PRESENTATION OF YOU - Your Blog Signature (Part 1)
Dear Readers -
Craig Daniels, from Staten Island in New York City, NY, offers posts that teach and teach and teach without stopping! He is a dyed-in-the wool techie -- no doubt about it!
Here is the first part he submitted about producing a Blog Signature. Having Craig in our community means lots to learn in a well-written and clear manner. We can certainly be glad he is a member of ActiveRain!!!
Let me recommend other posts Craig has contributed to ActiveRain.
From Craig's Classroom Blog:
Craig's first post from 2011 was about Playing in the 'Rain. Here is another about Profile Page Cover Photo. On to the Profile Picture itself: Or other learning opportunities:
*** Getting Points for Comments *** Where is that Blog Post? I Know I Wrote it!!!
*** Customizing and Embedding Google Maps [video]
All the best - Lynn
PS If I haven't had the opportunity to thank you personally for your reading my posts, let me do so now. I enjoy writing and am delighted you stopped by. Love reading your comments as well. L.
Your blog signature is a significant pivot point opportunity that you may be missing out on. In this multi-part series, let's look at how we can leverage this opportunity in our favor!
First of all, what is a blog signature? Your signature block is what appears immediately after the main content of your blog post. In essence, it is an author's mini-bio. If somebody has just really enjoyed the content of your post, it answers the question of "who is the person that just wrote this?" But besides just your name, this is your chance to connect with your audience more. Tell them a little bit about yourself. Give them opportunity and reason to connect with you further!
If you give them nothing else to click, where will they pivot to next? If you offer nothing interesting, they may just close the browser tab and move on. Give them something else in your digital world to connect to. Make it easy for them to stay with you! The ultimate goal of course is to actually connect with them in business. You have a service (or product), and knowing that they do have a choice, you want them to select you as the one to work with. If this were football, and you just made a hugely successful running play (i.e. the blog post they just read), don't fumble the football at the two yard line! Your signature is your chance to take it straight into the end zone.
So let me show you what we are going to create in this how-to series.
As you can see from the signature makeover above, the new signature has more visual appeal and it also gives very clear next-step pivot opportunities. To make this how-to more helpful, we'll use a real world case blog signature makeover with one of our ActiveRain members, Nick Vandekar
As mentioned, we're not going to be able to tackle all this in a single how-to post. For today, let's begin work on the left side (visual) content. If you haven't already read my post on taking screen snapshots, you'll need that knowledge as we'll be using it!
In Nick's case, his main geographic area is located northwest of Philadelphia. I wanted to illustrate that on a map. We'll be using a semi-transparent yellow circle to show his primary area. But first, we need a map. Choose your favorite map site, but I love Google Maps, so that's what I'll be using.
The standard Google Maps theme (above left) is one option. However, this map style is very dominated by the roads. That's fine when you need to plan a driving trip, but our map is more about location and vicinity. So I opted to switch to 'Terrain View'. This made the roads less dominant which is what I wanted. Once you get the map zoomed and panned to the right area, then you'll use your screen snapshot skills to capture a rectangular image of the area you are looking for.
Keep in mind that not every blog signature would have a map. In some cases, you might want a composite created from your portrait and another photo that typifies your area or specialty. In this case let's look at a composite that might work for somebody like Anna Banana Kruchten .
So you have choices in your own creation. In either case, do you see how the visual aspect of the blog signature makes it more appealing? We enjoy visual presentations. They has more impact.
In both these cases above, I used composite images. In other words, it is not just a single photo but a couple of images overlaid together. Adding shapes, color highlights, and text on top also is additional layers that can add depth to your composite.
That will be the next post in this series, how you can easily create composite images like these. From there we'll move on to the right side content creation which includes text about you and your social site icons.
Are you ready to redo you blog signature? Stay tuned for the next posts!
Hi there! Thanks for checking out my blog today. I'm a tech guy living in New York City but I love that I can reach so many via means of the web. In my blog posts and tutorial videos, you'll get many new takeaway points that you'll be able to apply. By following my blog (button below), you will be able to see my new posts in your "following" newsfeed. If you enjoyed this post also be sure and click "like". It helps me see that my content is hitting the mark!
My blog home page lists my most recent posts, so if you feel like reading more, that's the place to go next!
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