Squid-Goals for the New Year

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season both personally and on Squidoo!  It's always good to see those holiday sales.  And yes, it's always sad to see them dwindle away.

Don't worry.  Instead, get started updating lenses for the new year.  People will be making resolutions: Do you have lenses to inspire them?  Weight loss and fitness are two very hot topics right now, but I saw Valentine's Day candy in Walmart yesterday.  Yes, there's another holiday coming up soon.  Are your lenses ready?  Look ahead to spring with its warmer weather and busy gardening season.  And then there's Easter, which is late this year so April should be a great month for sales.

There's no rest for the weary lensmaster!  Have you set your goals for the upcoming year?  We'll be talking about goals on RocketSquids in the upcoming week.  If  you're new to Squidoo and have fewer than 25 lenses, why not join us?  Our goal is to teach and inspire you. I'd love to see you there!

Whatever your goals and plans for the upcoming year, here's to a happy and prosperous 2014!

Ready to Join Squidoo?

Do you have a favorite item that you love, one that you don't hesitate to recommend to people?  Maybe a book, movie, or CD?  Then why not write and publish a review about that particular item?

Squidoo is the perfect place to share reviews and now it's easier than ever to put together a product or book or movie or music review page (we call them "lenses" on Squidoo) and publish it for the world to see. 

If you've thought about joining Squidoo, there's no time like the present to get started.  All you have to do is follow the instructions and links on this page and you can be up and making lenses in mere minutes.  There's a link to use to sign up, links to some sample review lenses, and even a short, easy-to-understand tutorial to show you how to make your very first lens. 

Besides helping people out by sharing your unique point of view on a product, you can also earn money writing on Squidoo, money for yourself or for charity. 

Did I mention that writing for Squidoo is fun?  And it's free?  In fact, everything you need to know about making great lenses on Squidoo can be found on the site and it's all absolutely free.  We even have a "university" for newbies on Squidoo, called RocketSquids.  Once you've gotten started, I'd be thrilled to send you a personal invitation to join RocketSquids.  Just let me know when you're ready.

With the holiday shopping season in full swing, there's no time like the present to get started.  I would absolutely love for you to join us and can't wait to read your first lens.  Ready?  Go!

First Christmas Sales!

Just had the first sales this fall on my cashmere robe and slippers lens.

Let the holiday shopping season begin! Yay!!

5 Keyword Tips You Can Use

Many thanks to the folks at Zazzle for spending some time recently on their blog talking about SEO and keyword information.  The tips that apply to setting up Zazzle products for sale apply to your Squidoo lenses, too, and to just about anyplace else you write online.

Their recent 5 Keyword Tips to Boost Traffic post even includes a demonstration of how to use the new Google Adwords Keyword Planner.  If you're still mourning the loss of the old keyword tool, get over it and learn to use the new one.  It's actually not a bad tool at all and easy to use once you've been shown how.

If you're looking for an in-depth SEO course this isn't it, but the 5 keyword tips in the post linked above are good ones, easy to understand for beginners and excellent reminders for anyone.

Nice job, Elizabeth at Zazzle!

Halloween Shoppers Haunting Squidoo!

But wait, that's a good thing!

Has your Halloween lens traffic picked up lately? Mine has and, I'm happy to report, so have Halloween sales. But I'm looking forward to more!

I was just glancing at the calendar, counting the number of shopping days, specifically weekends, before Halloween.  The timing actually favors last-minute shoppers this year, which means that it favors online sellers, too.  Amazon Prime allows for procrastinating people to order on the weekend of the 26th and still receive their costumes and other goodies a day or two before Halloween.  That's a good thing for those of us who feature last-minute Halloween ideas and easy trick-or-treat costume solutions. 

Savvy shoppers won't wait until the last minute, though, and the savviest of the savvy will be making their choices and placing their orders this weekend and next.  I'll admit that I still have a few Halloween lenses that are scary-out-of-date and need some freshening up.  How about you? 

Will you be updating your Halloween lenses over the next few days, too?  Or are you already set for shoppers?  If so, consider adding a lens designed specifically for last-minute Halloween shoppers.  It could pay off in scary-good sales this year!

Image courtesy Squidoo.com

Who Else Needs to Improve Their Persuasive Writing Skills?

Have you ever wondered how you can make more sales from your Squidoo lenses? I've been thinking about that a lot lately. So when I saw the email last week from Alice Seba of Contentrix about her Persuasive Writing class, it occurred to me that improving my persuasive skills just might be the solution I've been looking for.

I've followed Alice online for years and I know that she really knows her stuff. And at just $27 for a multi-session live webinar course with tons of valuable handouts included, who could pass that up? Well, today was the first session and I've come to this conclusion: Alice should charge more for her classes. :) Seriously, 90+ minutes for just the first session, plus all the handouts, plus live critiques of several students' websites, I've gotten my money's worth already - and we have four more live training sessions to go!

Since I love to share valuable information with fellow lensmasters and other writers, I figured I'd better start getting the word out about this class, called Persuasive Writing and Getting Your Audience to Do What You Want.

It's okay that you missed the first session - not everyone can attend live, so Alice recorded it and it's already available, along with her notes, the chat transcript, and more, in the class's membership area. The rest of the sessions will be recorded, too, and the price of admission includes lifetime access.

Did I mention that all this will set you back just 27 bucks and that Alice is still taking students?

With the holiday shopping season coming up fast plus the new, easy-to-use product review lens format on Squidoo, this is the perfect time to fine-tune your persuasive writing skills. And of course you can use the skills you learn on your own website or blog and everywhere else you write, too.

So, who's going to join me in the next session? Read all about it and sign up right here.

Is It Too Late to Make a Halloween Lens?

No!  It's never too late to make a Halloween lens.  This visit graph proves it.

This is from one of my costume lenses.  The first October it didn't do a lot (just a little "melted witch" puddle on the graph) but the next two, look at those nice high "witch hat" peaks!  I'm looking forward to the next one, which is trending upwards now (end of September) and hopefully will peak nice and high by the end of October.

Lesson:  Think long-term with seasonal lenses.  And watch for witch hats on your visits graph.  Visits begat sales, the most fun part of the Halloween shopping season!

Creating Happy Endings

There's been a lot of debate over the past few months about making personal Squidoo lenses that include storytelling.  Some believe that their readers don't want to be bothered with anything "personal," so they balk at the whole idea, preferring to stick with just the facts, ma'am.

While every lens doesn't have to be about you, it's important that lenses include a story of some kind.  Our objective should be to engage our readers so that they will want to read all the way to the end. 

As usual, Seth Godin says it best about storytelling, in the next to last sentence in this piece (well, in the whole piece).

Do your lenses tell stories?  Are your readers engaged all the way through?  Sounds like creating happy endings is a goal every lensmaster should strive for.

Where to Find Answers to Your Squidoo Questions

I haven't been posting to this blog as often as I should, but that doesn't mean I'm not writing about how to Squidoo. 

Most of my writing these days is done for RocketSquids, the members-only "boot camp" on Squidoo that's designed for new lensmasters who want the inside track on how to make great lenses.  If you're new to Squidoo and want to get on the fast track to Giant Squid, then RocketSquids is the place to be.  You can read more and sign up at this link. 

I also contribute to the official Squidoo blog, SquidooHQ, with occasional tips posts and frequent interviews with up-and-coming new Squid talent.  If you haven't checked out HQ lately, you might be surprised at all the helpful resources that are offered there.  What's more, everything is free.  There's no reason for anyone ever to pay to learn how to succeed on Squidoo. Between RocketSquids and the Squidoo Learning Center, and of course the official forum, it's easy to find answers.

It didn't take long after I signed on to Squidoo over six years ago for the teacher in me to rise to the surface, offering help to other lensmasters through posts on this blog and more private messages than I can count.  I'm just thrilled to be able to help in an official capacity now. 

I love to answer Squidoo questions and offer help wherever it's needed.  So if you're stuck or just want a second opinion on a lens, feel free to let me know.  I'm still around.

New Lens Formats Option on Squidoo

I've recently learned to believe it, and now the new "Lens Formats" option on Squidoo cements my belief.  Simple really does work best.  At least these days.

It all started with Twitter and learning to say something meaningful in 140 characters.  A challenge for wordy ol' me, but I loved it.  Don't judge me by my old, dictionary-sized Squidoo lenses.  I'm already sold on this new format and it isn't even "live" yet!

Gives new meaning to KISS (Keep it Simple, Squids!).

Love it!

Google Likes Me Again!

I haven't talked about it anywhere but at home (my poor sweetie has been so patient with me), but I've been struggling for months to get Google to like a particular lens of mine.

Today, it does!

Traffic overall to my lenses is up after a long summer lull, but I'm the most thrilled with this one particular lens that was only getting referral traffic, mostly from inside Squidoo.  For months!  Okay, for more than a year.  This evening I was perusing stats overall and noticed that today's traffic on that lens was up, so I looked at specifics and was pleasantly surprised to see some Google hits.

Yay! Finally!

Hopefully the drought has been broken and things will continue to look up for that lens as well as the rest of them.  Yours, too!  Happy day!

Seasonal versus Evergreen Lenses

Really, there's no competition between seasonal and evergreen lenses.  Every lensmaster needs to have both.

My evergreen lenses are the meat and potatoes of my Squidoo business while the seasonal lenses add spikes of interest at various times around the calendar.  This is the week every year that my How to Make a Cow Costume lens peaks (thanks to a certain restaurant's annual Dress Like a Cow promotion).  The interesting thing is that the cow costume lens then continues to get traffic through the fall and all the way to Christmas  I'm thinking state fairs followed by Halloween of course and then nativity plays at churches.  For whatever other reasons people like to dress like cows, I am certainly grateful.

It's good to introduce an evergreen component to a seasonal lens.  Of course Christmas or Valentine gift lenses should be easily adaptable to birthday and other year-round gift-giving occasions.  And it should be easy for costume lenses to be adapted to a dress-up play for kids topic, or for a gypsy costume lens being made to appeal to belly dancers or fans of the Bohemian style, both of which are popular all year. 

Just as we enjoy an unseasonably warm day in February or a break from the heat in August, that touch of evergreen in a seasonal lens can send us surprise sales now and then.  But why not work a bit to make a seasonal lens perform all year long.  A good investment of time?  I think so.

Do you have any secrets to making seasonal lenses perform as evergreen?  I'd love to read your comments.

One Best Tip

Someone asked me today for one tip for building a successful lens.

I gave him this one:  Own your topic.

Then I gave him a bonus tip:  Proofread! Then do it again.

Success may be subjective, but objective misspellings and silly errors stand out and can make us look very unprofessional. Owning our topic allows room for forgiveness for some of those silly errors that all of us make from time to time. 

Squidoo Conference Call

A number of lensmasters (20 or so) were invited to participate in a conference call today to ask questions about current events on Squidoo.  Bonnie and Seth hosted and the group had the treat of putting voices with names of more than a dozen lensmasters over the 40-minute call as questions were asked and answered.

Here's a recording of the call so you can listen in.

The questions were great and the answers were candid and complete.  One quote that I took away from the 40-minute session was from Seth as he discussed the value of adding a personal story to a lens: "Value is created when someone is persuaded."  (You'll find that at 35:15 on the recording.)

Thanks to everyone who participated and especially to Seth and Bonnie for taking time out of their day to host the call.  If you weren't there but wish you would have been, 40 minutes spent listening to the recording will be time well spent.

Now Is the Time To Build (Lenses)

I really liked this post that Bonnie wrote for SquidooHQ a couple of days ago.  She makes an important point about the fact that things change.  They do!

And if there's anything in this world we can count on for change, it's all things internet-related.

I've been hanging onto old Squidoo lenses, or maybe I should say lenses with old topics.  I "archive" them, explaining that this page was created during the 2008 election process (for instance) and is here for historical reference.  That, I've come to decide, is so bogus!  There's nothing on most of these old lenses that anyone wants to read or wouldn't find elsewhere if they did want some historical information.  There are other lenses, too, that I just don't care about anymore.  (There, I said it.)  They're baggage, dragging me down when I notice them there on my dashboard whispering, pleading, "Let me go!"

It's time to delete some of those oldies-that-were-formerly-goodies, cut the cord, say "sayonara" and move on.

Yes, it's a bit like "empty nest syndrome" - my lens-kids leaving home makes me sad - but the good news is that I can keep making new lens-babies on current topics that people actually care about.  And "people," in this case, includes me.  No more maintenance, no regrets.  Those babies are going bye-bye!

New, updated, useful, original content.  That's the part of the internet equation that stays the same.  Time to build it!

Image property Susan52

Putting Myself On The Line

Is this a perfect Squidoo lens?

What do you think?  Visit the link and chime in.

I can take it.

About Me (You, too.)

Now that the "About Me" and "My Lenses" modules have been retired, here's another way to help your readers learn more about you.

In the custom bio box on the top right of the lens, add a "call to action" at the end of the custom bio you write for each lens.  Simply ask readers to "Click on my picture to learn more about me and see what else I've been writing about."

That's how I'm going to start updating my custom bio boxes.

I like this idea.  Should have thought about it before!

Completing the Circle

I read lots of "newbie" lenses on Squidoo.  A few are really great, some are awful (they just are, what can I say) and others are written by newbies who need a little instruction but show so much promise.  Those are the ones that I really get excited about.

I love writing short comments of encouragement to new lensmasters. When I do, I think back to people who encouraged me in the early days and how much that meant to me.  I want these new newbies to smile when they read my note and turn to their friend or significant other and say, "Hey, someone at Squidoo thinks I'm special!"  If the smile stays on their face for more than a few seconds, then I've done my job. 

Later on, when I encounter some of these same new folks on RocketSquids, it's my turn to smile. I always hope that my note had something to do with fueling their desire to learn more about how to improve and make their lenses better and better.

Two smiles, theirs and mine.  Circle complete. 

SquidPeer Pressure

When I was a young squid with little experience and even less confidence, many of my best lensmaking habits were developed from watching what successful lensmasters did and then adapting their methods on my lenses.  It's a great way to learn, one I recommend often.

Occasionally, though, there would be practices that I didn't feel particularly comfortable with.  More often than not, though, I jumped on those bandwagons anyway.  After all, those people had been around longer and had more lenses and more success than I had at the time, so they must be right, right?  Not necessarily.

Peer pressure is a very powerful motivator for doing the wrong thing, even in a writing community like Squidoo.  The trap, however, lies in doing something simply because everyone seems to be doing it. 

Here's what I learned: Instincts rarely lie.  If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. Just don't.

I'd Still Rather Do Squidoo

I was just looking back at the early posts on my blog and found this one.

Robin, you're still one of my faves!

And I'd still rather "do Squidoo" than do almost anything else, too.

Going on Six

In a couple of weeks I'll celebrate my sixth anniversary here on Squidoo.  Every year I look back and say wow, what a difference a year makes!

I was just looking at one of my old lenses and noticed that it was linked to this post where I was excited about having made over $50 that month from Squidoo.  Wow, what a difference five years make!

Back then I could only dream that a very part-time venture would become a very fun full-time way to earn a living. 

Wow, can't wait 'til next year!

Content Rules

If you write on Squidoo then you're surely aware of the recent conversations revolved around making our lenses personal with just the right ratio of affiliate links to unique content.  Keyword content factors in as well - no one wants to be punished for keyword stuffing, especially when it's unintentional. 

Here's a conversation about Zazzle content on our lenses and how to make our Zazzle-centric lenses acceptable to both Squidoo and to the search engine powers-that-be.  These Zazzle lens tips can be applied to the rest of our sales-oriented lenses and product reviews as well.  And it's not just Squidoo and the search engines, it's our readers that we should be concerned about.  If we don't offer unique, useful, interesting content to them, then we're not doing our job very well. 

No matter how you stand on the great Squidoo debate these days, it's hard to deny that the old maxim of "content is king" still drives e-commerce and, really, online publishing in general.  I think that's the bottom line in all this.  What do you think?

Food for Thought

In case you missed Seth's blog post today, here's a link.

Us vs Us

That so says it all and really has me thinking about the tribes to which I belong.

If there's a member of any tribe, anywhere, online or off, who doesn't get it, then chances are they'll just never get it.

The Quick Brown Fox

Look at the picture I came across today.  Isn't it great?  It reminds me of ninth grade typing class, where I fell in love with typing.  In fact, a few years ago I actually wrote a lens about the history of the typewriter that included a tribute to my typing teacher and a mug with "The quick brown fox" phrase on it.

Does this phrase bring back memories to you, too?  How fast can you type it? Go ahead, give it a try!

Image credit

Cool New Plexo Tool on Squidoo

It's called an embeddable plexo, a tool that allows you to grab a plexo from your lens and share it on your blog or website.

Like this one (from this lens):

Add Your Romantic Valentine's Day Decorating Ideas for the Bedroom

Cool?  Yeh, I'd say so!

Read more about it right here then let me know how you might use this fun feature.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Thanks to the lensmasters who are making their intro pictures 250x250 square.

You make my life so much easier!

xoxo

February Greetings & Goal Review Time

Happy February everyone! 

I hope Punxsutawney Phil's forecast holds true for all of us and we have a nice, early Spring.  It's a beautiful day here today, nice and sunny with temps that aren't bad for February.  I don't mind winter when it looks this nice!

I just reviewed the list of goals that I wrote at the end of December.  Some are going well, but I'm behind on others and need to make some adjustments this month as well as do some catching up.  How about you?  Have you reviewed your goals for the month and year?  It's a good time to measure progress and re-focus if necessary.  I'd love to hear how others are doing.

If you have lenses that need some love, feel free to post them on my Facebook page. There's a thread started for helping WIP lenses get out of the basement so add yours anytime then visit someone else's to pay the love forward this month.

Time to update Spring lenses, too, and Squidoo has a pretty green theme for Gift Guide lenses categorized for St. Patrick's Day and Easter.

So, what's new with you this fine February?  Care to share?

Image Source

Squidoo Springs Into the Green

Just in time for Easter and St. Patrick's Day (not necessarily in that order - actually in just the opposite order) Squidoo has unwrapped a new cover for Celebrate magazine - and this time it's in the green!

For all of our St. Patrick's Day and Easter gift guide-categorized lenses, you'll now see those with a fresh and pretty green background (the picture here shows just a hint).

If you want your spring holiday-seasoned lenses to appear in Celebrate, just re-categorize them in a Gift Guide category for either of those two holidays and your lens will end up looking a whole lot like this one.  (Unless you opt out, which you can do in your lens workshop.)

Bet I can find a few more of my lenses that would fit into those categories.  How about you?  Feel free to drop a link in our comments section below!

Exploiting Shirley

I have a couple of Shirley Temple lenses on Squidoo so when I read late last week that 84-year-old Shirley Temple had just joined Twitter, I was thrilled!  I started following the account immediately.  Her posts so far were adorable and I was excited to be able to include them on a Twitter Follow module on one of my lenses.

Then, over the weekend, I (thankfully) happened to read that Twitter was duped.  Shirley Temple Black's spokesperson said she is not on Twitter.  I checked the account and, indeed, while the URL was the same and included Shirley's name, the identification and information on the account now belonged to a scumbag marketing company that shall remain nameless.

The great news is that today the Twitter account no longer exists.  But I'm still fuming, just a little, that someone would exploit a public figure the way they did.  I should have been suspicious (and I was, a little) that Shirley hadn't included her married name in the account.  She's gone by that name for many, many years and the "Shirley Temple" did have a slight exploitative ring to it.  The other good news is that the Twitter Follow module on the lens where I added it didn't work, and didn't display, so I wasn't responsible for leading any of its 10,000 or so followers to that bogus account.

As far as I'm concerned, Shirley Temple Black is a national treasure and I sincerely hope that the person who used her name will be caught and punished, but I can't imagine that will really happen. I'll just be even more cautious than usual in the future and not assume that just because a Twitter account says "verified," that makes it so.

Rant over.

Wow! It's Wednesday!

Just realized that it's Wednesday, halfway through the week already.  Wow, time flies when I'm having fun!

It's also the 16th of January, already halfway through the first month of the new year.  I started the year feeling very "up" and ambitious, ready to set goals and meet them head-on.  So, I just pulled up the notepad file I made titled "goal notes" to see how I'm doing.  (To be honest, I was a little bit afraid to look.)

Not bad, really.  A few extra-strong points and one or two weak ones, but overall not looking bad for 50 percent of the way through the month and 4 percent through the year.  I see how I need to adjust my focus and I'll be working on that.  Definitely see that if I'm going to finish them, I need to spend more time dispersing those lenses that have fallen so low in lensrank.  (Yep, one of those weak points.)

It really does pay to assess goals periodically.  Have you looked at yours lately?  How are you doing?

Squidoo is In the Pink!

Welcome to Valentine's Day on Squidoo!  Yep, no time like the first week of January to get started on those Valentine's lenses!  (Here's one of mine.)

Have Valentine pages to update?  When you do, consider adding them to the Gift Guide category and choosing a Valentine's Day topic.  That choice will give you the gorgeous pink and red Celebrate theme, just released for Valentine's Day.  I love seeing Squidoo in the pink!

Unsure about joining Celebrate magazine?  Would 3.7 million pageviews over Christmas sway you?  It's up to you, but there are advantages to including your lenses in the magazine.  When you do, make sure you've updated each Valentine's lens with a great, square intro photo as well as a nice, big picture in the body of the lens to give it a better chance of being featured on Celebrate's front page.

What's your favorite Valentine's Day lens?  Feel free to share it in a comment below or on Susan52 on Squidoo's Facebook page. 

XOXOXO, everyone!

Resolved: Become a Better Writer

Happy New Year!  Wow, seems like only yesterday we wondered if the power would still be on when we crossed over into the year 2000.  Now, going into 2013, all we have to worry about is falling off a fiscal cliff.  But that's a topic for another day (and another blog).

Did you read the Hello January post on SquidooHQ today?  In it I mentioned seven things to do this month and to keep in mind throughout the new year.  One of those things has to do with working outside your comfort zone in order to become a better writer.  A day or two after I wrote that, I happened upon this from the Writer's Don't Cry section of Amazon's Omnivoracious blog.   The article includes 10 resolutions for writers, things you can do this year to hone your craft. Idea number five, to exercise your writing, expands more on the practice of writing outside your comfort zone.  Looks like I was onto something with my similar suggestion!

If you're a writer (and if you're a lensmaster, you are a writer) and want to improve your writing skills, give that article a read.  The "comfort zone" topic really resonated with me and I'd love to know which of the 10 tips speak to you.  Would you let me know in a comment below?

Here's wishing each of us a happy, healthy, and productive 2013.  May each of our lenses be better written and more successful than the ones that came before!