Everything Typepad

Featured Blog: AirlinerPulse

AirlinerPulse is keeping the pulse of the global Airline Industry. Covering news, analysis, technological innovations and interviews with industry professionals across the aviation and aerospace sectors, AirlinerPulse helps you discover everything you need to know about the global fleet of aircraft and world schedules, as well as insight on current and future market dynamics and drivers with the complete view of the aviation industry.

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Promote your Book, Shop, or other items in sidebar with a linked image

Do you have a book, online shop, or website that you want to promote on your blog? A great way to highlight a link to an outside website is with a compelling graphic in your sidebar. Typepad makes adding a linked image to your sidebar easy with the Add a Sidebar Image module.

At Design > Content, select the Widgets category, choose the Add a Sidebar Image module, and click the Add this module button. A pop-up box will open with several options.

• Label: The label will not appear on your blog though it will help to identify the module at Design > Content.
• Caption: The caption will appear below the image in the sidebar.
• Target URL: Enter the URL, including the http://, for the location the image is to link.
• Link options:
• Open original image in a pop-up: This option will open the original image in a pop-up window. You would not select this option if you want the image to link to an outside website.
• Open Target URL in a new tab/window: This option is recommended to link to your book, online shop, or other website that you wish to highlight. Clicking the image will open the outside website in a new tab or window.
• Open Target URL in the same tab/window: With this option, clicking the image will open the link in the same window. This is not recommended as the reader will be directed away from your blog.
• No link. Do not open a pop-up or tab/window: The image will not be a link with this option.

Most likely you will want to select the Open Target URL in a new tab/window option. Next, you will upload the image you want to link. Click the Upload Image button. Click the Choose File or Browse button to view and select the image file from your computer.

Click Insert Image and then click OK. Drag the module to the preferred location in the sidebar. Finally, click Save Changes to update the published blog with the new module.

Now, you have promoted your items for sale or outside website with an image that will grab a visitor's attention!

New Feature: Embed Instagram Posts

Today we are excited to share with everyone our new Instagram feature. You can now embed posts from your Instagram or someone you follow. This is great when discussing latest news or showing your readers "behind the scenes" of your blog! Working from your desktop or your mobile device, you can add your Instagram posts for your readers!

Add an Instagram post to your blog

From the Compose page, click on the Instagram button. In the pop up, paste in the embed code from Instagram. Click on Ok. Super easy!

Get Your Instagram Embed Code

Not sure how to get the embed code from Instagram? We can show you! From your browser (either on your desktop or mobile device) go to your Instagram account.

From your browser, you can go to any Instagram account (including yours) if you know the username. Go to the URL http://instagram.com/username (replace the username with the Instagram username.)

Click on the image you want to embed to view the three dots. Click on the three dots and then click on the Embed button. Click on Copy Embed Code. 

Copy the code Instagram provides, then go back to Typepad and paste it in. 

This is a perfect way to introduce your readers to your Instagram and we hope you love it just as much as we do! Feel free to leave us a comment so we know how you like using this new feature. If you have any suggestions for ways we can improve it, make sure to leave comments on that too! If you need more information about embedding your Instagram post, check out the Knowledge Base. As always, the support team is here to help you out. You can open a help ticket with any questions to get one-on-one support.

4 Ways Typepad Can Help Promote Your Blog

Promoting your blog can seem like a full time job. Posting to social media is fun, but Typepad can help introduce your blog to a new set of readers! Here are a few different ways Typepad can help you promote your blog.

Become a Guest Blogger

We like to spread our knowledge about Typepad, but we love it when our bloggers share their knowledge as well. Being a guest blogger is a great way to promote your blog and establish credibility as a professional blogger. We like to know what programs help you blog, any tips or tricks you like using in Typepad, and your experience blogging.

 

Shop Typepad

Does your blog help your business? Shop Typepad is our storefront that showcases our bloggers and their shops. This is a great place to support your fellow bloggers and purchase unique gifts for those you love. We love to support our charities, small businesses and indie retailers.

 

Be interviewed by Typepad

Let us interview you about your experience blogging. Answer a few questions and we will share your interview on Everything Typepad. Share your goals for blogging and what makes your blog unique with everyone. We want to share the story of your blog and what is important to you.

 

 Be Featured on Everything Typepad

Introduce yourself to other bloggers through Everything Typepad. We will showcase your blog with a great image and a little blurb you write yourself. Tell everyone what makes your blog great and why they should start reading it! We will include links to your blog and social media accounts.

 

Four unique ways to promote your blog through Typepad. We love our bloggers and want to help spread the word about your blog. Click a link and get started today.

Using Canva and Picmonkey to create stunning visual content for your blog

On average, visual content performs 4.4 times better than text based content (Source Chute and Digiday).

Let that fact sink in. If your blog is nothing but text, you may be missing out on readers. Creating visual content can be daunting. At Typepad, we use two great programs, Canva and PicMonkey, to create and edit visual content for our blog. Each site has a free version you can start using today.

Canva is a great product to help you create beautiful designs. They have a free version for you to go in and start exploring their countless features. You can customize one of their many templates or start from scratch. They have great tutorials to help get you started using Canva.

The pre-made templates that Typepad uses the most are the Blog Titles and Social Media templates. Preset dimensions make it easy to create visual content that will fit nicely in your blog or social media posts. Canva is also useful in creating infographics. Infographics are a great way to provide information in a visual form. The Typepad team loves to use them, as you can see with our Google Design article, because they are easy for readers to digest a large amount of information visually.

Some examples of visual content created through Canva:

 

 

PicMonkey is a creative tool to help you edit images. You have a chance to show your creativity and style. They have a free version for you to start using right away. You can upload an image, add filters, and add text or overlays to an image. PicMonkey is great for editing a profile picture for your About page on your blog or social media sites. One feature we like is the collage feature. This allows you to have multiple images in one to fit into Facebook, Pinterest and blog posts. Their tutorials are easy to follow and can help you take an image and add pizzazz. Don’t monkey around, upload a picture and start today.

An example of images created through PicMonkey:

Now that you have all the tools you need to start adding great images to your blog posts! If there are other free or inexpensive image editing tools you use, let us know in the comments.

Images turned sideways? A quick image tip.

Composing posts with a smartphone or tablet is a common occurrence these days. What do you do, then, when your image orientation isn't saved and those uploaded images are turned on their side? Our integration of the Aviary image editor is a quick solution to fix the orientation of your image.

After you've inserted your image, and you notice that the image is showing in the incorrect orientation, simply double-click the image. The Aviary image editor will pop up in a window, presenting additional image editing options. One of the first options shown is the Orientation tool, which is what you will use to rotate the image left, right, or flip it top to bottom.

Orientation tool will help rotate your image to the correct orientation.

After you click the Orientation tool icon, the pop up will change and present you the options to correct the orientation of your image. In our example, we clicked the left rotate option to get our image into the correct orientation.

Simply click the Apply/Save button to save your change and return to the compose editor. All in all, the process takes less than a minute to complete and get you back to composing your post.

Do you have a favorite Aviary feature that helps you with your compose experience? Any image tips you think would be helpful to a new blogger? Feel free to share in the comments below!