The best free photo editing software

Properly designed website cannot bring internet traffic without good graphics. That’s why every photo and image you upload should be of the highest quality. Here’s our list of the best (and FREE!) graphic editing programs on the market.

1.       GIMP – easy to use and has a lot of options available. You can prepare photos for your webpage or design your logo without any problem.

2.       Photoscape – used to edit and browse through photos. It has a lot of interesting options, but the best of them is the ability to bulk-edit large quantities of images and prepare presentations.

3.       Picasa – its main purpose is cataloguing photos, but it can also make small changes and offers cropping, sharpening, colour changes etc.

4.       Photofiltre – a huge variety of filters can entirely change your photos. A lot of plugins that add another functions is another advantage.

5.       Photoshop Express – a basic version of the well-known (and expensive) software. It has only a fraction of features of its bigger cousin, but nonetheless, it can do many things no other application can do.

Why websites designed in Flash are worthless?

Not that long ago a web page written in flash was very common on the Internet. But nowadays, in the age of complicated SEO services and page rankings it is not a very good idea. Flash is literally obsolete and doesn’t conform to the newest rules of Search Engines. Why is that?

1.       Flash websites are saved in one file which cannot be thoroughly analyzed by Google.

2.       Furthermore, a Flash website is indexed by Google based mostly on images, while text is sometimes not readable by Google bots.

3.       Subpages are often indexed on the same address as the home page, which is not well received by Search Engines.

4.       Links in Flash menus are hard to follow for robots.

5.       Many internet users use browser plugins which block Flash content, which of course means that its content is not viewable.

6.       Too much Flash animations make the page less comprehensible.

7.       Flash intros make it difficult to check the page’s content – user wants to get a certain information quickly and additional operations needed to read it are considered a bad design.

8.       Flash websites are larger than normal ones, which in turn means they load longer.

9.       Flash pages are hard to optimize (sometimes it is even impossible). As such, if you wish to perform a page optimization, Flash design might be a burden.

Definition of a "backlink"

When you are checking information about SEO, you surely encounter a word „backlink”. What does it mean? Simply put, backlink is a link that leads to your website from another source. A number of backlinks is one of factors determining your site’s popularity, which in turn greatly influences its position in the search engine results. 

Thus, many people think that the more backlinks they have, the better. Unfortunately, it is not that easy – backlinks are rated by their value and only backlinks that lead from other high-ranked pages are considered valuable, while the huge number of links from shoddy pages can be treated as spam by search engine bots and damage the rank of your own page!

How to find a good copywriter

Demand for SEO-centered articles still grows, yet finding a good copywriter who can expertly and flawlessly write is very hard. But it is possible. Here are some hints how to do it.

First of all, check the classifieds on the internet – you can find a lot of people who offer their text-writing abilities for SEO services. You can find single offers or groups which specialize in a given theme for a fee. Using industry websites is another possibility. You can post ads in which you specify what do you need from the writers and seek those who wish to work for you full-time. Such websites are also used by copywriters themselves and they also post classifieds there. It is also good to ask your friends and post an ad or two in local media.

Lastly, you should of course check the copywriter’s skill. How? You can ask them to send a portfolio with their texts or to write an article on a given subject. If you like the style and the skills of a given copywriter, you should immediately offer him a job. Also remember – a good text may be more expensive, but it is worth it.

Useful SEO browser plugins

Internet browsers are used by countless people every day. Their purpose – looking at web pages – is obvious, but they can be also used for SEO – you just need to install appropriate plugins.

They enable you to check the basic parameters of the page, like its PR, age, trust flow and others. Furthermore, some of them can suggest how to improve the optimization and tell you a lot about pages of your competition. 

The most popular plugins worth recommending (both for Firefox and Chrome) are: Seo Quake, RDS Bar, Majestic SEO, MozBar, SEO Doctor, SERPTrends, SEO Extension and Firebug.

How to create a valuable website content?

Photo by Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A webpage without content is worthless. Text is the main mean of information gathering and the internet user can acquaint himself with you or with your offer through it. What texts you should write? Here are some tips!

1. Write brief, but informative texts.
2. Use proper and specific language. Be careful with the sophisticated words – your writing has to be understandable.
3. Be careful with style and grammar.
4. Watch out for spelling errors.
5. Punctuation is important.
6. Make sure your content is coherent and clear.
7. To describe products and services, use superlatives.
8. Use direct forms of speech so the reader can feel important.
9. Format the texts using paragraphs and listings. Wall of text doesn’t look good and not many people decide to read it.
10. Stress the value and quality of the product.
11. Put an accent on the advantages your customer will have.
12. Use proper font size to make the text clearly visible.
13. Put the content in the center of the page to stress its importance. 

Blog administration

People who have a couple or a dozen blogs to administer might have some problems to effectively update them, mainly due to the lack of time. 

Fortunately, there’s a tool which might be very helpful!

Page Manager gives you an ability to log in to every site from one place. Furthermore, logging in to the main control panel provides you with every needed plugin etc. Thanks to its features, many actions can be automated and posts can be published on every site at the same time – it’s just one click away. Moreover, the application provides you with future posts planning and monitoring of received comments. You can also upgrade the security of your websites thanks to WPDASH – it blocks viruses, hackers and creates copies of your pages.