How I Create The Images For My Blog Posts
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Over the past few months, I have standardized on the tools and general layout for the images that go with each of my posts. An image can make the difference in whether a potential reader stays around to read your post or leaves to find something more interesting elsewhere.
Today, I share with you my method for making FREE, eye-catching images that will keep your readers around a little longer. If you have a blog without images or with out of date images, you can use these steps to add flare to your blog. To demonstrate, I will be updating the image for one of the more popular posts on my blog from three years ago – How To Respond To The Election Results.
My original post had a simple American flag at the top of the screen. There was nothing to indicate the title of the post or other details that would cause image viewers to head back to my site.
Here are the steps I took to create a new image for this blog post:
STEP 1: Go to pixabay.com. Pixabay.com is a great site for finding FREE images you can use for your blog.
STEP 2: Type in a key word that goes with your blog post title. For example, I searched for images based on the search word: election.
STEP 3: Select an image to go with your post. (When I look for an image, I look for an image with room for a title and other text. I also look for an image that best represents the content of my post.)
STEP 4: Once you’ve selected your image, click on the desired size (I almost always select the small size). Then press “Free Download” to save the image in your download folder.
STEP 5: Go to picmonkey.com. Picmonkey.com is a FREE photo editing tool.
STEP 6: Select you photo to edit from you download folder. (Once you have the photo open, check out all the great ways you can edit the folder by utilizing the editor options on the left side of the screen.)
STEP 7: Select the text editor option by pressing the icon “Tt”.
STEP 8: Select your desired font. (I consistently use Tahoma for my images. I would encourage you to be consistent in selecting your font type as it helps bring consistency to your blog brand identity.)
STEP 9: Enter your text in the text box. (Note: I typically type the blog post title along with a tag line (Jon Stolpe Stretched jonstolpe.com) to help image viewers back to my site.)
STEP 10: Edit the text for size, color, and orientation in the text editor box which will pop up on your screen when you are editing text.
STEP 11: Once you are satisfied with your image, select the “Save” button at the top center of your screen.
STEP 12: Create a file name for your image which you can type in the left “File name” box.
STEP 13: Press “Save to my computer” in the lower left corner to save the image to your computer.
STEP 14: Open your post editor to the desired post.
STEP 15: Move your cursor to the desired image location. (In my case, I clicked on the old image.)
STEP 16: Select “Add Media” right below the title (and above the post).
STEP 17: Select “Upload Files.”
STEP 18: Click on “Select Files.”
STEP 19: Find your saved image, and select the image by double clicking on the image file name or image thumbnail.
STEP 20: Click “Insert into post” once you have selected the file and added any desired information on the right side of the screen. (I usually center my image and make the image approximately 600 pixels wide.)
STEP 21: Your new image will appear in the post editor. Click “Update” on the right screen when you are satisfied with your changes.
That’s it! Just in case, I check out my post by selecting “View Post” to make sure everything looks good.
I know I listed a lot of steps, but I wanted to make sure I detailed everything I do to create images for my blog posts. I hope these steps will help you to brighten up your blog posts.
Do you use images on your blog posts? Is so, what steps do you use to create your images? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Please Take My 2015 Stretched Reader Survey
The Stretched Blog is for me. It’s a place for me to reflect on life’s STRETCH marks.
But The Stretched Blog is also for you. It’s my hope and prayer to encourage and STRETCH the readers of the blog.
With this in mind, I have created a short 11 question survey to help me understand you – The Stretched Community – a little better. I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
Please take a few minutes to respond to the 2015 Stretched Reader Survey below. (If you can’t access the survey below, click here to go directly to the survey.) Thank you!
Powered by Typeform
How Do I Come Up With Ideas For My Blog Posts
No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.
Robin Williams
I was on a retreat this weekend for high school youth leaders from my church. As part of the weekend, we participating in a rock wall team building activity. It was so much fun to climb the wall and to cheer each other on. Some of the leaders in our group climbed up the wall without any problems. Others struggled as they overcame some of their fears and anxieties to put the harness on and take their feet off the ground.
My height certainly helped me out initially, but I struggled for a while as I approached the top of the wall where the hand holds where smaller and spread out more. The activity stretched me to reach higher and to trust my belayer down below.
As I was sitting down on the bench at the bottom of the wall waiting for my turn to climb the wall, one of the leaders came over to me and asked if this was going up on the blog. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it. Her comment though made me think.
Life is going on all around us all the time. She had clearly seen on my past blog posts a pattern of capturing life’s moments and turning them into posts. It’s true. My blog is an effort to capture life’s stretch marks and to reflect on them. My memory doesn’t work as well as it used to, and the blog helps me remember life.
There is inspiration happening all around us. Are you capturing it? Are you enjoying it? Are you living it?
In order to capture these moments, I have developed the habit of keeping a journal. I also appreciate my smart phone where I can capture a photo, a video, or a thought to reflect on later.
How do you capture the moments of life?
Yes. I will continue to ponder what is going on around me. And don’t be surprised if these ponderings become part of the blog.
What happened in your life this weekend worth capturing, pondering, and writing down? Tell us about it in the comments.
The Best Of 2014
Happy New Year!
I’m looking forward to 2015.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it’s a good time to look back at 2014.
Here are the fourteen most viewed posts in 2014 (several of them were written prior to 2014).
Top Posts of 2014
- Experience The Supernatural September 29, 2014
- Ice Breaker – Giving Thanks at Thanksgiving November 16, 2012
- 5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid February 12, 2014
- Ten Things Every Small Group Leader Should Know March 7, 2012
- Redefine Rich September 29, 2014
- September 2014 – Top Posts & Commenters PLUS BOOK GIVEAWAY October 1, 2014
- 3 Steps To Take Before You Can Serve Effectively September 30, 2014
- I’m Losing My Patience – 6 Ways To Rediscover Patience April 2, 2013
- No Excuses! October 2, 2014
- Ice Breaker – Homecoming October 3, 2014
- A Tribute To Grandma October 8, 2014
- Knowing God So We Can Make Him Known October 9, 2014
- From The Mountain To The Valley – Life After Short-Term Missions October 7, 2014
- Ten Reasons To Attend FamilyLife Weekend To Remember February 27, 2012
The people at WordPress created a year-end report to highlight the year on my blog. Here are a few details from their report:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 43,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 16 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
The busiest day of the year was September 30th with 428 views. The most popular post that day was Experience The Supernatural.
Your most commented on post in 2014 was Help Me Pick A Book Cover Design
These were your 5 most active commenters:
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
To see the whole report, click here.
Two of the bigger highlights for me this year was the release of my first book, On Track: Life Lessons from the Track & Field
How was your year? What was one of your highlights from 2014? If you are a blogger, what was the top post on your blog, and who was the top commenter (please share links so we can all enjoy)?
The Best of 2014: Top Stretched Post #1
2014 is rapidly coming to a close, and I thought it would be a good time to back at a few of the top posts from 2014. I’m re-running the top 3 posts written and posted this year on The Stretched Blog. It may surprise you to see which three made the top of the list. Tomorrow, I’ll provide more details on the top posts from 2014. I hope you’ll take time to reread the excerpt from the post and head back to the original post to chime in on the comments.
My #1 post written in 2014 was posted on September 29th – “Experience The Supernatural.” If you are paying attention, this post was posted the same day as the #3 post (shared here on Monday). In other words, the 29th of September was an unbelievable day for The Stretched Blog.
Here’s and excerpt from the post. Click here to read the whole post.
Experience The Supernatural
When I was a child, I watched cartoons. One of my favorite cartoons was Super Friends. I liked watching the superheroes from the Hall of Justice work together with their different superpowers to fight evil. My favorite character was Superman. He was the leader of the Justice League, and his supernatural powers were pretty cool to a young kid.
Of all Superman’s superpowers, I always wanted to fly. I can remember running down the hallway of my parents house from my bedroom into the living room. Several feet from the couch, I would leap into the air towards the couch. While I’m sure this wasn’t the greatest things for the springs on the couch, it was a fantastic experience for me. For a very brief second, it felt like I was flying.
Today, the television and movie screens are filled with stories of the supernatural. People are attracted to the supernatural. They find ways to experience the supernatural through these movies and television shows.
Read the rest of this post here! And check back tomorrow for the other highlights from 2014.
If you are a blogger, share a link to one of your top blog posts from 2014 in the comments below.
What was one of your favorite Stretched posts from the past year?
The Best of 2014: Top Stretched Post #2
2014 is rapidly coming to a close, and I thought it would be a good time to back at a few of the top posts from 2014. Starting yesterday, I’m re-running the top 3 posts written and posted this year on The Stretched Blog. It may surprise you to see which three made the top of the list. On January 1st, I’ll provide more details on the top posts from 2014. I hope you’ll take time to reread the excerpts from the posts and head back to the original posts to chime in on the comments.
My #2 post written in 2014 was posted on February 12th – “5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid.” While the post was written way back at the beginning of the year, I think it applies to many of our situations today.
Here’s and excerpt from the post. Click here to read the whole post.
5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid
This post is stupid.
Wait!
What I mean, this post is all about how to respond when our words or actions are stupid.
We all do stupid things.
We do things we regret – things we’d like to take back.
We have all said something dumb. Once we say it, we want to catch our words and stuff them back into our mouths.
We’ve even done something really ugly. We’d like to go back in time and delete a scene from our life reel. But it’s not that easy.
Read the rest of this post here! And check back tomorrow for the #1 blog post of the year.
If you are a blogger, share a link to one of your top blog posts from 2014 in the comments below.
What was one of your favorite Stretched posts from the past year?
The Best of 2014: Top Stretched Post #3
2014 is rapidly coming to a close, and I thought it would be a good time to back at a few of the top posts from 2014. Starting today, I’ll be re-running the top 3 posts written and posted this year on The Stretched Blog. It may surprise you to see which three made the top of the list. On January 1st, I’ll provide more details on the top posts from 2014. I hope you’ll take time to reread the excerpts from the posts and head back to the original posts to chime in on the comments.
My #3 post written in 2014 was posted on September 29th – “Redefine Rich.” It’s kind of cool that this post was #3 as Matt Ham is just releasing his book (Redefine Rich: A New Perspective on the Good Life
Here’s and excerpt from the post. Click here to read the whole post.
Redefine Rich
What does it mean to be rich?
Matt Ham is on a quest to redefine rich. He writes about it on his blog. He talks about it on his podcast. And he’s getting ready to release a book designed to help you think differently about what it means to be rich.
I’m excited to share some special news from Matt Ham’s world. He recently released a podcast interview with me.
Read the rest of this post here! And check back tomorrow for the #2 blog post of the year.
If you are a blogger, share a link to one of your top blog posts from 2014 in the comments below.
What was one of your favorite Stretched posts from the past year?
November 2014 – Top Posts and Commenters PLUS BOOK GIVEAWAY
Here are the highlights from November 2014. Thanks to everyone who read along and commented. Your readership and participation in the daily discussions are what make The Stretched Community. Thank you!
It was another record-breaking month!
Overall, traffic was up from October (10.73%). Traffic was up 142.42% compared to a year ago. The top 10 posts included posts from 2014 and one from 2012 (the number one post). Again, most of the posts were from late September and early October. There was one post from February. If you missed any of these posts, I hope you’ll go and check them out now by clicking below. The post with the most engagement was one that didn’t make the top 10 list below – Ice Breaker – Ask Me Anything.
Top 10 Posts:
- Ice Breaker – Giving Thanks At Thanksgiving November 16, 2012 (1092)
- 5 Things To Remember When We Say Or Do Something Stupid February 12, 2014 (305)
- September 2014 – Top Posts and Commenters PLUS BOOK GIVEAWAY October 1, 2014 (279)
- October 2014 – Top Posts and Commenters PLUS BOOK GIVEAWAY November 1, 2014 (276)
- No Excuses! October 2, 2014 (258)
- Ice Breaker – Homecoming October 3, 2014 (250)
- Experience The Supernatural September 29, 2014 (238)
- Redefine Rich September 29, 2014 (237)
- Knowing God So We Can Make Him Known October 9, 2014 (232)
- A Tribute To Grandma October 8, 2014 (214)
Top 10 Commenters:
- David Stolpe (21)
- Larry Carter (14)
- Steve Y (11)
- Lulu (7)
- Rick Siderfin (3)
- Michael Shaw (2)
- Caleb Suko (1)
- Carol Peterson (1)
- Dan Black (1)
- Dan Erickson (1)
As promised at the beginning of the month, I have randomly chosen someone from the top commenters list to receive a copy of 
For the month of December, I’ll be giving away another copy of On Track: Life Lessons from the Track & Field
Thanks to each and everyone for reading and for commenting. I’m looking forward to December with The Stretched Community! The month of December will include more STRETCHING posts. More than likely, I will continue to focus on having a mission mindset in many of the upcoming posts, and I’ll be mixing in some Christmas related posts as well.
If you’re interested in guest posting here, leave a comment to connect with me.
How was your month? If you’re a blogger share a link to your top post in the comments? What was your favorite Stretched post this month? How were you STRETCHED in November?
In case you’re interested, here are a few other interesting stats about November (based on Google Analytics):
- Users – Increased 55.70%
- Sessions – Increased 8.63%
- Pageviews – Increased 7.45%
- Pages Per Session – Decreased 1.39%
- Average Session Duration – Decreased 26.23%
- Bounce Rate – Increased 1.20%
- New Sessions – Increased 10.78%
On Track – Life Lessons from the Track & Field is now available on Amazon in paperback and for Kindle. Click the link below to get your copy today.
Looking for a great gift or stocking stuffer idea? Pick up your copy of On Track TODAY!
As a reminder, I am offering a FREE pdf copy of the interior of the book to subscribers of The Stretched Newsletter. Head over to the main page of the blog and sign up on the right hand menu bar to get your copy today for FREE!
9 Keys To Developing Consistent Blog Content
I’ve been at this blogging thing for over seven years now. The first few years, I was fairly inconsistent, but now I publish at least five blog posts every week.
How do I find ideas to write about every day?
This is a question I get often from readers and fellow bloggers. (And to be honest, this is a question I sometimes ask myself.)
Blogging takes effort, and coming up with content for my blog doesn’t happen by accident.
Today, I share my keys to consistently developing content for blogging. After reading today’s post, I hope you’ll have some fresh ideas for developing your own blog content. And even if you aren’t a blogger, I think these ideas may help you get a little more out of life.
9 Keys To Developing Consistent Blog Content
- Conduct regular brainstorming sessions. I grab a blank piece of paper from time to time and write down thoughts as they come to me. If you’ve done any brainstorming before, you know there is one main rule for brainstorming: There are no dumb ideas. Brainstorming gives me the opportunity to write down ideas. Some of these ideas turn into blog posts, and some ideas never get used on the blog. Either way, brainstorming is a great way to start developing blog content.
- Become a constant observer. There are blog ideas happening all around you. Observation is key to capturing those ideas as they happen around you. If you read my blog yesterday, you will see how a 15 second interaction turned into one of my longer blog posts. If you want to develop more consistent blog content, pay attention to what is going on in your life.
- Take notes. This is critical. I have so many ideas that come and go. Without writing them down, I easily will lose most of these thoughts. Start a journal. Keep track on Evernote. Or find some other way to document your thoughts and ideas.
- Ask others. I’ve thrown it out there on my blog for my readers, and I sometimes ask people what they would like to read on my blog. Some of the bloggers I follow have implemented an annual readers survey. I’ve discovered that readers will often give me great ideas. It’s okay to ask. Don’t be shy. (And if I ever ask you, please feel free to share your thoughts.)
- Learn from your blog traffic trends. I’m a numbers guy. It’s just part of my nature. For a long time, I kept very close tabs on my daily traffic. This was somewhat excited on the good days, but it was also somewhat depressing on the slow days. I’ve backed off on checking my numbers every day, but I do take time to assess each month to find out what worked well and what didn’t work well. My month in review posts are as much for me as they are for my readers.
- Consider sticking with a theme. I’ve done this more than once on my blog over the years. For example, I blogged about quality for an entire week. My recent annual trips to Guatemala have given me plenty of writing material. And generally, I write about life, leadership, family, faith, and personal growth (stretching). Think about a theme or a couple of themes that resonate with you and write about it.
- Welcome guest bloggers. Guest bloggers provide a different perspective. And they also fill gaps when you need a break for one reason or another. Guest bloggers help to keep things rolling on your blog when things might otherwise be interrupted. Note: Guest bloggers are a great idea occasionally, but readers generally want to read what you have to say. In other words, don’t overdo it with too many guest bloggers.
- Pray. God’s Word and God’s wisdom is the ultimate source for inspiration. A little prayer can go along way to developing consistent content for your blog.
- Live life to the fullest. Life does not happen on your blog. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve met a lot of great people on-line. I’m so thankful for these friendships. But here’s the deal: There is life waiting for us outside the on-line world. Real blog content is happening when we chose to live life to the fullest.
If you are a blogger, what has helped you find consistency? What is one step you can take this week to develop more consistent content for your blog?
Don’t Be Afraid To Keep Editing – 3 Reasons To Keep Editing
Last night, I spent some time editing a blog post I wrote last week. When I initially wrote the post, I was running close to my normal deadline for posting, and I didn’t have a lot of time to review what I wrote. Admittedly, I didn’t put a lot of time into my introduction. There were also some grammatical issues that I should have fixed. Before I made the post public, I had a couple of choices to make:
- I could have kept the post in my draft folder. It may have made it to a “real” post someday, or it may have simply been lost forever in my draft folder.
- I could have pressed publish on the post as is. Painters or writers never move to artists and authors when they fail to release their product.
These seem like the only two choices, but I think there is a third option.
What if I press publish and then go back and edit and update later?
There is something most bloggers never consider. Editing after making the post public is often overlooked by bloggers. After hitting publish on a post, many bloggers are onto the next blog post. Today, I’d like to help you identify three reasons editing is an important discipline.
3 Reasons To Keep Editing
- Editing keeps you humble. When you edit, you are admitting that your initial effort could be better. This takes humility. If you are like me, you hate to be wrong. In a way, editing is the process of accepting that you could do a better job.
- Editing keeps you stretching. Editing is a process of learning and growing. When I sent my book out to and editor and a small list of reviewers, it gave me the opportunity to stretch. I’m glad I took time to edit my blog post from last week, it gave me the opportunity to grow.
Editing keeps you on a trajectory toward higher achievement.
- Editing ultimately leads excellence. I feel much better about the final product now that I have taken time to edit. Editing will take you to a higher level.
Here’s a link to the edited post – 3 Changes That Happen When You Go On A Short-Term Missions Trip. I’d love to get your feedback on the changes I made to this post.