Creating a Visual Call To Action ~ Step by Step
In the Squidoo Christmas Cash Blueprint it mentions that you should use a “visual call to action”. This is an image you create with the picture of the product, the money they can save, and a mention of Amazon. The whole thing is clickable and gives people a great visual image to click on and get to Amazon via your affiliate link.
People have been asking exactly how I make these visual call to actions. So I’m gonna show you. Now before I get started I have a couple confessions I have to make.
1. I am graphically challenged. I have spent over a year trying to puzzle together how to make these things in a simpler more direct fashion but haven’t figured it out yet so this is still what I do.
2. I KNOW this is not the easiest, fastest, or BEST way to do this ~ I just haven’t figured out anything better as of yet. (When/If I do I’ll let you know)
With that said ~ let’s get started.
What you will need:
You are going to need 3 programs to make this work (I told you it wsan’t the easiest thing lol). All the programs are free, so grab them, since they’re great to have for lots of other things as well.
1. Jing (captures things on your screen)
2. Irfanview (resizing and playing with images)
3. Paint or something similar (should come with your PC under Start-> all programs -> accessories) (at least that’s how it is on my windows )
Go ahead and download and install the first two things if you don’t have them already.
Step 1. Grab an image of your product.
You can get it from Amazon, just right click on the image and then click “save as”. (I have a specific folder for all my marketing images so I can always find them easily and they don’t get mixed in with the millions of pictures of Hanna)
Step 2: Get your amazon icon image.
You will only have to do this once, because once you have it you can use it over and over again. You will be using Jing for this, and I can’t show you because I can’t use jing to show you how to use jing. It’s very simple though. You can get a quick run through of how to use jing on their website ~ a nice video. What I can show you is what you need to grab with Jing.
That’s all you want is just the amazon logo ~ it’s on the top left hand corner of every page.
3. Start putting it together.
For this step we’re going to use irfanview. You also need to note how much of a savings there is for the product you’ve chosen. You will find that on the Amazon page as well.
Go ahead and open Irfanview. You will want to open a file once you get it open. Choose the image you took of your item from Amazon. Here’s a video showing you how to add space to your image and add the text about saving money.
After you’ve finished creating your image you want to click “save as” in irfanview and name your file (using your product keyword) and save it where you want it on your computer.
4. Add the Amazon icon.
Once you have your new image saved you are going to go to Paint, and we’ll add the amazon icon there.
5. Add visual Call to Action Image to your lens.
You will notice I used code from photobucket in the video ~ I just go to photobucket and grab the “html” code option under the “share this” area. I paste that into my module, and then fill in my information instead of the photobucket information. This helps me make sure I get the code right and I know it will work.
That’s all there is to it. You can also use these images on your blog posts and anywhere else you need a visual call to action for your product.
UPDATE: A lot of people seem to be having trouble with this step so I’ve created another video walking through the exact steps you need to take. I uploaded my call to action image to photobucket and have done all the steps you will need to do to make this work. I hope it helps.
I hope this has been easy enough to understand even though there are a few steps and a few different pieces of software to use. If you have questions specific to the process go ahead and ask them in the comments section.
If you need some one on one help I’m here for you.
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Other Posts That Might Help:
Generally plainer is better. You can’t add adsense to your lens ~ squidoo does that, it will have adsense and ads along the sidebar. If you’ve done what is described in the blueprint it will be fine. Did you add some product images in your text modules? That’s usually more than enough visual interest. If you’d like a lens review once you’ve published it you can click here to order one.
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Hi Jackie,
There is an Amazon module. How is that different from Visual Call to action?
G.
It’s totally different, and you can use an amazon module to create a call to action. A call to action is something that really tells people to do something. Click here now to save…
The amazon module just highlights/spotlights one product ~ but if you use the right wording and some html you can create a call to action out of it ~ I think I talk about that a ways up in the comments.
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Hello,
Understand you are probably busy with other things, I did get your email about a recent post (which I responded to) Just wanted to know if you got my last post.
I did answer you. Look at the Nov 18th comment from me. That’s to you.
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Opps!!!
Do you have a section that teaches me how to put borders and block quotes around product review content for color background. Squidoo has some tutorials but they do explain borders around pictures.
If you look at the articles page you will see a post on the reviews module, in it is a link to the code for the boxes.
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I may have a relatively unrelated question about the Christmas Cash Blueprint. On page 10 of the ebook, you say, “If you don’t have an Amazon associates account use the Amazon spotlight module to feature your specific product.” I have an Amazon associates acct, but where do you add the link to your product with a hoplink from Amazon. I’ve tried the “Most Important Thing” module and the Text module and neither will display the hoplink. Can you help?
my guess is you’re trying to use the image links from amazon ~ they don’t work on squidoo. When making links at amazon you have to choose the “text only” option and create an html link, which you can see how to do in this post: How to get html from Amazon
Just so you’re aware there is an “articles” page link at the top of each page of this blog you’ll find an easy way to find what you’re looking for there.
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Hello Jackie,
I am just working on my second lens a plan to have you look at them this week. I am a bit confused about the second one as it is a TV stand that has 4,400 global searches, but my confusion is that today most people mount flat screens to the wall or they buy a pole like stand with mount. The one that I have chosen is made of the finest wood and has compartments for other storage. I does display a picture with a flat screen TV on top though. Could you give me some feedback. I have the whole week to devote working on lenses, blogs etc…
If people are searching for it, and the competition is within range it should work.
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Jackie,
I have added some images from photobucket to my lens. But as I scroll over the image (from my lens) it is displayed as being clickable. How would I make it an unclickable image?
save the images to your computer and use the browse upload feature in the module.
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Hello,
Do you know if squidoo sometimes doesn’t accept images because it was working before, know it seems to reject images that they say they accept such as Only GIF, JPEG, PNG I am getting frustated because I need to add a few more images before I have you review them, and I do not want this problem to continue. Other than that I need to start other lenses and blogs, it always seems like something holds me up I can spend a whole day and not get a single lens up. I am frustrated!!!
Have you checked the size of your images? If they are huge they won’t upload.
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Yes, Squidoo will let you know if the image is too big. At that time I went back to photobucket to resize the image. Squidoo still did not accept. I do not know, I will keep trying I guess. Amazon images seem to be no problem. Also, Keyowrds. Just say I have high global search volume(say 4,400) for an exact product name for example (I am not using this by the way) Omron HEM-780 but then there may be search volume(say 1,000) for Omron HEM-780 With Cuff would I be safe to still use Omron HEM-780 but maby use “with cuff” throughout your lens or add them as optional keywords to your lens Squidoo has a section where you can enter optional keywords.
I have issues sometimes with images from photobucket ~ so I’m not sure what to tell you. You either find different images that work, or you leave them blank.
Yes you could do that with your keyword.
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Hello again,
I am trying to add my call to action on another lens. I did it before but everytime I copy and past the html from photobucket into the moduel it says: “Because of your browser security settings, the editor is not able to access your clipboard data directly. You are required to paste it again in this window.
Please paste inside the following box using the keyboard (Ctrl+V) and hit OK” and after I do this only the html code shows up in the moduel. In your video you do this process in the “Most Important Thing” Moduel. Is this the only place that the call to image can be uploaded?
Sorry,
After I change it to the way your video teaches (which works) I paste the code from photobucket inside the box (or window) make my changes within the box (amazon code) and alt keywords. But the htm code ends up showing up in the squidoo moduel.
Jackie,
I found a free tool that lets you do everything in the “call to action” module that you are using all those other steps for. It is called XHeader and you can download a copy at http://www.xheader.com.
It has a complete help file and you can probably get tutorials online by googling “xheader”, but it was pretty easy to learn and I have used it on the last couple of Xmas cash lenses I built recently.
If you would like to see the results my last lens is at http://www.squidoo.com/panasonicsdyd250breadmachine.
BTW that lens was created following your guide. Thanks for all your excellent help and information.
Steve G.
yes I recently found xheader and I’m still trying to figure out how to make it all work. I’ve used it to make a couple headers for sites, but haven’t gotten much further. I’ll look into it some more and see if I can’t figure it out.
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Jackie – I’m working on my first Visual Call To Action and cannot seem to get it to display in the Most Important Thing module.
Can you break down the code you use even further in a text format?
Here is what I gleaned from your video on putting the code into The Most Important Thing:
Am I getting this correct? If not, your further explanation would be great.
Hmmm….the html code doesn’t display in that post. Guess I’ll have to email you.
check out the last video in this post again ~ I really go through each of the steps of the code to show you how it works.
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I GOT IT! I had a couple of extra characters lingering in my img link code! Thanks!