I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos from the 2008 Blog World Expo into my photo gallery. You should check them out if you haven’t done so. There are some pretty funny photos of Shoemoney and Darren Rowse in there.
Ever since the new theme went live, I’ve been receiving a ton of emails about the photo gallery. A photo gallery is a great way to keep readers on your blog longer and to increase page views. Depending on the photos used, a gallery can help connect the reader with the blogger. The software used to create my photo gallery is call Flickr Photo Album for WordPress by Tan Tan Noodles. It’s one of the best WordPress plugin I’ve came across.
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
This Flickr plugin for WordPress allows you to pull in your Flickr photosets and display them as albums on your blog. The plugin provides a very simple template that is fully customizable. Unique Blog Design was able to integrate it into John Chow dot Com Version 3 pretty easily. You can also hook the plugin up with Lightbox or any other number of display libraries.
Another really cool feature of the Flickr Photo Album is it will add new Flickr icon to your WordPress edit screen which will allow you to easily insert your Flickr photos into your blog posts with just a couple clicks. You can either have your inserted photos link back to your WordPress Flickr photo album or directly to your Flickr.com photo page.
To use the plugin, you will need a Flickr account. Flickr offers a free account that limits you to 200 photos and three sets. For $24.95 a year, you can upgrade to a unlimited account. Considering how many photos I planned to upload, that’s a really good price! Since all the photos are being pulled by Flickr instead of your blog, you’ll be saving server resources.