i will also show you how you can use the Blogger Favicon just adding your own scrolling text.

How To Create An Animated Scrolling Text Favicon

Step 1. Follow this link to ww.FaviconGenerator.org

Step 2. Scroll to the bottom of the page on FaviconGenerator were you will see the options to upload the image you want to use and add the scrolling text you want added.

Note - If you want to use your current Favicon it may be a .ico image which are not accepted.In this case use a image converter, here is a link to a Image Converter.

Note 2. If you want to find an image to use check out this post - , or use Google image search and in the options on the left select size exactly 16 x 16.

Note 3. If you want to use the Blogger B just right click on this image and save :



Step 2. Once you have added your image and text click generate, the page will refresh and a preview of your animated scrolling favicon will be at the bottom of the page.

Step 3. You now want to save your new animated Favicon, right click on the preview (Make sure it's the animated version) and save it.You can now upload your animated favicon to Blogger or any image host website.

Your Favicon is now ready to use.

How To Use Your Animated Favicon On Blogger

Step 1. In your dashboard click 'Design/Layout' > 'Edit Html'

Step 2. Copy the code below and place it in your template directly below <head>
(You will find <head> at the very top of your Html)

<link href='ADD-YOUR-FAVICON-URL-HERE' rel='shortcut icon'/>

Note : Replace ADD-YOUR-FAVICON-URL-HERE with the URL of your new animated Favicon.

Step 3. Save your template and your favicon will be in place.

Thats your animated favicon, Check out more of our Great Design Tips for your blog.

Post Your Comments, Views And Questions Below.

Create An Email Logo With Your Email Address

One of the cool things i have started to see appear in the sidebars of blogs is the Email address of the author in an image using the logo of the Email provider.If you have not seen them yet they look great and are very easy to create.Below i have created three Email Logo images for Gmail, Yahoo Mail and HotMail.There are over 20 different Email providers they have logos for and you can also change from .com to .ca, .fr, .co.uk etc...

How To Create A Email Logo

Step 1. Follow This Link To Nexodyne.

Step 2. Enter your email, select provider and domain, click generate.

Step 3. You can now use the URL provided or save the image to your computer and upload it to Blogger or another service.

Turn Your Email Logo Into A Clickable Link

The Email Logo image would be OK on its own just displaying you email so readers can contact you.However You may want to make your newly created Email Logo image into a link people can click to send you an email here is how it's done.

Copy The Code Below And Replace :

IMAGE-URL-HERE with the URL of your Email Logo
EMAIL@ADDRESS.COM with your email address

<a href="mailto:EMAIL@ADDRESS.COM"><img src="IMAGE-URL-HERE" /></a>

Add the edited code to a HTML/JAVASCRIPT gadget in your sidebar.

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post or Click here for other Rss Options. If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

There you have it, a neat looking image with your Email, let us know what you think...

Download The Free Offical Google SEO Ebook

Everything you do on your blog to help perform better on Google and other search engines would be considered S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization).S.E.O. is big business with people paying S.E.O. company's big bucks to optimize their websites.Most Bloggers don't have lots of money to invest in S.E.O. or any part of their blog so you have to cover S.E.O. yourself.Here on Spice Up Your Blog i have built a great archive of Posts in the S.E.O. Tips category and I'm always working on bringing you the latest SEO Tips.Google for their part also try to help the Bloggers and Webmasters who don't have money to trow at optimizing their sites.The best resource made available by Google is their SEO Ebook and just today they have released the updated version.In the Free Google SEO Ebook they give you a fantastic guide with SEO Tips and Tricks that is easy to follow even for the complete newbie.

This Free Google SEO Ebook shows real examples with step by step information on all aspects of SEO.As the Ebook is from the people you are trying to optimize you Blog for in Google you know the information will be invaluable.

Google SEO Ebook

Here are some of the areas the Google SEO Ebook covers :

-Create unique, accurate page titles
-Make use of the "description" meta tag
-Improving Site Structure
-Improve the structure of your URLs
-Make your site easier to navigate
-Optimizing =Content
-Offer quality content and services
-Write better anchor text
-Optimize your use of images
-Use heading tags appropriately
-Dealing with Crawlers
-Make effective use of robots.txt
-Be aware of rel="nofollow" for links
-SEO for Mobile Phones
-Notify Google of mobile sites
-Guide mobile users accurately
-Promotions and Analysis
-Promote your website in the right ways
-Make use of free webmaster tools

The Google SEO Ebook is in Pdf format and you can open it or download it directly from this page.To get your copy of the Free Google SEO Ebook simply click the link below :

Download The Free Google SEO Ebook



You probably wont have time to read the entire Ebook in one sitting so be sure to save the link or Bookmark this post.

I would love to hear what you think of the Google SEO Tips Ebook in the comments, Enjoy.

Take Screenshots Of Any Page In Seconds

Many Blogs use screenshots in their posts and if you don't you should start.If you are reviewing a website or talking about an article it always looks great to have a screenshot of that page.In the past we have talked about Screen Capture add-ons and plugins for Firefox and Chrome but not everybody is comfortable using these extras.Recently i came across a website that allows you to quickly get a screenshot of any page, be it a full page or part of the page.The process is easy and all you need to do is copy the URL address of the page you want a screenshot from and submit it.Then You dont need to save the screenshot and upload it to your blog they give you the code ready to be added to your post.

Take Screenshots With Clp.Ly

The site in question is Clp.ly and i made the screenshot above using clp.ly, i think it looks great and it took 10 seconds !

While they offer a number of services remember you don't need to download anything (The bookmark mentioned in the video is helpful but not necessary).Here is a video they created to explain how it works and the link to check them out is below the video..



Go to Clp.ly now.

Check it out and don't forget to tell us what you think in the comments !

Get All The Latest News From Your Blogs Niche

As Bloggers we all like to keep updated with the latest news in the subject we write about.The subject you write about is known as a niche.I'm sure you always check in on other blogs from your niche to see what they are up to and maby gain inspiration for future posts, you can be sure they keep an eye on you.So in this post i will share with you a way to be updated every day by Email with the latest news from your niche.

Google Alerts

Google alerts is a free service that has been available for some time now and can be used by anyone.Getting started is easy and you can get alerts on key words and phrases relating to any subject.Once you submit the keywords you want to be alerted about Google will send you an Email every day with the best news story's and Blog posts related to those words and prases.For example if your blog covers 'Dog Grooming' you can submit the term 'Dog Grooming' and you will get an Email every day with the latest story's and posts that include that term.



At the moment i have subscribed to get alerts every day on the best news and posts with the keywords 'Blogger Tips' and 'Blogger Tricks'.This has proved very helpful as there are some great tips posted on blogs that i would otherwise never see.Of course you cant copy their content but it will give you ideas.

I highly recommend signing up to Google alerts, it's easy and free.Of course as well as being great for following the latest new in your blogs niche you could also get alerts on your favorite musician or sports team etc...To get started follow this link to the Google alerts page : Goolge Alerts Beta

Remember you can get all these tips sent directly to your email and stay a step ahead.Its a quick and easy service Provided for Free by Google.Just fill in the Email form below the post or Click here for other Rss Options. If you need extra help on this or any tutorial just leave a comment, I love comments and feedback so this Blog is Do-Follow - when you comment here it helps Your Blogs Google rank !

Feedback

How do you keep up to date with the latest news in your blogs niche, and have you signed up for Google Alerts ?