Blogging Tip of the Day: Vol. 125

In most blog entries, it is important to add a clear and concise graphic. Using a platform like blogger for example, your blogs will automatically post to Google + should you have a Google + account, and if you do not have a high resolution graphic in your blog then it will post with the next best thing. Often this would be your profile picture unless that isn't a high resolution graphic, then it will grab whatever high resolution graphic is in your blog. Often this would be an advertisement, an award or in a lot of cases the profile picture of someone who lest a comment on the blog. When no high resolution graphic is found it will default to a low resolution posting format which makes your post be totally lost in the stream. Its rather unprofessional, and often leaves people less likely to share your posts, because it can reflect badly on them by proxy.

This doesn't just effect Google + posts, it also makes Facebook, LinkedIN and Twitter posts look shoddy, and of course will result in poor attention paid to what was probably a very thoughtful blog post. I especially encourage anyone who is posting to The Whacko Blogs to take a moment and add a graphic that will attract attention, and not take away from the post in general. It kinda gums up the Whacko Blogs feeds on other social media platforms. To make sure that you are doing it right, the first thing I would tell anyone who is posting a blog to do is check how the blog posting looks on social media. If it doesn't show up in large format with the graphic then of course you need to fix it and try again. Simply adjusting the graphic on your end (by the selector on the post) is NOT a viable option because anyone who would wish to share a post that you have created will not have that option, and as I said, in a lot of circumstances will opt to hit "cancel" instead of "post" at that point.

Let's walk through this shall we? First we start with what a graphic will look like after you place it in your blog ..

Now as you can see the choices highlighted under the graphic (Small - Medium - Large - X-Large - Original Size) and the default "Medium" isn't large enough to showcase on a post. You have to have it set to "Large" or "X-Large" for this to happen as long as the image is high resolution to begin with. Usually a resolution of at least 640 pixels wide is a safe bet. To check and make sure that it is high resolution just click "Original Size" like below ...

As you can see the image is too large for the blog which means it is high resolution. When you shrink it down to "X-Large" it will look like it does below ...

More important here is what it looks like if you have done it correctly and click "publish" ...

If it doesn't look like it does above, then you should probably hit "cancel" and fix the blog post! It really is the easiest way to ensure that your posts get noticed and shared. Trust me on this one. I personally shy away from posts that are just the same old profile picture or a little low resolution reshare, even if they are on The Whacko Blogs.