How to Make Your Blog More Attractive by Flash Animations

Here are millions of new bloggers come to the Internet with their fresh blogs. At the first view, it's quite impossible to attract any visitors to your sites since you can't figure out how many blogs similar to yours are born at the same time. Even if someone comes to your site, possibly he will decide to leave or stay after a quick scan at your homepage in few seconds. So how can you seize the chance of the few seconds to make him stay? Forget the highlight on text, odd website design or funny images. You audiences have already been immune to these tricks. In that case, why not let your blogs active with Flash animations? In the following paragraphs you'll get familiar with how to have Flash animations to boost your blog in three steps. What things to prepare for Flash animations? Collecting materials will be a quite big problem. There're three solutions to gather and make materials for your Flash movies. 1. Download images from image hosting sites. Many image sites like Flickr and Google Image offer libraries of images. However, some of them are copyright protected, so you should send request to the original owners of the image and ask if it's OK to use the image on your blog. 2. Capture screen of your blog. Use screen capture tools to gather some key point image you want to show at homepage. There're also some add-ons offering screen capture features like Screengrab in Firefox browser. 3. Record video clips. For how-to or presentation theme blogs, you can add a short demo video. You use camera to record a self introduction video, or just make screencast with screen recording software like Camstudio (free) or DemoCreator (with video editing features). How to make Flash animations? Once you finish collecting all resources, it's the time to start making Flash animations. Here we offer you two ways, depending on different end users for different demands. 1. Generate Flash with Adobe Flash. Adobe Flash is the world leading Flash producing software which allows you to make amazing Flash animations. However, it's not freeware and you might spend long time to master it, so it's only recommended to those professional webmasters and bloggers. 2. Use PowerPoint and PowerPoint converters combination. PowerPoint is much common and easier to use for general users, compared with Adobe Flash. You can create a new slideshow and insert all objects you collect into it. By adding animation effect and object decoration, you can also make a vivid slideshow. Then convert the PowerPoint into Flash-based file with some PowerPoint to Flash converters like PPT2Flash. How to publish your Flash animations? You should spread your Flash movies as wide as possible, increasing more chances people would watch it and find your blog. One thing you have to know is that many websites and blog platforms accept their specific video formats, but you don't have to worry since the PPT converter mentioned can handle it easily. 1. Upload Flash to Google Site. You can use PPT2Flash to save your PowerPoint as SWF file which is allowed to upload to Google Site. Remember to leave your blog link at video description bar so people can come to your blog by clicking the links. 2. Embed Flash in your blog. WordPress is one of the most popular blog publishing platforms which offers many customized features to create your unique blog. You can upload Flash file or paste the SWF URL to WordPress and it will appear at your homepage. Conclusion Hope this article will help you increase your blog traffic and attract more visitors by making your own Flash animations. With the help of screen capture and PowerPoint to Flash conversion tools, there won't be so many difficulties to make your blog stand out from the crowd. If you have any new ideas, please share to us, too. Reference: Article by Axl Zhang