Don't Let Your Written Voice Fade Away

As I was reading this article by Tom Maybrier about Using the Power of Voice to Improve Your Writing, it occurred to me that Squidoo writers have quite an advantage over print authors when it comes to revising our work. 

As writing styles change, as our personal style changes, as our audience (constantly) changes, we can go back anytime and revise or even totally rewrite an old lens to fit all those new things.  Had we published the same content in a book, it would eventually become totally outdated and just dry up and fade away. 

Do you have lenses that you're allowing to dry up and fade away?  I have a few.  What a shame to let that happen.

Time to do some revising. I don't want my written voice to fade away.  Do you?

Photo from DieselDemon via a Creative Commons license

A New, Easy Way to Find Images for Your Lenses, Blogs, or for Pinterest

If you ever get stuck looking for images for your Squidoo lenses, for your blogs, or for Pinterest posts, then keep reading.

I've found a great resource that I want to share with you.  It's called Image Monthly and it's a very inexpensive way for bloggers and marketers to not only learn about and keep in touch with the best web image advice, tools, and resources, the monthly subscription includes all that plus royalty free stock photos, quotes, and backgrounds you can use as you promote your online real estate.

This is a new program, just opening, and if you grab it now you'll save 50 percent.  It's only $5 monthly and you can cancel anytime, so my advice is to sign up right now, try it out, and see if you find it helpful.  As for me, I'm pretty sure it's going to be exactly what I need.

Rather than trying to explain what the program includes, I'm just going to send you to the information page where you can read all the details. Just click the graphic:

This is an affiliate link, but my commission doesn't increase the amount you pay.  This is just produced by a very smart, very generous marketer who always - always - impresses me with everything she does.

Have you signed up for Image Monthly?  I'd love for you to use it then let me know how this resource works out for you.

P.S. Here's a direct link to Image Monthly in case you have trouble clicking through the image above.

 

Celebrating the Cow

It's always great to see a sale - of any amount - on my Squidoo dashboard.  Sometimes, though, I wish I could ask someone, "Why did you buy that?"

This morning, for instance, there's a sale for a cow mascot costume from my How to Make a Cow Costume lens.  I just have to wonder, here at the end of January, what's the occasion?  Those costumes aren't cheap, so there has to be a reason someone sought it and bought it. 

Chinese New Year, Groundhog Day, the Super Bowl, Valentine's Day, and President's Day are coming up.  None of those conjure up visions of people walking around dressed like cows.  Mardi Gras is just over a month away and things get pretty crazy down in New Orleans during that celebration.  But cows?  It's hard to know for sure.

I'm not complaining, mind you, just scratching my head and wondering. Perhaps I should add a question to my guestbook on that page, "Why are you planning to dress up as a cow?" Not that it's any of my business (helping people find or make cow costumes is my business), but sometimes I just have to wonder.

Why might you dress up like a cow? What are you celebrating?  I'd sure love to know!

Free Promotion For Your Squidoo Lenses

Got a niche?  Squidoo now has a program where lensmasters with true passions for their niche are chosen to serve as "Contributors."  The job of these Contributors is to promote lenses, as well as recruit new lensmasters, within their specialty area.  The task is open-ended to allow each individual to use his or her favorite promotional techniques to further the cause of his or her niche topic.

Want to make a new lens on your favorite topic and get some free promotion?  Want to join Squidoo and get involved in a community of like-minded individuals, lensmasters who love the same things you love?

Many of our Contributors are using Facebook for promotion.  If you want to see what some of them are doing, click to find a niche that you love and check out that Contributor's Facebook page.  Give them a shoutout.  Share with your friends.  Don't overlook the opportunity to get some free promotion for your niche lenses.

Feel that you could be a Contributor, too?  We'll be adding more positions soon so continue to build your own personal niche and, when the opportunity arises, perhaps you'll be chosen as head cheerleader for your favorite topic on Squidoo.  

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!