Photoshop Video Tutorial : Change eye colour using the Colour Replacement Tool
Posted by Jennifer | January 30, 2007
Hidden underneath the brush tool in the Photoshop toolbox (and often ignored), you will find the Colour Replacement tool. In this video tutorial, we’ll look at how easy and quick it is to replace the green eye colour of a young girl with the blue eye colour of another girl.
How To Change A Person’s Eye Colour In Photoshop
What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Posted by Jennifer Farley | January 30, 2007
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means setting up web pages so that they can be found easily by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Making your web pages search engine friendly can improve your web site’s ranking which can result in thousands of monthly visitors otherwise you site may go the way of a Eurovision Song Contest winner i.e. lost in oblivion. There are so many millions of pages on the web now, that you need to make a big effort to be found. Search engines are used about 3.5 billion times a day to access information on line. Most users will only look at the top 20 results so it’s obvious how important it is to be ranked well.
Why search engine optimization is imperative for your site
Search engines have rules and by ensuring that your web page follows some or as many of these rules as possible, you can improve your “findability” on the web. If your web pages fit the criteria that a search engine considers the most important factors in terms of relevance, then it will reward you with a top ranking.
1. Keyword research
One of the ways that search engines rank your site is by determining how relevant it is for a particular keyword. You could think of the Internet a huge, mostly disorganised library – search engines are the librarians. They do their best to organise the content so visitors can find what they’re looking for with minimal effort. Because the internet is so huge and there is so much information to index, the search engines try to organise the information using keywords and links.
When you are writing content for your web pages one of the most important ways to optimise your site for search engines, is to write text based around the keywords you have chosen to focus on. You can demonstrate your relevance to the search engine by writing content that is rich in your chosen keywords.
Ok, that makes sense but you must be careful not to use your keywords so often that is sounds unnatural to a visitor reading the text. This in known as keyword stuffing and is severly frowned upon by the search engines. Not only will this alienate your visitors, keyword stuffing will ultimately damage your rankings.
So part of the search engine optimization specialist’s job is to make sure the Web pages target the keywords that people search for when looking for products, services or information related to what the Web page offers. The variety of keywords used to search for the same product, service or information is quite staggering.
You don’t have to pay someone to find the keywords for you, however, as there are several tools available on the web which can help you find out which keywords are popular and also help suggest keywords which are related which you may not have thought of before.
Try these sites:
Google Keywords - generate keywords.
www.goodkeywords.com - free downloadable software to help you track keywords.
www.wordtracker.com - take a free trial.
For example, today I did a search on Google Keywords for the most popular keywords phrases used by people searching for the word “ Ireland holiday”. This is what came back:
As you can see there are many variations used to search for information on the same topic.
Before Web pages can be optimised, it’s important to conduct some research to determine which keywords to target. This involves finding targeted keywords, determining their popularity, assessing the amount of competition, and then deciding which keywords to use in your Web pages.
2. Links
How link popularity affects your search engine rankings Link popularity refers to the number of links pointing to and from your site to related sites. It is another important method of improving your site’s relevancy in search engines.
Search engines assess the links point to your site from others when they place your site in the rankings. A link from another site is seen as a vote of confidence, based on the idea that others think your site is good.
There are three types of links that will increase the link popularity of your site. Let’s take a look at them now.
Internal links
Internal link popularity refers to the number of links to and from pages within a site. It’s a good idea to cross link your most important related pages. This helps the search engine spiders find and index your most important pages more quickly.
Incoming links
Incoming link popularity refers to links pointing to your site from other related sites. There are two ways of finding sites to link to yours. The best way to get other sites to link to yours is to ask them politely. And the best way to find likely candidates is to ask web sites that link to your competition. You can find out which sites are linking to your competitors by visiting a search engine such as Google and enter, “link:” followed by the competitors domain name. For example:
link:ireland.com
link:www.coke.com
To check the link popularity of your own sites, use your own domain name.
Once you have compiled a list of related sites, you can add a link to them in your site and then ask them will they provide a reciprocal link on their site. You can do this by email.
Another way of finding sites to link to yours is to find sites that accept site submissions. To find such sites, visit a search engine, such as Google, and search for:
“add url” “your keywords”
So for example if you are a photographer, you will find there are many photography sites which offer site submissions. They usually provide free links and you will get new visitors to your site through these links.
Outgoing links
The importance of outgoing links is still being debated but the idea is that search engine spiders will crawl your site’s outgoing links and determine that the content of the sites you link to are related to the content of your own site.
Link quality
The quality of the links is just as important, if not more, than the number of links to your site. The types of sites you should concentrate on getting links from include major search engines (Google.com), popular search portals (MSN.com), web directories (Yahoo.com and Open Directory Project - dmoz.org) and sites related to your site’s theme.
Link exchanges and farms
It’s important to avoid quick fix link schemes and automated link exchange software. Do not get links from link exchange sites and link farms. Link farms are networks of heavily cross linked pages on one or more sites, with the sole intention of improving the link popularity of those pages and sites. All of the major search engines consider such links as spam, so stay clear of these types of links. It is better to focus on generating links slowly and steadily. Spend a little bit of time each week working on your links and you will start to see the results. By keeping your optimisation techniques simple and working with the search engine guidelines you can improve your ranking and the number of visitors to your site.
Laughing Lion Design add all their clients sites to the major search engines and provide lists of suitable related sites.
What can a Blog do for your business?
Posted by Jennifer Farley | January 20, 2007
You’ve probably heard some of the hype about blogs. Blogs exist on everything from Britney’s baby to stamp collecting. Blogs are simple web pages (and yes, a Blog is a website) that you can create, write and maintain yourself without any technical skills for only a few Euros a month. They are often described as online journals or diaries, but really the can be so much more than that. So why would you want to use one for your business?
Both businesses and traditional journalists alike had begun looking at blogs in a different way. Blogs are really just a content delivery method, but the thing is they are really easy to use. You can update your blog instantly from any internet connection on any computer anywhere in the world. You don’t need to learn HTML or web design. You use a special type of blogging software (called a blog platform) to create and update your blog. You type your post into a simple online form, click “Publish” and it’s instantly available online for the whole world to see.
Writing a blog you can help your business and online presence because you will be offering your clients and prospects fresh content on a very regular basis. Blogs are generally written in quite an informal way (almost like sending an email to your friends) so visitors can get to know you better. By providing links to information related to your business area you can can demonstrate your expertise and knowledge in the field.
To break it down simply, having a successful blog can:
- Boost your web traffic
- Build trust with prospects and clients
- Increase the size of your email list
- Make you money online
Knowing what a blog does is one thing, but the best way to get acquainted with the conventions of the blog format is to read them. The more blogs you read, the more you’ll get a feel for the depth and breadth of style and subject matter they have to offer. The following list of sites contain links to blogs devoted to every topic under the sun. Take a bit of time to read a few.
Technorati
BlogPulse
Ice Rocket
Blogdex
One site I visit regularly, is problogger, an excellent site devoted to making money from your blog.
There are many different blogging platforms available. Some are free, such as blogger, and other require a payment, which is generally not very much. Typepad blogs are available from about €5 per month. The difference between the paid for and free blog platforms really comes down to features. For example, blogger does not include categories which is a very useful tool.
At this stage you could sign up for a free blog and try it out to see how easy it is. Eventually you will need to make a decision about what platform you will use. To differentiate your blog from everyone else’s your blog should will need to reflect your business, and should include your company graphics and logo.
So any small business can start, build and have fun with blogs. Use your rants and raves and opinions to get more traffic to your site and gain a flood of new customers. Start now.
Photoshop Video Tutorial : Speed Up Your Post-Scan Editing
Posted by Jennifer | January 15, 2007
If you scan in photographs you will often find that they appear slightly crooked when scanned in, or if you scan multiple photographs in one go they will sometimes appear skewed on the scan. In this video tutorial you will see how to use the Automated Crop and Straighten option to very quickly and easily get around these problems.
Speed Up Your Scanned Image Editing With Photoshop And The Autom - The most popular videos are a click away
Free Photoshop File Download : Reusable Post-It Note
Posted by Jennifer | January 15, 2007
Here’s a free Photoshop file for you to download. I made it for a poster I was working on and I think it’s a handy file to have around to reuse.
You can download a zipped version of the file here.
Let me know if you find it useful.
Photoshop Quick Tip: Displaying Image Size Information in Photoshop
Posted by Jennifer | January 12, 2007
Rather than choosing Image > Image Size to open the Image size dialog box, a really quick way to find out Image size information in Photoshop is to press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and then Click and hold down the mouse button over the file information box at the bottom of the document window.
A little box appears telling you, the width and height of the image (in pixels AND in the currently selected unit of measurement), the number of channels and the image resolution. Rapid!
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About
Hi, my name is Jennifer Farley and I am a designer and design instructor based in Ireland. Read more about Laughing Lion Design .
