Chiclet - How to build small buttons for your Blog

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What's a Chiclet? It's those little bitty buttons you see on blogs everywhere...

Hey! I want one of those little blog buttons with my website name on it! How do I make those? Where can I put them? What are they anyway?

The truth is, they are easier than they look because of some great online tools.

These are Chiclets (or at least that's what I call them, they probably have some better name but I look at them and think 'chiclet')

These small little guys can make a huge impact on your marketing and networking efforts on the web!

My Chiclet Collection`

This is a chiclet collection of all the sites I own or manage (inc. some lenses)

What are these things good for? Anything?

Sure they are! Just give them a chance.

Here are some common uses and benefits of Chiclets over traditional link lists.

They are much more pleasing to the eye. The graphic naturally draws the eye a lot more effectively than a wall of blue hyperlinks.
They can show your affiliations. I've seen people with chiclet blocks that include their school, job, organizations, and basically anything that they support. They are a great mosaic of a person.
They help your networking voice. It is much easier to market a blog or other site if you have a chiclet for your client/customer/reader to add to their content. Links are boring, but if someone asks me to add their chiclet to my site when I use their service, I almost always do.

How to Make em

A couple of different approaches to chiclets.

Blog Buttons (Chiclets) are predominantly made in 2 sizes: 80X15 & 80X31 pixels. Here's a step by step guide to making your own!

Build the graphic. You can always create your own button using Photoshop or other image editing software. However, if you are fully fluent in that software, I probably don't need to teach you how to make chiclets :). I would recommend going to the Blog Flux Button Maker or one of the others in the link list and following the simple steps to make your image.
Save this graphic that the button maker produces to your computer. Don't forget where you put it!
Upload your picture to the web. If you don't own your own web space, you can always take advantage of Picasa (a Google Pack Software) to host your pics online.
Create some HTML code. Super Easy I promise!

Use the following Structure:

<a href="http://www.grumpstump.com/"
target="_blank" title="Mouseover Words">
<img src="http://www.grumpstump.com/the-grumpstump.gif"
alt="Alternative Name" /></a>

Where the first web address is where your chiclet is linking to

"Mouseover Words" are the words that will appear when you mouse over the chiclet (not required but it is supposed to help with SEO)

The second web address is the location of your chiclet graphic. Find your graphic where you have posted it on the internet and copy whatever is in the address bar of your internet browser into this line.

Alternate Name is what will be displayed if your graphic can not be found.
That's it! you are done! Copy and Paste your new chiclet code into whatever webpage you would like it to appear in. Tell your friends! You now have a logo instead of a link!

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Best Button Making Websites

If you've got a site that's easy to use lay er on me

This is a list of the best 'chiclet' button makers on the web. If you use a different tool, please feel free to add it.

Chiclet - How to build small buttons for your Blog

What's a Chiclet? It's those little bitty buttons you see on blogs everywhere...

My Chiclet Collection`

This is a chiclet collection of all the sites I own or manage (inc. some lenses)

What are these things good for? Anything?

Sure they are! Just give them a chance.

How to Make em

A couple of different approaches to chiclets.

Other Great Lenses to Help You

Best Button Making Websites

If you've got a site that's easy to use lay er on me

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Please pick your widget size and display. Then click "Make the Widget" to get the code that's just right for you.

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Come visit my chiclet collection

More Blogging Tips and Tricks

Chiclets are a great start, but what else can you do?

Recent Visitors and Supporters

Thanks for your support and stopping by!

Do you like chiclets (blog buttons)? Think they're dumb? Do tell!

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