TECH: Getting Started with Making Sidebar and Banner Ads in PicMonkey

As the blogging world continues to evolve, more and more bloggers are hosting their own ads and creating their own buttons for their site.  You’re probably sick of me telling you that if you’re a blogger, you can submit an ad to be hosted on Relishments for free.  But perhaps the reason you haven’t made any ads or buttons to display on your site or someone else’s is because you don’t know how.  Good news – you can create ads, banners, badges and Pinterest-friendly images online for free.

I’ve been kind of obsessed with PicMonkey ever since I saw a presentation about it at last year’s Healthy Living Summit.  Though I’d used the site prior to that, I’ve been extra interested in it since.  I’ve used PicMonkey to help create many of the banners and buttons on my site, as well as editing my images and adding text to them for Pinterest.  It seemed only fair to let you all know how you can do the same, whether you want to make something for your own page or to share somewhere else.

Disclaimers of all sorts:  this is the first time I’ve used my laptop, Jing and Screencast to create videos to share.  Please let me know what you think.  That said, I have no affiliation with PicMonkey, Jing or Screencast beyond the fact that I find them to be really useful, free tools.

Getting Started with Making Sidebar and Banner Ads in PicMonkey (direct video link)

In case you don’t have time or interest in watching the 5 minute video above, here’s the basic rundown:

1. Go to PicMonkey.com
2. Select “Edit” on the homepage, then choose a photo from your computer, Facebook, Flikr or Dropbox
3. PicMonkey will start you out in the Basic Edits section of its tools.  Select “Crop” to change the picture to the required parameters for the space of your choice (in my case, that’s the “square” option available in the drop down menu)
4. Scroll down to “Resize” your photo to the required dimensions (125 pixels by 125 pixels for the free blogger ad spots here on Relishments)
5. Get creative! The left side of the PicMonkey editor screen provides access to a wide variety of options.From top to bottom, the editing buttons on the far left are Basic Edits, Effects (such as filters), Touch Up, Text, Overlays (shapes and other graphics you can place on top of your images and each other), Frames, Textures, and Themes (sets of editing features such as effects, texts and overlays with categories like “School U”, “Zombies”, “Winterland” and “Celebrate”).  The best way to figure out what you can do in PicMonkey is just to experiment with all the options.  There are also tons of other people who have made videos and shared posts with instructions for accomplishing specific effects in PicMonkey, as well as the PicMonkey blog.

Please let me know your thoughts and questions regarding this post.  I’d love to do more web tool tutorials like this one, if people are interested.  If nothing else, I hope it inspired you to get creative with your photos and your blog.