Photo Dropper is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy for you to search Flickr for photos with Creative Commons License and insert appropriate images into your blog. Information about the plugin can be found at: http://wordpress.org/plugins/photo-dropper/

Installing the Plugin

You can install the plugin by logging into your WordPress control panel and click on “Plugins -> Add New” on the left menu.

On the next screen, search for Photo Dropper. When you find it, click “Install Now”:

You will be asked for your FTP information in order to perform the installation.

Once you click “Proceed’, you’ll see a screen that indicates your plugin installation has become:

When the installation is complete, click “Activate Plugin”:

Now your plugin is ready to use.

Using Photo Dropper

Now you can create a new post and use Photo Dropper. When you create a new post, you can see the Photo Dropper icon as one of your options at the top of the post.

Click the icon to search for images. In our example, we are searching for “red rose” and get the following results:

You can choose the image that you’d like, choose small (S), medium (M) or large (L) size and it will insert the appropriate attribution into your blog post.

Warning: Confirm Licensing Details

While ongoing use of Photo Dropper seems to indicate it’s pretty accurate in using appropriate images for commercial websites, you should always confirm the license allows you to use the photo for your website. You can see the image information by clicking the arrow icon in the bottom left before you add the image:

This brings you to the image page and you can find the license information on the right menu:

Click the “Some rights reserved” and you’ll see the details about using the image. Make sure to read them completely.

Don’t want awkward or long links on your website? Using affiliate links and don’t want a dozen strange characters in the URL? Pretty Link Pro allows you to get around the issue. The plugin can be purchased and downloaded at: http://prettylinkpro.com/

Pretty Link Pro lets you change any link to a short and simple link, hosted on your site as a redirect. You can track how many hits go through the redirect, choose the redirect type and even rotate random pages through the URL. You can even have certain keywords you include in your blog posts automatically become links of your choosing and this is where it becomes a very handy monetization tool.

Step 1: Click Add a Pretty Link

Start by clicking “Add a Pretty Link.”

Step 2: Enter Your Target URL

Copy and paste the URL you want your link to go to into the “Target URL” box.

Step 3: Choose Your Pretty Link

By default, Pretty Link will generate a random snippet of text for your link. You can easily change it by deleting the text and writing your own.

Step 4: Write a Title and Description

Enter a title and description for this link.

Step 5: Select a Group

Choose a group for your link. You can add groups by clicking “Groups” on the left, in the “Settings” tab.

Groups allow you to easily select whole batches of links at once. This is useful for creating reports, as well as just for organization in general.

Step 6: Choose a Redirect Type

Choose what type of redirect you want Pretty Link Pro to use.

Here’s what each of these types means:

307 Temporary: This tells search engines that the redirect is temporary and the old page should still keep its listings.

301 Permanent: This tells search engines that the new Pretty Link is permanent and that it should index the new link.

Pretty Bar: Puts the page after the link in an iFrame, so that your users see a bar on top of their browser that can quickly take them back to your site.

Cloaked: Makes it so that users see your Pretty Link in the URL bar even after they land on the target page.

Pixel: For users who want to use Pretty Link as a pixel tracker, rather than an actual redirect.

Step 7: Set Parameter Forwarding (Optional)

If you’re using additional tracking options in your URLs (i.e. keyword IDs, Clickbank IDs, etc) and you want to make sure those trackers are preserved, then enable parameter forwarding.

Step 8: Enable Keyword or Link Replacements (Optional)

If you want Pretty Link Pro to automatically go through your blog and replace words and/or links with the new pretty links, do so by specifying it here.

Step 9: Rotate URLs

If you want Pretty Link Pro to randomly send people to different URLs instead of just one URL, enter those URLs here.

The weight factor is basically what percentage chance someone has of landing on that URL.

Step 10: Split Testing (Optional)

If you want to use Pretty Link Pro as a split tester, then click the checkbox to enable it.

Make sure you have rotations setup in the previous box, each with a different landing page with different variables.

In the Goal link, select the URL of your “Thank You” page. Pretty Link Pro will track the number of clicks each version of the site gets, along with how many conversions they got and report back.

Step 11: Go to Reports

To see how your links are performing, go to the Reports tab.

Step 12: Set Up the Report

Click on “Add a Pretty Link Report” to add your first report.

First, give it a name. This is only visible to you and is primarily so you can identify which report is which. Then select which links you want to track in the reports. If you want to track conversions, make sure you also select your Goal (i.e. “Thank You” page) links. Once you’ve created your report, click “View” to see the report.

Step 13: Reading the Report

In the report, you’ll see the Hits, Uniques, Conversions and Conversion Rate displayed in a table.

You’ll also see all your data displayed in a graph. Hover your mouse over any bar graph to get the exact numbers.
Congratulations! You’ve now learned how to setup a Pretty Link, configure it and view its reports. You can use Pretty Link Pro for anything from split testing to link cloaking to just good old fashioned link tracking.

‘Dropping’ Images to Your Articles – Using Photo Dropper to Find and Insert Images into Your WordPress Blog Posts