How to Build a Button for Your Site

I have been asked a lot over the last week how to create blog buttons. There are a lot of design companies that will build these for about $25 each. So if you don’t think you are up to the “design” challenge you can start searching for a company to help. I plan on adding a design section to the site full of graphic/web designers so if you know of any let me know.

If you think you are up to the challenge…keep reading!

First off it really isn’t that hard to build a simple button. You basically need a 125×125 or 160×160 image. The numbers are the size in pixels. There are several programs you can use, basically any graphics program can do this for you. I personally use SnagIt Version 9.1 which I got for free thru a trial program last year. I LOVE THIS PROGRAM!! I use it everyday to capture images for my other site. It is super easy to use and highly efficient.

If you don’t want to spend the money you can use PAINT, a program that comes with Windows so you should already have it installed. There is also a program that is coming with Windows7 called “The Snipping Tool”. You can use this to capture an image off your site to use as a button. Below are some basic instructions on how to use these two programs.

OK once you have your image you need to get the linking code so that others can grab your image and place it on your site. The best idea is to have the image uploaded to a third party site (or your own) and have the image pulled from there. Photobucket is a great (and free) option if you plan to use a third party. Otherwise you need to upload the image to your photo storage and then use that link.

Here’s the breakdown of the image link….

Replace the following with your information….
YOUR LINK – The link to your site www.yoursite.com
BUTTON IMAGE LOCATION – The link to where the button is stored
ALTERNATE TEXT – The text that will show up if the image doesn’t (usually website name)
BUTTON TITLE – The hover text (what shows up when you put the mouse on the image)

Once you have the link created and the image uploaded you need to put the button and the code on your side bar. Most blogging software offers an HTML widget or gadget. You can use that to post the button on your sidebar. First you need to add your image so you simply put the img src (image source) link and then you need to add a scrolling text box so you can give your readers the code they need to post your button on their sidebars. Below is the code you need to do this, simply replace the code necessary….

<a href = "WEBISTE ADDRESS" target="_blank"><img src="IMAGE LINK" alt="" title="" width="125" height="125" /></a>

Simply copy the above code and paste it on your site!

Replace the following with your information and place it in an HTML widget on your sidebar.
IMAGE LOCATION – The link to the image itself
WEBSITE ADDRESS – Your website address

That is it!!! Now you have a button that others can grab!

Building an image in Paint!
- Open Paint and select New or one may be open.
- If you don’t have the option to selct image size. Click on “Resize Image”
- Select 125 height and 125 width in pixels. Uncheck “Maintain Aspect Ratio”
- Here is where you are going to have to play around with what you want it to look like.
- Use the Paint bucket under Tools and the Text under tools – select fill colors
- Also check out the random shapes you can use – select fill colors
- Once you have built it save it as a .jpg or .gif file and upload to your photo storage area.

Using the Snipping Tool!
- Open The Snipping Tool and select New.
- Select the area you would like to copy.
- Save the image as a .gif or .jpg
- Open the image in Paint (see above)
- Make any changes or add text if you would like.
- Make sure the image is 125×125 or 160×160 – resize if needed
- Save your button and upload it!

If you don’t have any of the above options and really would like to get a button built. Email me or post a comment and I will help the first 10 to ask help you build one!