Should I Put My Photos On My Website or On Flickr?

I blog about animal training, and end up with quite a few good photos I’d like to share with my readers. I put a few photos in my posts every now and then, but would really like a place a reader could go to view a collection of my photos.

Here’s my question– is it better to self-host my photos on my site or use and outside site, such as Flickr?

I think both methods can be useful, depending on your goals and business model.

For a photographer who makes money selling his photos or doing freelance work, for example, it would be important to have both things. He would need to have a website with samples of his work and a portfolio, but he would also need to have a presence on social networks where people share images (Flickr is the main one, but Facebook could also help). This presence on social networks would help him to expose his work to more people, to network with other photographers, to meet potential clients and so on.

If your goal is to make money directly with your website (e.g., by selling advertising or related products), however, then hosting the photos yourself would be a better idea, because those might bring more traffic and increase your earnings.

This seems to be the case of the reader who asked the question, so I would put most of the photos on the blog itself.

She also mentions the idea of creating a gallery. I think this can be useful for the user, as it facilitates the browsing of the images, but I would make sure that each photo also appears inside an individual page focused on a specific topic. For example, if you have a picture about teaching a dog how to sit, place inside a place where you explain how the process work. The combination of a relevant title tag, a unique piece of text and relevant keywords will make the image rank better in search results.

Finally, here is a tip for those who are not playing with images yet: images can drive a lot of organic traffic, because Google is integrating image results on most search queries. In other words, creating a niche website or blog around a topic with plenty of images (e.g., celebrities or sports images) could work well.

Blogger or Writer: 3 Ways to Nourish Your Writing Roots

Everyone knows you can make money writing; authors of books, newspapers, and magazines are all presumably paid for their work. But people are consistently intrigued with the idea of earning money blogging. Why is this, when a blog is basically a series of self-published articles? A blogger is a writer that goes above and beyond to do their own publishing, marketing, and monetization.

The lifeblood of blogging is the writing craft. Too often we hear the “content in king” cliche and accept it as the final word. We decide that our topic is important or interesting, and therefore that we have the content part nailed. But content is not so much the information provided as the manner in which it is conveyed. We tend to forget this, and pour more effort into the logistics of the enterprise than into the literary backbone.

I have fallen for the blogger-writer distinction about as hard as anyone, starting with little writing experience. This made it blatantly clear to me that I had some work to do. Reading had given me a feel for good writing, but creating it did not come as easily. The blogosphere of course has many tips: you should write write list-posts, follow your interests, and create snazzy titles — but such tips will not correct serious deficiencies. The most compelling advice I’ve encountered points to practices that take time and dedication. I have found the following three most helpful towards the blogging platform.

Practice 1: Develop a rich vocabulary. Almost all good writers use a diverse set of words because it allows them to express finer shades of meaning, state ideas succinctly, and adjust the sound and rhythm of the writing. You do not want to concoct ridiculously ornate prose, but the right word at the right time can pack a powerful punch — whether it is to motivate, persuade, inspire, or entertain. As a bonus, you will sound more intelligent, for we naturally intuit what formal studies prove: vocabulary sizes correlate very strongly with IQ scores.

Practice 2: Practice imitating styles. Your favorite bloggers or writers probably have distinct voices formed by their sentence structures, word choices, and emotional appeal. Do they lure you in with short anecdotes, or jump to the main ideas? Do they employ metaphors and imagery, or state ideas plainly? Is the voice conversational, or formal and journalistic? Practicing writing in other voices helps you stretch your capacity and better understand your own mechanics. See if you can make your writing indistinguishable from that of whom you emulate.

Practice 3: Reduce the number of words as much as possible. Concise language is clear and vibrant. It forces you to use a decisive, active voice, rather than meandering around topics on which you have little to say. Try taking a post and cutting the words in half, without sacrificing content. Even if you think the piece is irreducible, commit yourself to this exercise. I think you will be surprised, as I often am, how much extraneous writing surrounds your core ideas

About the Author: Brad in the author of Word a Day Wonder, a site that teaches vocabulary using fun and interesting facts.