From time to time, I like to make blogging tutorials. I know that a LOT of the people who read my blog are bloggers as well, and I like to write posts that I KNOW they will find useful. This is one of those posts. Knowing this coding is essential to blogging. Whenever you put an image in your sidebar, whether it’s an ad or your own blog’s button, you use this code. If you look down at the right side of my blog, there are quite a few ads and buttons. They all use this coding. (Some are a little more intense than others, but this is the basic code).

I used this a little while ago when I made the button on the right side of my blog for the 31 days to a closer family series. I show you the process I went through. 

There are a few terms you need to know before we start this tutorial. 

1. image src – the image src is the url of the image you want shown. I know that sounds pretty intense, but it’s not. I would tell you what src and url stand for but… I don’t actually know and I’m too lazy to look it up. This is the part of the code that tells your website what picture to put up. Here is how you get your image src -

1. Upload your picture to an image hosting site. I use photobucket and that’s what I’m going to show you on this tutorial. 
2. On the right side of the page, there is a box that says “links to share this photo.” The link you want is the one called Direct. That is your img src. Copy and paste it onto a word document so you have it later. The img src for my button is http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y446/corp8292/31daysbutton_zps9748236c.jpg

2. The URL you want the picture to link to. This is the website you want the browser to direct your visitors to when they click your button. I wanted this button to take traffic to the intro page of this series, so the URL I wanted was http://www.amouseinmykitchen.com/2013/09/31-days-closer-family.html. Figure out what URL you want your picture to link to and save it in the word document as well. 

Okay, now that you have those two pieces of information, I’m going to give you the code you need. It looks like this: 

 <a href=”URL here” > <img src=”insert img src here” alt=”name of your button” width=”150″ height=”150″ > </a>

That code will make a button that is 150 pixels x 150 pixels. You can change the width and height to whatever you want. Keep in mind that if you make it too big and your image has a low resolution, it won’t look good. 

So, I want a button that is 300 x 300. After I insert my URL and img src and change the size and name, my code looks like this - 

< a href=”http://www.amouseinmykitchen.com/2013/09/31-days-closer-family.html”><img src=”http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y446/corp8292/31daysbutton_zps9748236c.jpg” alt=”31daystoacloserfamily” width =”300″ height =”300″></a>

That is just showing up as code because I entered into the visual editor on my blog post. When I put it in my text editor, it looks like this:

If I add the code <center> to the start of the code and </center> to the end, it looks like this: 

If you were paid for the button in any way or if the button is for an affiliate link, you need to add the code rel=”nofollow” after the URL. So it would look like this -

< a href=”http://www.amouseinmykitchen.com/2013/09/31-days-closer-family.html” rel=”nofollow”><img src=”http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y446/corp8292/31daysbutton_zps9748236c.jpg” alt=”31daystoacloserfamily” width =”300″ height =”300″></a>

That is just for google search purposes. You and the site that is getting the traffic can be penalized with lower google ratings if you fail to add that code. 

Once you have the code, you can either put it right into a blog post or on the sidebar using a text widget. 

There ya go! Let me know if you have any questions. 

What other blogging tutorials would you like to see? 

The post How To Make An Image Into A Button For Your Blog appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

The number five post from the last year was: 

11 of my favorite free fonts

2013 Mutual Theme Bookmarks

How to Home School Your Preschooler

2013 Mutual Theme

10 ways to learn to love running

During this last year, the blog has had 44,776 visits, 35,807 unique visitors, and 84,619 pageviews.

We have  1848 facebook fans, 879 twitter fans, and 1148 pinterest followers. 

We have HUGE hopes for this next year and a lot of good things planed to share with you all. 

I have been SO grateful for this opportunity to blog and share my feelings/ideas/projects with you all. I love that there are people who actually want to read what I have to write. It gives me a little break from an otherwise hard day of child raising/house cleaning/cooking that I so love. Thank you all for your support. 

And anyone who is trying to “make it big” in the blogging world (not that I have by any means) I have one word of advice. Keep trying. Don’t give up. Because people DO want to hear what you have to say. It just might take them a little while to realize that. 

Thank you all for making this dream of mine a reality. 

The post A Year In Review appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

Note: I’ve been told that Pinterest gets rid of your affiliate links. I’m not sure if that is true or not. Be sure to add a coupon code to the image you are uploading if you have it so that you will get credit for any sales that are a result of your pinterest pictures. 

Pinterest can be an AWESOME way to get traffic to a website. Over 30% of my traffic comes from Pinterest. Everyone gets how to use pinterest, right? Pin a picture, it links back to the website it was pinned from. But what if you want it to link to a different website? Or what if you have a picture you want on pinterest that isn’t actually ON the website you want it to link to (or any website?) Not a problem. 

One time you might want to do this is when you are an affiliate for a company. They often give you a certain URL so they can track who you referred to their website. For instance, I am an affiliate for Spark Natural. My affiliate website is http://www.sparknaturals.com/?affiliates=533. That link takes you right to their home page, but it tells them that I sent you. 

So, I designed this image:

And I want to put it on pinterest, but when you click on it on pinterest, I want it to take you right to the Spark Natural’s website, not my blog. So there are two ways you can do this:

1. If the picture is on my website somewhere I can pin it and then change the link. I assume you know how to pin it. In order to change the link, open the pin (click the “see it now” button after you pin it). Click on the little pen in the bottom corner. 

A box will open with some options. One of the boxes says “source”.Change the source to the URL you want the pin to lead to. 

2. If the picture wasn’t on my website anywhere, I can manually upload the image to Pinterest. Do this by clicking the plus button next to your name in the upper right hand corner.

After you click the plus button, click “upload a pin.” Choose the image you want to upload and insert the URL you want. Simple as that! 

I hope this tutorial helped you learn how to upload an affiliate button to Pinterest!

What other tutorials would you like to see on this blog? 

The post How To Upload an Affiliate Button to Pinterest appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

All of these fonts are free and I found them all at dafont.com. It is such an awesome website and almost all of the fonts are free for personal use. 

Christmas Trees

Christmas

Christmas Card

Christmas Lights

Christmas Snow

Christmas Tree

Christmas 3

PWChristmas Font

Christmas Eve

Frosty Holiday

The post My Favorite Christmas Fonts appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.

It’s been a while since I have done a blogging post. It seems like they are always really popular. I guess it is mostly bloggers that read other blogs! 

People seem surprised sometimes to learn that I am able to make money off of my blog. They are more surprised when they learn that my blog is less than a year old and most months I am making over $200. Granted, that’s not a real income, but it is a little extra money that I can use when I feel like doing a little shopping. 

Most of my income comes from reviews. I receive an item, review it, and receive payment for the review. 

Before I made any money blogging, I started with free reviews. I was compensated for a review with a product and nothing more. When I first started, I reviewed anything I could get my hands on. My first review was Pedi Protexx, a product you put over your wet toenails after you paint them to avoid scuffing the paint. They retail for about $15 and I received no compensation for the review. Now, less than 8 months after that first review, I am receiving products that retail at over $250. 

So, how do I do it? How do you get started? 

Here are some websites that I am a part of (a few of them are affiliate links, fyi)

Blogger Linkup: This website sends out an email 1-3 times a week with a list of companies looking for bloggers to review their products. This is where I got my first few reviews. Most of the companies don’t require a certain number of pageviews or anything like that. If they like your blog, they’ll send you product. There is no compensation for these reviews, other than the product itself. 

Tomoson: This is another website that offers reviews with no compensation. There are some qualifications for some of the products such as a certain number of facebook friends, pageviews, twitter followers, etc. 

Sverve: Sverve has both paid and non paid reviews. Some of their campaigns are reviewing products and some campaigns are a promotion of events that brands are having. There is also an option to get paid for tweeting. 

Double Duty Divas: This website sends out emails when they have campaigns that are open for bloggers to apply for. If you are selected, you will receive a product and sometimes a compensation for that product. Their products are usually from well known brands and are always really fun. 

Mom Central Consulting: While I have had success from each site I have listed in this list, I have had the most success from Mom Central. They also send out emails when they have open campaigns. Their reviews almost always have a compensation in addition to the review product. It is usually an Amazon gift card, which is always fun. 

Those are my favorite review sites! Good luck and happy blogging! 

The post Getting started reviewing products on your blog appeared first on A Mouse In My Kitchen.