How to make your blog posts something more, without getting in trouble

We all know everyone just scans on the internet, they don’t read in the same way as how you read a book.  What can you do to make your blog a resource and appeal to all types of readers? How do you engage them for longer?

I discovered Zemanta 18 months ago, and I love it. It’s a powerful little tool that gives your blog the edge in terms of images, links and related posts.

How do we use Zemanta?

When you are writing a blog, you have other things to think about aside from the actual words. Sometimes you need good images, other times you need to quote from another blog and sometimes you will need to add references or links to explain uncommon terms or a particular point in more detail..

Zemanta does all of this and more . It can be downloaded into Firefox and then used on any blogging platform, but not forums. It can also be used in email such as Gmail.

Firefox download.

When you have download it into Firefox, it will appear in a column on the right hand side of your screen. As you type your blog post it will start to make suggestions so it’s dynamic and ‘listening’ to your words.

Adding an Image – When you add an image from elsewhere on the internet, it’s probably subject to copyright and needs certain things even if you have permission to use it – like accreditation and /or a link back to the owner. When Zemanta is downloaded, in the right hand side tool bar will be thumbnail suggestions of suitable images. Right now it’s showing me the firefox logo as a suitable match to the text I have typed so far. If you have a Flickr account, then you can add images from that when you set it up.

Images are also searchable – just take a look at this little box here – you don’t even have to leave WordPress to search!

If you are typing your blog posts int he visual section, you can drag and drop the image to where it suits you and set defaults so that the selected image is always on the left or always on the right, whatever you prefer.

In text links. Underneath the text box as I type is a list of suggestions that may need explaining, so far thumbnail, copyright, Zemanta, and Firefox are all appearing.

Tags – When I have finished typing I can move back to the right hand side toolbar and have a look and see what tags it suggests for the post, if I like them then I only have to click on them and they will be added.

The ones boxed in orange in the image are the ones I have chosen to use. In each section the option selected is highlighted with an orange box making it easy to know which you have selected.

Related articles – if you don’t use a plugin on WordPress for related links, or use another blogging platform, then Zemanta will also suggest related articles that you can add yourself.

If you click the ” my sources” tab, you can suggest where to get related links from – It can be other blogs you own, or blogs you like by your favourite bloggers. Again it’s all in the right hand tool bar. It allows you to link to other blogs with ease and in time, your blogs will be added and people will link to your content if they like it – it can be a good traffic builder

At the end of every blog post you will see a little orange icon, saying get Zemified (or similar). On this post it’s a blue ‘reblog’ button If you click this it will allow you to take parts of this post and link back to it, in other words it makes things very easy to quote extracts from this blog and any others you find with the little orange icon.

No blog is an island, it needs to link out and reach other blogs and it needs other blogs to link in to it, to grow both readers and traffic. This little orange button helps create a good link with the source credited, enabling your blog to reach out to others.

The last nifty little trick Zemanta has up its sleeve is very useful to those bloggers that want to monetise their blogs, it allows you to add your Amazon Associates ID. Then if you write book reviews or movie reviews, it will add to the list of in-text links the most suitable Amazon links for you to use. It has the default for it’s own Amazon account, so if you are planning to use this you will need to add your own details as soon as you can. I don’t mind not having my Amazon account added, as Zemanta is a free tool to use, giving them my Amazon revenue is fine with me.

A quick video, showing you just how easy it is to use.

Zemanta in 60 Seconds from zemanta on Vimeo.

And as you can see, it has added its own links giving the video the correct accreditation.

Let me know how you find it; I couldn’t do without it now.

Sarah