A stock photo agency is a place where you can get royalty free photos for use on blogs, websites, books etc.

Using a stock photo agency is much better than hiring a photographer because a photographer can supply you with only a limited number of images. On the other hand a stock photo agency can supply you with thousands of images so that you will almost always find what you require. In fact many professional photographers upload their work on stock photo agencies to earn a living.

Hundreds of stock photo agencies are available in the market. The problem is which one to choose?

In this article we have selected some of the best stock photo agencies available on the internet. Of course, “the best” is a loosely defined term and which is best will be different for different people. This is a list of what we think is the best. The list is NOT rank based.

1) Depositphotos.com

Depositphotos is a wonderful website for buying royalty free stock photos. A free trial is available on the website that offers you to download up to 5 images per day for a period of 7 days. The images are categorized under different names to enable easy navigation. Some examples include – Animals, Art Objects, Computers and Electronics, Nature etc.

The approximate price of one photo can vary from as low as 0.10 $ to a maximum cost of 0.63 $. Individual images can also be bought.

The website is available in 9 languages including English, French, and Portuguese etc. Their blog is also informative for designers. It’s worth having a look at Depositphotos blog.

Below is an example screen shot from the site.

2) Shutterstock.com

Shutterstock is a website that has a very huge stock of photographs – more than 18 million. Apart from their website, Shutterstock also run a blog where they discuss things related to photography. This blog is a wonderful source of information for photographers of all levels.

The biggest drawback of this site in our opinion is that they do not sell individual images or at least they do not sell individual images in many regions. You will have to buy a subscription plan if selling of individual images is not available in your area.

The costs of individual images vary from 33 cents to $9.80. Photos, illustrations and vectors all are available.

3) GettyImages.com

This is another beautiful site that deserves to be included in the best stock photos list. The site welcomes you with a beautiful music player clicking on it will make you hear a beautiful music in the background as you surf through the website.

Founded in 1995, it is the first company to license imagery online.

The site has many options to narrow down your search results. For e.g. suppose I want an image that is of a mango tree. Entering the key word “mango tree” will return many results. But suppose I want an image in which there is one person along with the tree. It can be achieved by clicking on a link in the side bar. Then suppose I require an image in which there should be a child with the tree. That too is perfectly attainable.

An example screen shot of the images from Getty Images is shown below.

The first article of the year is brought to us by special guest, Sachin.

Smart and intelligent website design will do more than integrate with your social media marketing and provide the platform for your online marketing strategy. With intelligent integration of smart web-based business solution effective web design will save you a lot of money. There are graphic design colleges that can teach you how to create effective web designs that can be beneficial for your business. Most business owners think of a website as something that is money spent on marketing, but actually we can remove costs in other areas of our business while we make money. Online shopping stores have had the head start on every other business when we look at removing costs and making money, but that does not mean that the same mentality cannot be applied to your business. Let’s look at some of the ways we can save money, and make money with a site that has inbuilt browser-based applications.

• Reducing communication costs. Have you thought about supplying 24/7 support services for your customers. With VOIP (Video Over Internet Protocol) technology, even instant messaging, you can have people working for your all over the world at lower costs as they communicate to your customers through your website. They could even be making a call that is directed through your website – how funky is that? Utilising low cost people because they are in lower cost regions makes real sense. You will make more money because you are providing a better service while you save.
• Reduction of IT costs. If your business has a large mainframe, you will probably need a Windows terminal emulator so your people can communicate with it. If you have new suppliers around the world, they will all need those applications. That was the case before. You can have your terminal emulation application built in, or as a part of your website, and reduce your IT costs. This is only one example and a very sophisticated one, but it does show what can be done. You can implement expansion without having to set up the IT architecture for new local representatives because it is already there – it is online.
• Application integration replacing employees or contractors. Unfortunately for us out there who need a job, smarter applications are reducing the need for people in all industries. You don’t need an accountant and stock manager like you used to because you online applications are managing all that for you. I run my small business and my site collects my payments, sends out invoices and puts it all together for the taxman at the end of the year. Yes, I don’t need an accountant. Sorry about that!
• Market researching costs. Market research is one of those costs at the end of the budget. It is the first to go when times are tough. Smart sites do it all the time. They collect information on whoever is visiting your site and more. If you are a business and looking to expand one day, you could put a portion of your business online. As that online business makes money, it saves you money by gathering data, and could point you in the direction of a new location for expansion. Perhaps you did not know your services were in so much demand in Colombia, for example.

Everyone is excited about Facebook and social media networking. It is time to look at Facebook and realise it is an online application doing a whole lot more. How could your website be saving you money and making you money, at the same time?

Today’s post about site stickiness is provided by The Website Doctor.

An amazing post, with amazing content is great to have, but if your blog design is not up to scratch, then you can wave good-bye to those readers. In a few seconds, you will be reading tips on how to make your blog design the best it can ever be. Well, I hope so anyway. As you can tell from my blog, I’m a bit of a cheap skate. I’m using a free .wordpress.com domain, and my blogs design is, well, not the best. But I do have something that makes me good enough to give you advice. My blog is all about reviewing websites, and I have reviewed some horrendous blogs, and some great blogs. So I am now going to give you some fantastic tips that will help you improve your blog design. Here goes:

1. The dreaded template.

The first thing you should do when you start-up a blog, is changed the template. Changed the header image to your logo and slogan and change the background colour. I don’t think there is any explanation why, but just change it. You want your blog to stick out, not blend in.

To sum up: Change your template header and background

2. Is this a scam?

If you website is full of hyperlinks, Times New Roman text and adverts with a plain white background and single coloured text, people are going to be waiting for a window to pop up, telling them about your new e-book about how to enlarge your you-know-what by 55 inches. You need a proper layout. One clear column with your main features in, then one side bar with a few widgets. Minimize the amount of advertising you have, other people will know you are only in it for the money. Oh, and no pop ups.

To sum up: Use a clear layout

3. Text

Make sure you use a sans-serif font for the body text. No fancy hard-to-read text. This is a sans-serif font, this is a serif font.. Notice that the sans-serif font has clean ends on each letter, whereas serif fonts have pointed or shaped ends, making it harder to read. Also, it really does go without saying, the size. Text that is very big will make your readers think that you are expecting kids or OAPs to be visiting your blog. Text to small and visitors will be wondering if you actually want them to read your post, or if you just want them to get a bad eye site.

To sum up: Make it easy to read.

4. Grammar

This is just as much of a design fault than a content fault. people are not going to read your blog if the grammar is like this because there aren’t any capital letters no full stops no comers and the sentences are so long that by the time the reader has finished reading them they are blue in the face and on the floor. People are also going to think your blog was written by a 5-year-old, if it has little use of capital letters.

To sum up: Write properly.

5. Ease of Use

Every good website is easy to use. If you find it’s hard to use, then you’re probably one of the few people who use it. Make sure your blog or website has a distinctive home page, one that you know is the home page. This means a large logo and slogan at the top, with widgets with news, top stories and other information in your website. If you have a blog, the home page should have a stick post, which explains you blog in a few sentences, so people get the rough idea of why it exists. If your website is full of pages with no menu bar or way of moving around the website, then readers can get lost or stuck, so they will just leave the page. If you run an E-Commerce website, a customer should be able to see if you have a certain product in your store by only clicking three times. Its true! Go and try it on Amazon!

To sum up: Make is easy for your readers.

6. Backgrounds

First of all, if your background is very jazzy and bright, it’s going to hurt people’s eyes when they are trying to read your content. These backgrounds include bright green, yellow, and orange, and light blue block colours, a mix of these colours, or anything that distracts the reader. Don’t skip this bit if you don’t use bright colours. Using picture backgrounds are also not a great idea. Especially if it is a small picture and has been tiled on the page. Just no. You can use block colours such as white, pale colours, grey, black* or any other colour that’s not in your face. 

* When you use a black background, don’t use white text. it sort of pulses when you are reading it, and hurts your eyes, especially if its small. Use a gold colour instead. Much better. If you don’t want to use gold, you can get around this by having a black outer background, then a white background behind the text. Sorted.

To sum up: Keep it calm, don’t jazz it up.

7. Paint still exists?

When you are designing a logo, don’t use paint. It end up with a horrible quality with not so good colours. Download a free trial of a graphic program and use that. There’s not much more to say on this one, but just don’t use it!

To sum up: Make sure your logo is good quality.

8. Picture Quality

I can’t stress this enough. Never ever use low quality pictures on your website. We don’t want to look at pictures that we can’t work out what it is. You don’t see large companies using bad quality pictures on their website, so why should you? On the other hand, don’t use very high quality, large pictures. People don’t want to wait 30 minutes for your website to load.

To sum up: Make sure we can see what the picture is.

9. Steer clear of a competitors design

If you have a clear competitor, don’t go using the same colour background, the same font or the same logo style as them. You want to be different from them, not a knock off version. It very easy to see a competitors website and think, that design is really good. I couldn’t do it better. But you would be wrong. I’m sure if you changed the background colour, or use a different font size, or changed the title of each menu, then you could make it better.

To sum up: Be different

10. What you criticise in others, correct in yourself.

If you see a website, and think Wow, that font looks horrible or Why are they using that colour? make sure your website isn’t doing this too. Before you criticise them, correct your own website first.

To sum up: Sort your design before you sort others.

If you are not sure about your blog design, there are lots of forums or review websites where people will review your website and give you tips. My website, The Website Doctor, offers this reviewing service for free, so pop by and have a little look.

Regards,

The Website Doctor

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So how many of you have a site and absolutely love it? For some of us, it’s second nature. We can sit down crank out a site based on how we envisioned it on our heads.

However, for some other folks, it’s not quite that simple. One of the challenges with building a website is that we usually don’t have all the skill sets needed to create a good one. On one hand, you’ll need your creative juices flowing for the design and on the other hand, you’ll need to leverage your technical know-how to make it come to life. Most people don’t exercise both sides of their brains to the full extent; that’s why it’s a big hurdle that leaves some at ground zero.

When we find that we’re not perfect for certain jobs, what should we do? We hire help to fill the gaps!

Wildfire Marketing Group can provide you with a web design that is based on your input and tastes. Just tell them what you want and they’ll work with you to get you to that goal. We’re talking about pros who can not only customize a site for you but also help drive success, however you may define it. If you want more visitors, they can help. If you want more conversions, they can help.

For those of you who think you’re all set on your website, take a look at Wildfire’s website checklist. This thing is packed things like:

• Marketing planning and strategy
• Creating a search engine friendly website
• Proper HTML and CSS coding
• Design principles
• Proper use of multimedia
• Branding
• Usability
• Website performance
• Conversions
• Improving credibility

All that for a measly $17 with a money back guarantee!

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Today we have a special guest, Dee, who lists some common boo-boos in blogging.

As it stands, there isn’t really any concrete way of knowing exactly how many amateur arm chair writers and business blogs fail on a daily basis, but suffice to say the answer would not be a small number. One of the biggest problems blogs face in the modern way of things is that although they have potential to be hugely powerful, there are just so many of them that the competition is beyond immense. With this in mind, the following is a brief rundown of a few of the most common reasons for blog failures that can be taken as sure-fire ways of killing a blog in a spectacular style:

1 – Lack of Devotion

It really make little to no difference what the subject of the blog is or its overall purpose, the necessary amount of devotion and focus is required to make the blog a success. The biggest cause of all blog failing by far is the way in which many owners feel they are doing a good job with theirs, but are in fact neglecting them somewhat. Consider how many hours per day are actually being devoted to the blog and evaluate whether this is really enough.

2 – Doing it Alone

Taking the reigns and getting into the blog business along can seem a hugely appealing prospect, with full control over the proceedings and 100% of all gains and rewards to follow. However, doing so can be a huge mistake if the subject matter of the blog is one where time-consuming research is needed or other complexities abound. Setting standards too high at the beginning of a new blog can often see the end result come a cropper without a little help from the right sources – so consider involvement.

3 – Forgetting the Audience

It is important to question from time to time exactly whom the blog appeals to and the size of the niche audience out there. More often than not, the reason a blog struggles is because there simply are not enough interested people out there – which is of course something that nobody can put right. If this appears to be the case, consider switching niches to one that will see interest flooding in.

4 – Pure Material Gain

Of course, it goes without saying that the primary driving force behind the majority of blogs started these days is the cold hard cash they can bring in, but if this is the one and only reason behind the blog then the likelihood of it standing the test of time is minimal. There simply must be a degree of passion and drive behind the endeavour to prevent the whole thing becoming a time-consuming and laborious chore.

5 – Following Suit

Whenever something big happens in the industry or the niche that is the subject of the blog, it can be hugely tempting to re-print the details, but it may be best to exercise restraint. The simple fact of the matter here is that nobody is really going to want to read what they may have already read a dozen times elsewhere, therefore if there is nothing more to be said and nothing to add to the information available, perhaps leave it out.

6 – Ignoring Analytics

One of the most wonderful things about the Internet is the way in which business, site and blog owners can track the activities of their readers right down to the very last one – which makes it all the more surprising that millions still never use the software available to do so! Simply by taking a regular look at the analytics available online, it is simple to see exactly what people are searching for, how many of them are searching for it and what seems to be dwindling in popularity. The only way to get by in business is to give the people what they want and with such software around, it really could not be easier these days.

Dee is a freelance writer who has lived (and blogged) on both sides of the pond. She’s provided this concise guide to blogging mistakes, which she herself makes frequently, on behalf of her preferred leather sleeper retailer.

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Getting a lot of requests for guest articles lately. Here’s another one!

All too often, a person will develop a stellar blog idea and even write quality posts, but will fail to consider the appearance of their blog and posts. Just a simple stroll through the depths of the internet will turn up plenty of well written and interesting articles that are displayed in an extremely unappealing way. Many bloggers seem to underestimate the importance of appearance when it comes to both their blogs and their blog posts. An internet audience is an interesting and complicated entity to understand and please. Because of the general nature of the internet, blogs must be both visually appealing and intellectually stimulating to be successful. So, posting amazing articles without displaying them in an interesting and attractive way is rarely going to work. Use these Three visual tips to develop a successful and profitable blog.

Make It Easy To Read

Blog post are all about being easy to read. Huge blocks of text are extremely difficult to read when displayed on a computer screen. While there may be top-notch content drowning in the pool of letters on the screen, no internet reader is going to stick around to find it. Keep things simple and clear. Always keep in mind the way in which people use the internet. People scan and skip around when they read through posts on the web. By keeping this in mind, you can better snag a reader’s attention and create something they will actually read. Use subheadings, bullets, breaks, bolding, anything that will help to divide up the page for the reader’s eyes and make it easier for them to skim through. This may sound somewhat counter intuitive. You are posting things to your blog because you want readers to actually read your posts. By breaking things up and making it easy to scan, you encourage readers to first take a glance at your material and then be wooed by your outstanding writing and topic.

Keep Things Short and Concise

Get to your point quickly. The internet is all about speed and efficiency. Because of this, the internet audience has become spoiled by their need for instant gratification. Readers what to know what they are getting into when they see a post by reading your exciting, alluring, and somewhat informative title. Moreover, once they start to read a post, they want to get to the “juicy part” quickly. As a general rule blog posts should be around 300 to 700 words long, depending on the nature of the topic and the blog’s overall niche. Break up your posts into several smaller paragraphs to avoid huge blocks of text. By keeping things short and to the point, you are more likely to maintain your audience and keep them coming back for more.

Mix It Up Some

Another important aspect of blog appearance is visual interest. No visitor is going to be attracted by a blog that is boring to look at. If your blog is written in plain text with no color, images, or multimedia, it is going to be difficult for you to maintain (or even gain) an audience. Try to include images in your posts. Throw in some video or multimedia posts. Pick intelligent and appealing web themes. Keep in mind, however, that designing (or decorating) a blog can be a tricky task. Be careful not to make your webpage look clutter and disorganized. The key to attractive web design for a blog is clear and simple elegance.

Constructing a blog that is both engaging to read and engaging to look at can be a difficult task. But, as many of us know, appearance is essential to gaining readers and readers are essential to making a blog profitable.

Alvina Lopez is a freelance writer and blog junkie, who blogs about accredited online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez@gmail.com. .

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We have a guest article from Web Profits today. Enjoy!

The things people never seem to learn about blogging are pretty basic- Good blogs work on good web design, good SEO and good marketing, combined with high quality content and interesting news. There are a few big issues with blogs as news sources, and that situation can create some very serious problems.

Blogs often break news, and about half of the time, they get into trouble for doing it. Some bloggers are kamikaze-like, publishing material on a sniff of information, and not caring whether it’s right or wrong. The result can be a lawsuit and/or being totally discredited for publishing garbage. That’s not where you want your blog to be.

Blogging as news

If you’re writing news on a blog, you’re well advised to learn some basic rules of journalism before you publish a single word.

The cornerstones of journalism are:

• Facts- Is the information on which your news is based correct? Does the news source contradict itself, or is it inconsistent with information?  If so, look out. You may have picked up someone’s PR press release material, and that’s not news, it’s propaganda, until you can put it in context with the situation. Always check your information for accuracy.
• Balance- There really are two sides to every story, and in any news context, there can be many more. One side of the story isn’t news; it’s just part of the news. If you’re writing news, you must consider the stakeholders in any news situation. Never be one-sided, unless you write your blog as an opinion piece.
• Defamation- Defamation involves accusing someone of doing something illegal, or damaging their reputation. This is a very tricky area of law, and every word you write can be used against you if you get things wrong. Do not fall into this trap, at all costs. If you’re not sure, don’t publish.
• Opinions- You have a right to your opinions, but if you’re presenting something as news, there’s a big difference between news and your opinions.  You must make it clear that you’re expressing an opinion, not stating an opinion as a fact.

Traps

One of the worst traps for bloggers is website design. Some blogs can be unreadable, with far too much content all over the place. If you’re doing a news blog, that’s death. Readability is the big issue with any news source, and navigation is critically important. Use the default tabs and settings for your pages to make absolutely sure your site is easy to search. (WordPress templates may get a bit turgid, but the design does work. Stick to basics if you’re not sure.)

Other news blogs can be “all pictures”, which is lousy SEO, meaning your blog’s ranking is likely to be dependent on picture tags. That’s a great way of getting to the lowest ranking in a hurry. Worse, it makes your actual text content semi-searchable, and search engines may not react well to a hotchpotch of different tags and vague relevance to search topics.

Keep your formats for news and site design simple, and you’ll get the readers you want.

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