Spring is upon us! Well, for some of us.

I know many of you are still experiencing the gloomy grey skies and white covered landscape, but we’re so excited about what all the moisture is going to bring for you this Spring! In celebration of this colorful season, we’re offering a promotion for you to get this upcoming year’s upgrade without sending us any money.

That’s right, you don’t need to spend any of your hard earned cash.

We want to make photo sharing as affordable, and as fun, as possible.

Between today, March 8th, and April 30th you can have fun sharing your way to that one year upgrade (SAVING YOU $17.95) That gives you 54 days to upload a minimum of 50 of your best photos to share with other members, get a chance to get your photos featured, and see your work promoted by our media team (On Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest). If you are still under those gloomy skies, share previous year’s photos!

With our multi image uploader, you can upload a ridiculous amount of photos in a snap. And that’s just what we’re looking for…a ridiculous amount of photos!

Be sure your images are your own, in focus, and that you set them to ‘public’ on the edit page after upload. If you aren’t currently a free basic package member, join today!

Featured Florals

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Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

click to begin searching today

If you have a passion for photography and your local culture, consider contributing to our Travel-Sphere.

Other travels:
Mendocino Coast
Sedona, Arizona
Idyllwild, California

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

 

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• Stock photos also available, how to purchase our stock photos.
• Turning your tags into albums to share
• How to get free credits for stock photo purchases

First you’ll want to log in and click ‘credits’ under your profile photo.

You’ll then click the link for ‘Add a credit card’.

The credit card page is secure and has the lock icon appearing in your browser’s URL window. Once you have entered your credit card information, go back to the credits page and click ‘purchase additional credits’.

Select the credit package you want and click ‘purchase credits’. You’ll then be directed back to the credits page to see your balance and a printable link to save for your records. You’ll also receive a confirmation email from our Paypal account.

Now you’re ready to purchase stock photos.

Using the search engine:

1: Add the key words of photos you’re looking for, separated by commas.

2. Select your search type: ‘for sale photos’

3. You can choose to view older photos in the system or current photos.

Now select a photo and you’ll be directed to the individual page. Choose the size you want to purchase and click ‘purchase photo’.

You’ll then see the screen refresh and the photo will appear in your account. Under the photo is the EMBED/DOWNLOAD tab. You can either download the image or grab the code and use it right away. The photo will remain in your account.

The photo credit remains in the code so the original artist ‘stays with’ the image.

If you want to add text to the image to create Pinterest friendly images, you may do so. You can then upload it to your “Private Pix” and get the code after uploading. Please add a courtesy photo credit to your blog post and link it to the artist’s account.

During her shifts, she would not only take care of her responsibilities, but she was offering to help everyone else with their jobs too. She often worked so hard and so fast that she took tips from other tables, forgetting to give them to her co-workers. Her overly helpful behavior was becoming a nuisance.

free photos Pix-O-Sphere credit Lisa

At this point, Jainey was not just taking care of her patron’s orders, but everyone else’s too. She was experiencing confusion, bringing a latte to the man who ordered a cappuccino and a chai tea to the woman who ordered black coffee. In her effort to be the best and most helpful employee, she ended up fired. Her perfectionism and competitive addiction burned every bridge she had in the shop and none of the servers would speak to her.

Jainey found another job in a delicatessen down the road. When patrons from the coffee shop came in for lunch and saw her, they walked out. She tried so hard to be approved of, that she pushed everyone away.

There’s a huge lesson to learn from Jainey’s experience.

There is such a thing as trying too hard.

If we aren’t careful, we could make the same mistake in blogging.

Developing online relationships with other bloggers and building a readership takes time. We can’t push it. Success is a journey of mistakes and triumphs that needs to be achieved patiently. {click to tweet}

I met with a client the other day to teach him some lessons about commenting. The first lesson was simply to leave comments on other blogs in his niche. A few days later, he happily reported to me that he had been leaving comments. Grinning ear to ear, he showed me which blogs he had been visiting. I read through the various blogs he was commenting on and saw several mistakes that new bloggers often make.

I can gently explain each mistake and dust some powdered sugar all over it to make them easier to digest or I can just cut to the chase. I’ll cut to the chase, because I know your time is important and I’ve already spent enough time giving you the intro.

Hit and run comments.

A hit and run comment is when you leave short meaningless comments on multiple blogs just to get your URL in their comment section. We might as well call it spam.

“Nice post” isn’t meaningful and chances are, no one is going to click over to read your blog.

Leaving hit and run comments on 20 blogs, really is a waste of your time. It would benefit you so much more if you left meaningful comments on 5 high traffic blogs.

Think of it this way, your comment should be short, but packed with a powerful thought which will inspire the other readers to follow you to your blog. Much like a 30 second elevator pitch, only you don’t need to pitch your blog name like an infomercial. You’ll want to leave a comment that portrays the same style and substance you have on your blog.

Be complimentary to the blog author.

Your comment should be like serving up some whipped cream on chocolate fudge brownies. Your comment and the author’s article needs to be in harmony. Just don’t be a kiss-up. People can spot a phony.

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” ~ Mark Twain

Don’t out shine the author.

That would ruin any opportunity you have to develop a solid relationship with them. We don’t need to come across as though we’re there to steal readers. The goal is not to steal readers and if that’s your motive then you’ll only hurt your work and reputation in the long run. People will eventually figure you out and it’ll all be over. You can impress other readers and not be a threat to the blog author.

When the blog author has authority in the niche, you want to have that as a tool in your belt when you post on similar topics. Linking to reputable bloggers in your articles gives authority to what you’re saying. When people know you’re on the same path as their favorite blogger, you’re more likely to gain their attention. So don’t burn bridges with those bloggers or their readers.

“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.” ~George Clooney

Be patient.

Developing online relationships take time. I caution anyone who seems to have instant ‘friendships’. More often than not, instant ‘friendships’ don’t last.

click to begin searching today

Don’t treat their blog like a one night stand.

Become a regular in their community. Bookmark 5 blogs in your niche for regular visits.

Be aloof.

Believe it or not, it pays when you stand aside from time to time. You don’t need to dance with the same person for every song. Commenting on every-single-post seems stalkerish. You don’t want to make people feel uneasy.

Although Jainey is a fictional character, if we follow in her footsteps we’ll end up with months of hard work to build up our online reputations again.

 So start off on the right foot.

If you’d like more tips on building online relationships, then slip your email address into my contact list (<<click there) so you can get updates delivered to your inbox.

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

Once you have your images uploaded, tagged, and saved then go to your profile. On the left side of your profile (under your image) you’ll see a small tag cloud. At the bottom of that cloud you’ll click “SEE ALL MY TAGS”.

On the next screen you’ll scroll down to find the tag. In my example, I wanted to create an album called Photo Group 123.

I’ll first show you how to create the album from that tag. Click EDIT.

You’ll now simply click “Make This Tag One of My Albums”.

Hit SAVE.

You’ll now get back to the tags directory. So now go back to the same tag so you can share this album with others. Only this time you’ll click SHARE. Below is a screenshot of what you’ll see. We’re working on making that massive link into share button that sends a tiny url through email (as well as other options), but for now just copy that link and send it in an email. ONLY those who receive the link will be able to see the photos.

If you’ve set this tag to “friends” or “All Users” then they’ll be able to comment on the photos (if they’re a member and logged in). If you only set it to “friends” then only friends can comment. (If you experience any glitches with this, just comment below with your profile URL. We’re currently fine tuning this process.)

The Album is essentially your Group. Anyone you invite to this Album/Group will be able to view. If you want them to comment you’ll either add them as a friend or allow all Pix-O-Sphere users to comment. You can do that by editing the image. Each image has the edit option under then. Setting them during uploading is the easiest way, but if you want to change that after uploading here’s what you’ll do:

Go to your profile to see the Album: (When you start creating albums, you’ll see another gallery cloud appear at the top of your profile.)

Once you get there, click on the album. You’ll then see the option to EDIT THESE PHOTOS. You can quickly edit the permissions all on that page. Be sure to click “SAVE PHOTOS”.

Happy photo sharing!

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

When sharing images online, you may want to size your photos down to 1200px or smaller for faster loading time on your blog. This also uses less space in your account. Once your account exceeds the limit on your free account, you’ll be prompted to upgrade to allow more photos. Be sure to have the photos upright before uploading.

Once you have your photos the size you want, go to your profile and click ‘Upload Images’. This link appears in each ‘cloud’ on the page. There are three clouds for images: My Pix, Shared Pix, and Selling Pix. (You won’t see the Selling Pix option unless you agree to be a seller.)

On the upload page you can choose to upload one image at a time, or use the multi image uploader (Microsoft might prompt you to download the software if you don’t already have it. Once you download it and install, just refresh your screen.)

In the multi image uploader, you can upload a ridiculous amount of photos! You’ll SELECT images first. If all your images are in one folder on your computer you can ‘select all’ from your PC window then click ‘open’. You’ll see all your image file names listed in the uploader.

Next click UPLOAD.

Be sure all the images are finished before you continue. You’ll see a green check mark and the word ‘finished’ for each item uploaded. If you want to delete an image, click on the garbage icon.

Once all your photos are 100% uploaded, click CONTINUE.

You’ll then see your screen refresh and you’ll arrive at the editing page. This is where you’ll make TITLES, add descriptions, add tags (separated by commas), and set the privacy settings for EACH IMAGE.

Be sure to select the rating. If you don’t set it to either G or PG it won’t get uploaded. Next, specify if you want only friends to have access to comment or if you want all Pix-O-Sphere users to be able to comment.

Here’s where our tagging system is super nifty. Add tags for each photo such as you see in the image. In addition to that, you can add the tag you want to use as an ALBUM or GROUP. In this image I put PHOTO GROUP 123. Not only will these photos appear in our search engine for each key word, but they’ll also appear in the ALBUM/GROUP without  having to upload the same photo multiple times. Be sure to click SAVE PHOTOS.

In the next post, I’ll demonstrate how to create albums and share your photos with friends and family, by key words or by albums/groups.

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

Once you log in, go to the top right of your screen and click “UPDATE MY PROFILE”

Scroll down and add the URL of your Twitter account and TITLE it “Twitter”

Be sure to have your web URL and Facebook page or Google+ pages linked in as well. You can choose up to three links to enter.

Be sure to scroll down and click UPDATE ACCOUNT.

More about our network:

• How you can earn credits to purchase stock photos.
• Explanation of our credits
• Sell stock photos

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.

So you surf through the popular blogs trying to find someone, ANYONE, who will tell you the secret to success. The problem you come across is the price tag to get taught or mentored by them. You can buy their ebook for $30 then try to figure it out on your own, or you can pay $600 to be personally taught by them. I explained a bit yesterday about the dirty little secrets they don’t want you to know.

That was just the tip of the ice berg.

You’re trying to make the dough, not spend it!

The tricks of the trade aren’t that hard to learn. Anyone can learn to craft their blog post in such a way that people will read what you write and spend money to buy what you’re talking about. You don’t have to sound like an infomercial to earn some dough and you don’t have to sound like the traveling salesman convincing people to buy snake oil to cure their arthritis.

photo credit: Lacy at Pix-O-Sphere

Maybe you’ve tried to put your post together and shared your thoughts quite clearly, but you still get very little response. Well, that might be part of the problem. Our society has been raised to learn in a specific way, therefore we have to market in a way they’ll respond to. 

But how do you do it without manipulating them?

Some bloggers and companies have no problem using their marketing tactics to rake in the cash, but some of you have a conscience. You don’t feel comfortable selling cheeseburgers with half naked models catching their barbecue sauce on their breasts. Some of the ads we see on television have absolutely nothing to do with their product. Girls like that rarely eat food from places like that anyway. Commercials show hot young guys drinking beer and attracting all the gorgeous supermodels with just the label on the bottle. The problem with that advertisement is that old overweight men think drinking more beer will get them a hot babe.

I don’t care what label is on the bottle, it ain’t gonna happen.

click to begin searching today

The advertising world ranges from totally absurd to incredibly believable. We have 30 second commercials, 2 hour infomercials, and bloggers with videos flashing stats before your eyes that sound very convincing.

It’s a sea of crashing waves, high winds, and capsizing vessels. How do you get your message across with so much noise and distraction in the way?

Here’s 5 ways how you can get started in the right direction to seeing your dream become a reality:

• Be patient with yourself: There’s no need to delete your blog. Successful people go through all kinds of difficulties making their dreams come true and one of their secrets was being patient and not giving up!
• Keep blogging: Everyone faces the same issues with trying to get their voices heard (or read) far above the others. If you stop blogging, people will forget you and you need to keep your name in the stream!
• Avoid get rich quick schemes: You don’t need to fall victim to forking out your savings or going into debt to take a course with some popular blogger who gives you promises that may or may not work out for you.
• Be prepared to make some big changes: You have tons of articles already on your blog that may need some tweaking. There’s no need to dump the posts, they just may need some sprucing up. Be ready to make some changes.
• Wake up with the rooster: You need some extra time to work on this, but your day already seems way too busy. If you want things to change you have get up an hour earlier even if that means going to bed earlier. You need uninterrupted time to invest in your dream. Every day you don’t rise and shine is another day closer to someone else captivating your target audience.

I’ll be honest with you. These 5 bits of advice are not going to get you instant success. Instant success doesn’t happen. The truth about succeeding can’t be written in one post. If it was THAT easy, everyone would be rich. It ALWAYS takes hard work, but even before the sweat and tears you need to be in the right mindset for success. You need to be prepared mentally and physically. So get the rest you need and get your head out of the fairy tale clouds and look at reality with a calm and focused perspective.

You CAN do this!

I know people get tired of subscribing to an endless amount of blogs, but it’s a heck of a lot easier for me if I don’t have to chase you down on Twitter or Facebook and spam your inbox with reminders. I don’t like being spammed and I bet you don’t either.

If you’re curious about succeeding without forking out $600, simply slip your email address in here and you’ll get the updates sent to you. Be sure to click on the confirmation link that gets sent to you so you can activate your subscription. If you don’t like what you see over the next week, you can unsubscribe.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”~ Winston Churchill

 Related Articles:

Are Bloggers Distracted by Dishonest Marketing Tactics?

The Dirty Little Secrets High Paying Bloggers Don’t Want You To Know!

Time Saving Tips to Increase Your Blog Traffic

Lisa blogs at The HomeSpun Life and is a contributor at The Homeschool Post. She enjoys blogging, photography, and cooking. Her homeschooling family is active in their community and enjoys traveling with friends and family.