How to embed Picasa Photos, Albums and slideshows for Advertising on your Website or Blog

“Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words”

Newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane to the Syracuse Advertising Men's Club, in March 1911

So you wanna be a blogger after having read Kelroy’s Geezam blog article “10 Online Tools every Blogger should be aware of and use”. If you’ve mastered typing 101 as per my ditty in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to use Windows Shortcuts to be a more proficient Writer” then you’re ready to go.

But wait! How do I add pictures to spice up my blog? Dry words are boring and as we all know a Picture’s a quick segway to the point. Even better an entire album for perusing. A slideshow Carousel would be even more divine.

So here’s a quick primer on how to use Picasa, my favourite product from Google aside from Google Drive that’s the only reason for using Google Chrome as I’m really Mozilla Firefox Fox Fan as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to reset the default Search Engine in Mozilla Firefox”. And all it takes is a small snippet of HTML that you insert in the source code for your blog or website. Here’s the DIY (Do It Yourself) folks using!

Once you signed up to a Picasa account and familiarized yourself with uploading pictures, you’ll realize that these pictures can be used elsewhere aside from just being pretty pictures stored online. Please note that Picasa works on blogs and websites with albums set to “Public” or (preferably) “Limited, anyone with the link” as shown below.

Images on your Website save you on writing long prose

Let’s start with the Basics: Embedding a Picture. Even as a writer on the Blogger platform, I love the idea that you can manipulate your picture yourself as it gives you a greater measure of control over how your images appear, a power Picasa gives you with its myriad array of tools.

Here’s how you embed pictures on your blog or website:

1. Click your album on the My Photos page
2. Click the photo you'd like to embed.
3. Click Link to this Photo on the right sidebar.
4. Set the following preferences:

• Select your preferred image size.
• Select 'Hide album link' to remove a link to the containing album, which is displayed by default with the image.
• Select 'Image only (no link)' to get the image URL by itself, with no link back to Picasa Web Albums.

5. Copy the HTML (Ctrl-C) in the “Embed image” field on the right-hand side.
6. Paste the HTML source code (Ctrl-V) in your website or Blog 

Albums Are a Collection of your Life’s work

Albums are also the next level and display a cover picture which Picasa allows you to customize. This cover pages is what appears on your website and once viewers click the cover image they’ll be transported into your world described in pictures. The instructions are again very straightforward:

1. Click your album on the My Photos page.
2. Click Link to this album on the right-hand side.
3. Copy the HTML (Ctrl-C) in the “Embed image” field on the right-hand side.
4. Paste the HTML source code (Ctrl-V) in your website or Blog

Slideshow show and Tell for your Website or Blog

Now to finally graduate from Picasa Embedding School with the Advanced Course: Slideshows! Picasa allows you to embed FLASH versions of your albums. Best of all it auto-updates when you add more pictures. The instructions are as follows:

1. Click your album on the My Photos page.
2. Click Link to this album on the right-hand side.
3. Click Embed Slideshow.
4. Set slideshow settings, such as image size, captions, and autoplay.
5. Copy the HTML (Ctrl-C) in the “Embed image” field on the right-hand side.
6. Paste the HTML source code (Ctrl-V) in your website or Blog

That’s it folks! Enjoy spiffing up your blog or website with embedded pictures, Albums or even slideshows that update with ever picture you add thanks to Picasa, the best thing since Google Drive.

In fact, if you’re smart and your blog has great traffic, you can sell advertising space on your blog for images and pictures for advertisers products as active linked images, slideshows and albums, no different from the Display Boards in Times Square, New York or even in Half Way Tree Jamaica!

Here’s the Link:

Picasa Web Albums