Getting Started with AI – Part 4: How to Create Stunning Images & Videos for Your Blog with AI

Words are powerful—but when you add images and videos, your blog truly comes to life. Whether you’re sharing a memory, telling a story, or explaining a lesson, visuals help readers connect more deeply. And the good news is—you don’t need design skills or a video camera to create them anymore.

Thanks to AI tools like Canva AI and Pictory, anyone—even an 80-year-old grandpa like me—can create beautiful content right from home.

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📷 Why Visual Content Matters

• Images grab attention—especially on social media

• Videos explain better than plain text

• Visuals make blogs more inviting

• They help preserve memories and stories in new ways

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🖼️ Tool #1: Canva AI – Smart Image Design Made Simple

What it is: Canva is an easy drag-and-drop design tool. With Canva AI, it now helps you design faster with features like text-to-image, Magic Write (content ideas), and automated layout suggestions.

Best for:

• Blog headers

• Facebook or Instagram graphics

• Quote posters or storytelling images

✨ How to Use Canva AI

1. Sign up for a free Canva account at Canva.com

2. Go to “Magic Design” or “Text to Image” in the left menu

3. Type a phrase like:

   “A grandpa writing at his desk by the window in autumn”

4. Canva will generate several images for you to choose from

5. Add text, icons, or your blog title—and download!

Canva’s Magic Write can also help brainstorm titles or captions.

👉 Try Canva here: https://www.canva.com/

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🎞️ Tool #2: Pictory – Turn Blog Posts into Short Videos

What it is: Pictory lets you turn a written blog post, story, or script into a video with music, AI voice narration, and subtitles—all automatically.

Best for:

• Video versions of your blog posts

• Travel stories or reflections

• YouTube, Facebook, or even family sharing

🎬 How to Use Pictory

1. Sign up at Pictory.ai

2. Select “Article to Video”

3. Paste in your blog post (or a story you’ve written)

4. Choose a style or theme (calm, cinematic, classic, etc.)

5. Pictory will:

   • Select video clips that match your text

   • Add music and AI narration

   • Generate a ready-to-download video

You can customize the voice, text, and scenes as you wish—or just let it do the work for you.

👉 Try Pictory free: https://www.pictory.ai

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👵 Friendly Tips for Beginners

• Start small—try one image or one 30-second video

• Use visuals to enhance, not replace, your stories

• Don’t worry about perfection—AI makes it easier than ever

• These tools are free to try, and you don’t need special equipment

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📌 Example: Blog + Visual Combo

Blog Post: “5 Lessons I’ve Learned from My Grandchildren”
Canva Image: A smiling grandpa and kids, with the title text overlaid
Pictory Video: A 1-minute summary of each life lesson with music and photos

Now your story is not just written—it’s seen and felt.

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💬 Final Thoughts

You don’t need a fancy camera or editing skills to create something beautiful. AI tools like Canva and Pictory help bring your stories to life, one image or one video at a time. For someone like me, this has been one of the most joyful discoveries in retirement.

👉 Try Pictory
👉 Try Canva

Next time, we’ll explore how AI tools can help you stay mentally sharp, curious, and connected—a big part of aging well in the digital age.

Until then, keep sharing your light.

Warmly,
David Au

Top Free Traffic Sources for Affiliate Marketing - EVERGREEN TRAFFIC

Introduction

Top Free Traffic Sources for Affiliate Marketing - EVERGREEN TRAFFIC  is today's topic. We know that getting more traffic is the lifeblood of any business. No matter how great your product or service is, you will not make much headway if you can't get people to find you. We touched on some SEO ideas and strategies for outperforming your competition in the search engines and driving more traffic in the previous articles. This article will share some of the most tested tips to get free blog traffic sources.

Google Blogger 

With Blogger, I have created several blogs. Some for Fun, some for Google Adsense, and some for affiliate marketing. It is straightforward to use, and it is free. Come and visit me at:

•  RHTTC55 eMagazine
•  Grandpa and Grandma
•  Cruise Holiday

Youtube

Go to Youtube.com and signup for an account. It is easy to join, and it is free. You can upload your own videos and other people's videos with this account. Give a name under the title for each video and brief information under the description. You can include a link to promote your website/product in this area. For example, this link to Freelance Pay Cheque" is a digital product from Clickbank, and when people buy through this link, I get some commission.    

Format for Youtube videos that work best-attracting people: 

• Unboxing 
• Reviews 
• Rankings, e.g., Top 5, Top 10 
• Product comparisons 

Visit me at https://youtube.com/clicksbucks

Youtube #Shorts

Shorts are now in the beta version. It offers a $100 million fund from 2021 to 2022. It is time to join as it is free. Here people do not have any requirement to join. You do not need 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time as per the Youtube (regular) requirement. It is easy to join, and everyone can share the Youtube #Shorts fund.

And that gold rush is a great free traffic source.

Facebook

Discover, buy and sell goods with Facebook Marketplace. FB Marketplace is an e-commerce platform that connects sellers and buyers through meaningful interactions and unique interests. People can post their affiliate links to Facebook, the enormous social media where friends connect. Come here to visit me via Facebook, one of the top accessible traffic sources.

 

Instagram

People can quickly upload videos from their cellphones to Instagram and post to Facebook Twitter automatically. It is cool. It helps boost traffic to your vlogs, blogs, and websites. Here, it's pretty

 easy to get some engaged traffic. On Instagram, the more interested followers we have, the more clicks we'll get on our affiliate links. Choose a niche, stick to it, create quality and varied content regularly, engage with followers, and use #hashtags to get prominent on Instagram. 

Pinterest 

Choose a profitable niche and the relevant products, then post to Pinterest. Here, we make a pin and include the affiliate link and a catchy photo attracting potential prospects' eyeballs. Join Pinterest Group Boards to boost your nails. Connect with other users to get more traffic. All we need to do is keep posting and pinning. If you have a blog, use Pinterest and Instagram to get free traffic, it drives organically to your blog's engaging landing pages. In this way, the free traffic brings in buying users.

Below is a video on accessible traffic sources that bring customers to your websites and blogs:

Free social media traffic sources

What you can do here is post constantly and consistently to these social media. They will surprise you with significant traffic to your websites and blogs.

• Youtube
• TikTok
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Quora
• Medium
• Pinterest
• Tumblr
• Digg
• Vimeo

Final thought

The best way to measure incoming traffic is through the referral tracking section of Google Analytics and Google Search Console. When building your free evergreen traffic sources, you should focus on their needs and those that are best for your audience.  In this way, you enable your existing audience to trust you more as well as gain new prospects. Which free methods send you your most high-engaging customers? Let me know in a comment!

Note about Google Blogger

It provided a free publishing platform under Blogger.com while BlogSpot is a free domain service provider. They are owned by Google and are used together on the Blogger platform servicing in 60 languages in different countries.  I have been a big fan of Google Blogger using it for my blogging since 2004.  Google Blogger is 100% free, and it works amazingly well. All you need is a Google account to get started.

Related post:

• HOW TO GROW ON TIKTOK IN ONE MONTH & how I grew to 50,000+ followers in...

Just joined TikTok for about 30 days. Now, got over 3000 followers. It is time to learn more about TikTok, grow it, and monetize it. I searched Youtube for related videos. The above video is the one I like. It is closely related to what I need. Hope it is also beneficial to you. Let me know what you want in the comment area.

New Year New You - AMAZON

Amazon services program  Wedding Registry Bounty Engagement season is coming. With most couples getting engaged over the holidays, one of the first things teams do is create their wedding registry. Earn when your audience clicks through your links and makes a wedding registry. Share with readers products and inspiration for items that they should add. Baby Registry Bounty Help expectant parents figure out what their new baby will need and create a universal registry on Amazon Canada. Encourage your audience to redeem the "Welcome Gift" after signing up. Earn when expectant parents click through your links to create a baby registry on Amazon Canada.

Students are headed off on a well-earned winter break. All too soon, they will be headed back to class and preparing for spring courses. Help them learn about the benefits of Prime Student. Earn when students click through your links to sign up for the Amazon Prime Student program.

I receive a small commission if you purchase on my recommendations (at no extra cost to you). 

 

A Blogspot Blog Performance Review

Yesterday I checked into the Blogspot dashboard to ensure the following are in place; yes, they are correctly done.

• at 'Setting' 'privacy' .. enabled visible to Search engines, allowing search engines to crawl on the blog 
• at  'Meta tags' added the blog title, added blog description up to 150 characters, 
• at 'Crawlers and indexing.' 

1. enabled custom robots.txt 
2. enabled custom robots.txt 
3. enabled custom robots header tags 
4. posted description add a short description 
5. search description filled in the search description, with keywords (150 characters) 

• at Google search console added URL to Google search console

I also checked into my Google Search Console and found the latest development of my blog.  Today is the 28th day of this blog. It is indexed already. It is now associated with Google Analytics.   I can see the details about the blog performance and the various posts.  Below are their screenshots.

                 Search console - site overview

Most popular posts

How do people find you?

In a relatively short time, this achievement is ok but not too happy with the readership.  I am pleased with the result of being indexed in 28 days. According to my dashboard statistics number of readers and pages viewed is too few. 

•  853  views (total 28 days) 
•  651  views (this month 24 days) 
•  172  views (last month 4 days)

My daily task is to write articles to enrich the blog's content.  I enjoy it.  There are more readers now as compared to the beginning week. It is a joyful experience though not too excited.  I practice keyword research for the post title and content to build organic traffic.  That is what I learn from the internet regarding SEO keywords.  Then I  planted these research keywords into the blog title, the post title, the article itself.  Over time, there would be more inbound traffic to my blog.  It is time-consuming. But I still find it a pleasurable task.  The question is, how can I do better?  Can I be as good as an SEO professional?  The answer is obviously no.  

While I am writing this content, the number of people reading my posts is few compared to the contemporary competition.  My competition also spends hours writing similar content, but they get thousands of readers. Why is that?

A friend who is a seasoned SEO expert told me recently these people have enterprise-level tools that are not available to everyone and thus have a competitive edge. I noticed that they used enterprise-level tools such as Rank Math Pro for some time, and I had told my readers in my previous post. Through my recent research, I found out more on Rank Math  as follows:

The above is only part of the complete list of features. There are much more. I am convinced why there is a big difference between general user SEO and SEO.  I would like to know what is your thing.

 P.S.

I gave this blog a new name.  

NICHE AFFILIATE CASH. 

MAKE MONEY WITH AFFILIATE PROGRAMS 

marketing commercial and digital products online.

I think the new blog title is more compelling than the previous name.  What do you think? Do you like it?

What is Niche Market? Niche Marketing Examples

What is Niche Market? Niche Marketing Examples

Introduction

The word niche is originated from French, meaning the cracks on the big rocks. People climbed up the rocky mountains and cliffs in rock climbing, utilizing these cracks inching upwards. Without these niches, it is impossible for the climbers going up those steep rocky cliffs. The word niche is nowadays used in the marketing arena. It means a small subset of the prominent market that is unique and small but with many potentials. The market niche defines the product features to satisfy specific market needs, price range, product quality, and demographics. It is highly specialized, aiming to survive among the competition from the big boys. 

What is a niche market? 

A niche market is a unique section of the big marketplace. It is incredible but small. The big boys overlook such a small market segment as they focus on the big market. For example, organic food, underwater cameras, race bikes, vegan products,  antique cars,  space travel, luxurious cruise, adventurous tours, quality life,  hybrid vehicles, plugin cars, etc. We relate to our passion, personality, health, experience, and demographics when using niche marketing.   

These are a couple of examples that I have included in my first post on this blog.  

• An energetic young man loves cycling. He cruises on the road every day on his bike for hours as his routine exercise. He has fun with that, and he wants to join the bicycle tournament. He simply falls in love with his bicycle. This young man could choose race bicycle as a niche market if he goes affiliate marketing. He can go selling race bikes online. He can source from Amazon or Aliexpress and sell via such platform earning money as deals are done.
• A middle-aged vegan lady can sell vegan food through Amazon. She can also sell vegan digital products such as e-books and e-manuals from Clickbank, making commission money with successful deals.

Here is another example of a niche market, namely Tubebuddy. It is a tool for Youtube content creators. As we all know, Youtube is a mega-colossal company providing online video sharing and social media platforms. It is the second most visited website, with more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. Youtube focuses on the global market overlooking some niches which can be further enhanced with unique know-how and technologies. Tubebuddy perfectly fits in this niche with its unique know-how and technologies. As  YouTubers working on the Youtube dashboard would find the scope of the dashboard is limited and rigid. That allows a specialist to fill the niche giving video creators more functionalities and better tools to fulfill their dreams as content video .creators.

What are some excellent niches in today's market?

To find good places in today's market, we can check with search tools online for the top categories in the marketplace via   ClickBank, Amazon, Google Search (You may need to join these programs to use their search facilities)

These are the most profitable niches on the Internet:

• Fitness and Weight Loss. 
• Keto Diet
• Health & Beauty
• Dating & Relationships
• Pets & accessories
• Self-Improvement
• Make Money on the Internet.

Conclusion

As always, do our research and make a better selection among all niches that match our passion, experience, and lifestyle. Take the time when choosing our places. It is better to do our research thoroughly rather than a rushed decision.

6 REASONS FOR POSTING NEW CONTENT REGULARLY

Introduction

We come across many small blogs that consist only of affiliate-program text, product images, or affiliate links. If any words are simply reproduced from manufacturer sites without writing any original content. Such a website won’t have any visitors or revenue. 

Improving Yourself

Regular blogging simply helps us become better writers. As we accumulate a lot of new know-how, they naturally help to further improve our blogs and ebooks. They build up positive energy attracting people to come and revisit our blogs.  Through attraction marketing, we and our blogs become the center of attraction.   It is the sure way to improve ourselves, market products, and retain readers and customers. 

Google Search Engine

Google is the primary source of blog traffic. The majority of visitors will come this way. To have your content displayed on top ranking positions of the search engines, it’s essential to have excellent and unique content; new content is equally important.   That is why we should post more and regularly with recent articles.

More Content Better Ranking 

A site with just a keyword won’t rank for the first page of the search result position; try a broad range of keywords and long-tail keywords. This ensures a diverse range of visitors to our sites and more revenue can be obtained.  It is necessary to have more new products on our site and regular new content.

Social Media 

We publish our new content regularly and share them on social media, Facebook, Twitter, and other channels such as Youtube,  Youtube Shorts, Vimeo, Digg, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc.  They are powers grid driving a network of traffic to our blogs.  In this way, we have more attention, backlinks, and traffic from potential customers.

Establishing Reader Confidence

 When readers find many interesting articles on our site, they build trust and confidence in its content. This confidence is essential; visitors will buy our recommendations and click on the Affiliate Links with this trust.

More Affiliate Links

We build up our range of site topics with regular posts and new content.  This offers more opportunities to install Affiliate Links. If we have hundreds of products with Affiliate Links, we can usually look forward to many daily commissions.

Conclusion

How Often to Update  Content?  As a general guideline of publishing a new article at least once a week, and take it from there. If you blog in your free time, you will invest less time.  If you want to make your blog a primary source of income, then it is a career; the more time you can spend on it, the greater your chances of success.