• Technology
  • Sales and Marketing
  • Blogging
  • Site Maintenance
  • Making Money

WebStyle

Helpful tips, latest gadgets and News

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Archive
  • Links
  • Guest Blogger
  • About
  • Contact


You are here: Home / Archives for browsers

Triggit allows you to add links to Amazon, photos and video on the fly

by Tricia

Well I’m back from visiting Vegas.

I was really sick while I was in Vegas so I must say that I only went to Bl0gworld for two hours! However I did take in quite a bit of information during that time. I also attended part of P0stiecon (I was still sick and even missed my speaking engagement there!) and I learned quite a bit there as well.

At Blogworld I learned about a cool application/widget called Triggit. The site is in Beta right now and is only accepting people who are lucky enough to have an invitation a key. Of course I managed to get and I’m currently trying the system out.

Once you log into Triggit your given a code to put in your sites template just under the body tag. They’ve automated the system for Blogger and Typepad users, but as a WordPress user I had to manually add the coding to my site.

Once the code has been added to your site you can easily use the Triggit bookmark that can be dragged into your Firefox browsers tool bar to quickly add links to Amazon products, Commission Junction or add photos from Flickr, videos from Youtube or wine links from Wine Zap and Wine searcher directly into your posts.

As you know images often make a post a little more interesting so you can use the Triggit bookmarklet to add photos to your existing posts on the fly. Like any of the features all you have to do is click on the drop down list in the toolbar that is activated across the top of your page whenever you click on the Triggit bookmark when you are on a page with the Triggit coding and a list will appear which will allow you to pick which kind of link, image or video you’d like to add to your post.

In this case I tried adding a Flickr image. I clicked the Triggit drop down list and a Flicker search bar appeared. I typed in laptop computer and I was shown a number of thumbnails that had been tagged on Flickr with the word laptop. Once I picked a photo I clicked preview and I was then able to place the photo where I wanted it within the post. Once the photo is in the post you can move it around to align it as you wish.

I’ve mainly worked with Triggit adding Amazon links to some of my sites. All you need to do is pick Amazon from the drop down list, choose a word or phrase within your post that you’d like to create an Amazon link for and click search. Often a list of about 5 to 7 choices comes up and if I’m not totally satisfied with the choices I can always change the term to find a more appropriate link. Once I’ve found an Amazon item that I’d like to link to the word or phrase I select it and hit save. The next time I load the page the link is present within the post.

For example to link to an Amazon item for the word Ipod I followed the steps I’ve listed above and you should now see the word Ipod linked to an Amazon item. I also linked to a cool notebook accessory when I used the word laptop computer. Check it out.

I’m certain that you’ll enjoy Triggit.

I don’t have an invitations, but if you like the idea of the Triggit Tool, which is free to use BTW, go to the site and request and invite.

UPDATE: The folks at Triggit liked my post and the feedback I’ve been giving them and they granted me an access key to give you folks so you too can become Alpha testers of this great application:

I’ll tell you more about other interesting applications and companies that I discovered shortly!




Filed Under: Blogging, Making Money, Sales and Marketing, Site Maintenance, Software, Technology, Wordpress Tagged With: Amazon, application, Beta, Beta testing, blog, Blogger, browsers, code, computer, create affiliate links, features, firefox, free, image, images, iPod, laptop, manage, posts, products, Triggit, typepad, Video, videos, Youtube

What not to do to your Blog design

by Tricia

One of the forum that I visit regularly had a thread about what you should not do when designing your website or blog.

Here’s my list of blog design – “what not to wear”

  • Autoplay video
  • Autoplay music
  • flashy buttons
  • too many buttons (put them in a roll up menu if you must have them)
  • advertisements that take up the whole header area making me scroll to see the actual header and posts below.
  • Too many advertisements – don’t do the max Google Adsense – you actually make less money from them if you do too many!!! Plus it turns off your visitors.
  • Pages with so many plug ins, large file size images, buttons etc that make the page really slow to load- or worse cause it to freeze when loading.
  • Text that is hard to read – white on black doesn’t work if you are trying to read a long post – light gray text works better … same for florescent coloured text on black or white backgrounds, or neon backgrounds with black or white text.
  • no paragraphs – this makes posts very hard to read. If you want visitors to come back or stay on your site for a while use paragraphs.
  • Set your posts so that only 5 or 10 display on the main page!!!! We don’t need to see everything you’ve ever written on your blog for the last two years!

Tips!

Use roll up menus in your sidebars if you have lots of buttons or blogrolls etc. It really makes the page look so much tidier.

Test your blog design in Firefox, Internet explorer, Opera and Netscape – all easy to download and have on your computer. Make sure your site loads correctly and works well in all the browsers listed above,

Also look at your site on different computers. Text and background colour might look great on your monitor, but really bad on 5 other computer monitors that you test it on.

As I said in the last point- visitors only need to see your last 5 or 10 posts when they load your page. If you have more than that showing your page will load very slowly.

Same with categories and archives. Do your visitors need to see your archives dating back to 2001? That’s a long list taking up valuable blog sidebar real estate. Use a roll up menu or modify the code in your page so that only 5 or 10 archives and or categories are viewed.

Every once in a while ask your readers their opinion on your page. Ask for constructive criticism. If the majority of your readers state they don’t like something or that your page loads slowly – do something about it.

I’m sure I could add many more points to this post, but I think this is enough to get you started.

Filed Under: Blogging, Site Maintenance, Webdesign, Wordpress Tagged With: ask readers, autoplay music, autoplay video, browsers, color, constructive criticism, firefox, flashy buttons, hard to read, huge images, image, internet explorer, menu, monitors, Netscape, only display a few posts, Opera, paragraph, roll up menu, roll up menus, Safari, sidebar, site design, slow loading, small archive lists, small category lists, spell check, test blog design, text hard to read, tips, too many advertisements, too many buttons, too many plugins, use paragraphs, use proper grammar, web design, what not to do

The 411 on me

Tricia P

Nurse and Blogger, Photographer and secret TV addict. Chocoholic, dog lover and gardener ... More about me.

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter


Categories

Sites to Visit


Eavestrough Cleaning Toronto

Recent Posts

  • What Should You Do If Google Labels Your Website As ‘Malware’?
  • How To Make Your Business Stand Out Online
  • Give Your Animal Website Some Life!
  • QR Codes and How They Can Work For You
  • Forum Plugins For WordPress
  • 4 Most Common Blogging Mistakes Made by Small Businesses
  • Why Internet Marketing Just WORKS

Recent Comments

  • Robert Gloster Web Design Limerick on Forum Plugins For WordPress
  • sightseeing in pattaya Thailand on Bad Behavior plugin blocks site administrators – plugin now updated to resolve problem
  • Ramu Konidena on How To Make Your Business Stand Out Online
  • Emma Fernandes on 4 Most Common Blogging Mistakes Made by Small Businesses
  • Hanna Alex on How To Make Your Business Stand Out Online

Subscribe

  • Full Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS

Read WebStyle in
your RSS Reader



Get the WebStyle
Newsletter by E-mail

and keep up with the latest posts. It's FREE.


Follow us on Twitter!

Shopping

Computers, electronics,
gadgets, Gifts and More!
At our Amazon store.

Tags

affiliate articles blog Blogger Blogging Blogroll computer content domain download Google How To instructions Internet marketing keyword link listed market marketing monetize money plugin popular posts problem products promote register search engine search engine optimization search engines SEO Software tech Technology traffic Video visitors web host webmaster website Wordpress wordpress plugin Writing Yahoo

Site Stuff

Visitors



Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Pages

  • About
  • Archive
  • Become a Guest Blogger for WebStyle
  • Blog
  • Blogrolls
    • Canadian Bloggers
    • Do Follow Bloggers
    • Toronto Bloggers
  • Contact
  • Disclosure
  • Links
  • Our Sites
  • Privacy Policy
  • Resources

Search

Archives

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in