Dopp Juice Archive

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked someone to resize an image and heard the response, “How?” The quick answer is “Use Photoshop,” but not everyone has a $600 budget for image editing (or the time to learn such a complex program!). Add in the fact that many people work on public computers and various platforms, and even the most basic software is hard to rely on.Let’s face it: sometimes it’s hard to find a decent way to fix an image quickly. Enter CreatingOnline.com. They took a common problem and found a way to offer a free solution. Their Online Image Editor makes it easy to upload any picture, resize it, tweak the colors, crop it, and add text. All within your browser. And it works with Firefox!If I sound overjoyed, it’s because I am. This makes my work 100 times easier. Now I can ask someone to resize an image, send them the link, and trust that they’ll be able to handle it. And I know I’ll be using it too, while floating between public computers on campus. I do have a few gripes. It’s not flawless. The “add clipart” function, while useful, doesn’t allow me to resize the clipart images to make them fit the composition. Dragging objects across the screen, while impressive for a browser application, doesn’t work very smoothly or quickly. But it’s free. It crops and resizes from the web. Use it for that, and forget the fancy clipart. It does its job well.

Have you checked out Seth Godin yet? He’s up there among my favorite public figures. He writes a lot, theorizes a lot, and tells us all how to market more effectively. “Knock Knock” is Seth’s new free ebook. I’m a big fan of free things in general, but this one is really worth our time. He talks about websites — any website — and how to get what you want from it more effectively. It’s not just for web developers. Website owners will learn a lot, too. You can download the ebook here from me. If you want more, go visit Seth’s Site. Click his head to read his blog. It’s inspiring.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Put simply, it’s the art of guessing what a search engine needs to rank your website well in its results. I’ve talked to a number of people who believe this is a magical skill. That you must be a specialist — or at least a highly-skilled web developer to build good SEO. That all you need to do is run your site past an SEO Master and VOILA! Search Google for “good stuff” and your site will be #1! Here are the facts:

1. SEO is not magical. It doesn’t happen quickly and there is no major secret that will propell you to the front lines by tomorrow.
2. A major component to SEO is knowing what key words people search for to find you, and using those words in your site.
3. An even more major component is getting related, respected websites to link to your website.
4. The big secret behind SEO is that it takes work. It takes research, it takes marketing, and it takes analysis. But anyone with a little free time and some motivation can do it.

For a more complete overview of the basics of SEO, check out my article, 10 Ways to Optimize Your Site for Search Engines. Once you have an idea of what you’re getting into, kick off your research at HighRankings.com.This is a necessary skill for owning a successful website. Give it a shot. You can do it.