Man, Machine, and Better Squidoo Lens Titles

What do "man" and "machine" have to do with choosing titles for your Squidoo lenses?

You'll find the answer in The 2 Most Important Elements of a Great Lens Title, a post I wrote yesterday for the SquidooHQ blog.

I mentioned recently that SquidooHQ is the place to find great Squidoo tips, and this post is no exception.  Pardon me if it appears that I'm tooting my own horn, but I'm basing this statement on the excellent feedback this man/machine post has received.  So if you want to learn how to create a better title for your lenses and (most likely) get more traffic as a result, then just go read the post.

Then I'd love if you'd come back and leave a comment here to let me know your thoughts on the subject.

Time to Clean House on Squidoo

It's housekeeping time on Squidoo.

There's a new quest on my dashboard today - maybe you have it, too - called "Clean Up a Lens Day."  The point is to take a lens that is sitting down low on your dashboard and give it a nice freshening up.  In fact, the quest lens includes a list of 10 ways to clean up an old lens.  Fabulous tips!

If this quest doesn't apply to you, then bless you my friend.  You're a better squid than I.  As for me, I've actually been (slowly) working on freshening a few old lenses recently.  I feel better for it and the lenses I've updated have shot up in lensrank like Howard Wolowitz's rocket.

Will you accept the challenge and complete the quest?  Let me know, and feel free to leave a comment that includes the lensrank of your cleaned-up lens before and then after its freshening.  (Woohoo in advance for that!)

Where to Find the Best Squidoo Tips

Want to learn more about Squidoo and how to make great lenses?  Then check out tips like these on the SquidooHQ blog.

All this time I should have been writing (and intended to write) tips like these right here on my own blog, but (no excuses) it seems I just didn't get here nearly as often as I intended.  Now, though, I'm writing tips (among other things) for the SQHQ blog on a regular basis and really enjoying both the writing and the feedback. 

The longer I'm on Squidoo, the more I discover that Squidoo (including the HQ blog) really is the best place to learn about Squidoo.

I'll keep writing here and I hope you'll keep reading.  Just don't overlook the source of all the excitement and information, and the best tips ever, Squidoo itself. 

Wordless Wednesday: Like My Shirt?

Happy Squidiversary to Me!

Today is my five-year, one-day anniversary on Squidoo! 

Can't believe I forgot about it yesterday, on the big day.  Almost missed my new trophy, too.  Love it!

Love you, Squidoo.  Here's to many more years of squidded bliss.

Kindle's Gone But Not Forgotten

Most of those who know me also know that I'm a big fan of the Amazon Kindle.  Have been since the Kindle was first introduced.

Sad day about a week ago.  Well, it started back in July of last year when we had our house fire.  We lost pretty much everything in the fire (except lives and cars - praise the Lord for that) including my beloved first Kindle.  Now, our house has been rebuilt and we moved in about a week ago.  As we were finalizing the move from our rented duplex last week, my husband told me that he still had my burned Kindle stored in the garage.  He had found it in the rubble of the fire months ago and I insisted at that time on keeping it.

This time I let it go.  Sadly, it went out in our final load of trash. I'm determined not to accumulate useless "stuff" anymore and those remains were definitely useless. 

I did take pictures, though, in case my aging brain forgets.  I've included one of the melted keyboard here, and visitors to this lens can see the charred remains as they read about our family's new Kindles.  Yes, that's plural.  My son has one model and I have two more, the Kindle Keyboard (nicknamed "Pinkie") and a Kindle Fire tablet (nicknamed "Friendly Fire" for obvious reasons).

So long, first Kindle.  You served me well.  You'll be remembered, always.

Everyone's an Expert

Everyone's an expert (on something) and Squidoo was created as a platform for any one of those everyones to promote their cause, share their expertise, spread their influence.

If you're not entirely sure what all that means, take about 10 minutes and read Everyone's an Expert (On Something), the e-book by Seth Godin, the book that explains what Squidoo is really all about.

If you're serious about Squidoo, read this little book.  You'll learn about focusing and about why Squidoo isn't a blog.  You'll learn how to deliver what users (web surfers) want and how to get those same users to take action.  You'll re-learn, or maybe actually learn for the first time, how to be a lensmaster. 

What Are Your Squidoo Goals for February?

Can you believe the first month of the year is gone already?  Around here we've been having spring-like weather so it seems that we should have turned the calendar to April rather than February!  Be that as it may, now is the time to firm up some February goals.

Traffic to my lenses has picked up recently, partly due to Valentine's Day shoppers.  It's time to make some quick updates to my Valentine's lenses to take advantage of the buyers who may visit during the coming week to 10 days or so.

Additionally, it's time to look ahead to the next few buying occasions and do some lensmaking and updating with those in mind.  St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and Mother's Day are the next few special occasions on the calendar and one of my goals this month will be to see what I have to do to freshen lenses up for those holidays. 

Of course I always advice people to review their profiles, bio, and featured lenses at the beginning of the month.  I recently updated my bio and I'll be changing featured lenses soon since interest in Valentine's Day topics will drop off.  I'm thinking Spring!

How about you.  Any Squidoo goals for February that you'd like to share?

Image by YesterdayCafe on Zazzle

Blast Off With RocketSquids

Heard of RocketMoms on Squidoo?  Then you know how successful lensmasters can be when they learn together and support each other.

Now, meet RocketSquids, the latest innovation by Squidoo, especially designed for new-ish lensmasters, those with at least a couple of lenses but fewer than 25.

If you fall into that Squid-demographic and want to learn from some of the best lensmasters on Squidoo how to do what they do, then join us!

Here's more information from MomWithAHook, one of the RocketSquids mentors.

What's New On Squidoo?

Hard to believe we're headed into the fourth week of the new year.  My year's been busy and seems to be flying by.  How about yours?

I've been spending a lot of my time hanging around on Squidoo, visiting lots of lenses and checking in regularly with SquidooHQ.  I especially appreciate the weekly SquidooHQ Friday Round Up, a great place to check in every week to make sure I haven't missed something new.  If you don't visit daily, at least check in on Fridays to keep up with all the great news, tips, and information that's been provided during the week. 

Full disclosure and not meant to be a shameless plug, I've also been doing some writing for SquidooHQ, so you might run across some of my articles, too, while you're there playing catch up.

So, what's new with you on Squidoo?  I'd love to know, so hope you'll take a moment out of your busy year to leave a comment!

Wordless Wednesday: LOTD

Looking Ahead: Goal-Setting for the New Year

Oh, my, another year has come and (almost) gone.  It's time to evaluate the goals you set this time last year and try again to come up with a new set of goals for 2012.

Actually, there's more to it than that.  While goal setting is important, reviewing progress and adjusting plans at various points throughout the year is even more important.

To be honest, I'm not very good at long-term goal setting.  "Life" changes things sometimes in the blink of an eye (I know that all too well), so I don't like to set myself up for failure right from the start.  Obviously I, too, need to not only set yearly goals and make plans, I need to concentrate on short-term goals and set aside time to adjust as necessary on a regular basis.

There are many goal-setting tools available and I'm sure I have at least two or three "how to set goals" e-books on my hard drive that I've purchased or downloaded for free with the greatest of intentions.  But I'll admit that I am easily overwhelmed when it comes to tackling the job of reading the books and putting plans behind the goals and action behind the plans.  So, this year what I intend to do (good intentions as usual, but I think this will work for me) is to simply write monthly goals in the front of a stenographer's notebook (the size suits me), record plans for the month, and then write a daily to-do list each night or early morning.  I've been doing the daily lists for the past few weeks and that method is working well for me.

Have you started planning and setting goals for 2012?  How do you do it?  I'd love if you'd share your methods and favorite resources here.  Perhaps the way you plan will ring true with someone who reads your comment, someone like me who struggles in this area.  So please, leave a comment below.  Your suggestions could really help someone have a truly productive new year!

A Delicious Lens Intro

Just had to share the intro on this yummy lens by new lensmaster theSEOmama. 

Go read it then tell me your mouth isn't watering and your stomach isn't frantically transmitting "Bake these NOW!" messages to your brain.  Or is it the other way around?  

Oh, who cares.  Just go read this delicious lens intro and mark it as a great example of how not to lose readers in the first 30 seconds of their visit to your lens.  Then, while the oven is preheating, compose a fabulous intro for your next new lens.

How Not to be Overly Commercial on Your Lenses: My Recommended Read of the Day

When you make lenses promoting a product or your business, you really need a balance of not too little, not too much, but just the right amount of commercial or promotional material.

Tom Maybrier explains this in more detail today in his SquidooHQ lensmaking tip, Creating Great Content for your Business or Product.  It's an excellent post that answers a lot of questions that you might have about how commercial is too commercial when you're making product review or business lenses.

Newbies on Squidoo often make the mistake of including too many bolded business links in their lenses and not enough original content.  Even veterans can fall into that bad practice. My recommended read of the day is a great explanation of how to avoid this and what to do instead to make your commercial lens turn out balanced just right.

After you've read it, I hope you'll leave Tom a comment then come back here and let me know what you learned.

Cyber Monday Shopping Recommendations

Just saw this post from Kimberly on SquidooHQ in which she mentions Cyber Monday.   That triggered an idea.

To help people who happen to land on my profile page find some good holiday shopping lenses, I edited my profile to feature links to a few of my popular product reviews.  These are lenses that don't necessarily show up on page one of the list of all my lenses.  They're pages that feature popular gift items that people might be looking for on  Cyber Monday and, really, from now until Christmas.

While in general I recommend a good, brief, personal bio - and that's all - on the profile page, this might be a time to make an exception.  We'll see how it works out.

What do you think?  Good idea?  Bad?  Let me know in a comment below.