Polishing My Plow on New Year's Eve

So, how are you spending your New Year's eve? I hope you'll take some time out to have a little fun, spend a bit of time reflecting, but spend most of your time looking ahead. What do you believe the new year holds? Do you have predictions? Goals? Resolutions? If you do, I hope you'll take a minute or two and share them on my New Year Predictions and Resolutions lens. Then bookmark the lens and come back in a month or two, or even next December 31st to see how you're doing or how you did.

A couple of years ago I found a saying that goes like this: A man cannot plow a field by turning it over in his mind. I printed that out and it's been taped to my computer monitor ever since. I haven't found any better advice, advice that truly speaks to me, since then and I will continue to dust off those wise words and read them every day, not just on January 1st. They really motivate me to act.

I predict wonderful things for the coming year. Of course life will always bring surprises, but one thing we can control is our outlook on and our approach to life. Be positive, be proactive, and see what can happen. That's how I intend to plow my field in the coming year. I hope you'll do the same.

Happy New Year!

Announcing the 2008 Giant Squid Awards

It's official. Today was announcement day. The 2008 Giant Squid best of the best lenses by category, along with the Giant Squid of the Year, have been announced.

Choosing which lenses to vote for was actually quite a challenge. Every lens nominated was a good one, and every one is a winner by virtue of being nominated. Congratulations to every lensmaster represented among the nominees!

Then there was Giant Squid of the Year. Talk about difficult. It's just very tough to narrow down the best of the best. The winner was lensmaster JaguarJulie, first runner-up was thefluffanutta, with ChefKeem following closely behind. Congratulations to these three, as well as the other deserving lensmasters who were nominated.

Thanks to all who voted for my Kindle lens which, I am happy to say, did capture the prize for Tech Lens of the Year. What an honor!

If you're looking for Squidoo lenses and lensmasters to study and learn from, the 2008 Giant Squids Award Ceremony lens is the perfect place to start. Be prepared to be inspired!

Keeping the Faith, I Made it to 100!

Just published my hundredth lens! It wasn't the one I thought would be number one hundred, but I felt it was a lens I needed to do and now I'm really glad I did.

Hopefully I'll have a couple more in the next couple of days, plus find time to edit some oldies but goodies.

So, drumroll please, I am proud to share my faith with you!

Ninety-Nine!

I just published my 99th lens! I'm shooting for the Giant Squids 100 Club and it looks like I'm almost there, but actually I have a lot of work to do. The criteria is 100 "quality" lenses and, although all of mine were quality at one time, I'm behind in updating several lenses and I must find time to refresh and renew probably half a dozen before the end of the month.

In the meantime, I haven't had a chance to promote numbers 97 or 98 at all. Number 100 is started, so hopefully I'll find time to put some really good finishing touches on it and start promoting it as well.

Think I'll make it? I hope so. Thanks for all the help and encouragement along the way!

Hurry! Squidoo is Giving Away Money!

Squidoo is at it again. This time they're giving $30,000 to charity and they want you to help.

To choose which charity you would like the money to go to, visit this lens and follow the directions. You need to have a Twitter account to designate a dollar donation to one of 21 charities that Squidoo has named as recipients of this round of donations. There are links to click on within the lens, links which will auto-tweet your vote. It takes just a second to click and register your vote for the charity of your choice.

Once the 30,000 votes are tweeted, each representing a dollar to a specific charity, the voting ends and the donations will be made. If you want to be sure a dollar goes to your favorite of the 21 charities, go vote now before the 30,000 votes are used up. Really, it won't take long, so don't put it off.

You can watch the progress of the voting on Twitter Search. If you don't have a Twitter account, it's simple enough to set one up (and why, oh why, haven't you done that already?) at twitter.com. If my explanation doesn't make sense, read Megan's explanation on the official Squidoo Holiday Twitterdrive for Charity lens.

Hurry!

I'm Thoroughly Confused. What is Squidoo?

My new online friend, April, asked me this: "I just went to your Squidoo page, but am thoroughly confused! Just what is it? Is it a place to blog, sell, or something else?" Here's my response.

April,

To answer your question about Squidoo, yes to all of those things! Squidoo is a place where "experts" make pages about topics, anything at all, and people then find those pages when they're looking for information about the topic or contents of the page. It's an example of Permission Marketing, where you don't go to people, but they seek you out. If they like what they see, they might buy something you're offering for sale.

You don't actually have to sell anything on Squidoo, but if you do, you earn commissions on those things, plus you as a lensmaster (the pages are called lenses, the authors lensmasters) receive a portion of the overall ad commissions that Squidoo earns.

To understand it, you just have to explore it. My lensmaster/profile page shows all of the lenses that I've created, which cover a wide array of topics. Squidoo is a great way to promote an online business or just to get the word out about something you're passionate about. I just updated my favorite lens, called Nurturing Imagination. That's a topic I am rather passionate about, plus it features my kids. :-) Also, I'm pretty proud of the lens I recently made about my puppy, Daisy. I updated that one again this morning. It's good to update/freshen your pages regularly, but it isn't like a blog where you're expected to post regularly.

There are over 750,000 Squidoo lenses and thousands and thousands of lensmasters, so you can imagine the variety you'll find on Squidoo. I love it! (Can you tell??)

Hope that helps to answer your question!

Make a Bigger First Impression With Squidoo

First impressions are important and this is especially true with Squidoo lenses. Recently, Squidoo increased the allowable size of the intro module images (read about it here). I love this change. Now the pictures really pop.

The change isn't retroactive to the pictures you're already using on your lenses, so you might want to go back through and re-load your puny pictures if you believe a bigger version would benefit your lens. I've done that on a few of my lenses already, including this one and this one. (Don't worry, it's rated G.)

Tell me what you think. You like the bigger pictures or are they too big? Are you going to update yours? Leave me a comment and a link; I'd love to take a look.

My 7 Habits of Successful Lensmaking

Glen recently put together an awesome post called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Lensmasters. He enlisted the help of seven very successful lensmasters who each presented their own seven things that they do to help make each of their lenses successful. Great idea and you must read all 49. Then you can read my seven, here.

1. I have an idea! The best ones seem to just pop into my head.
2. Brainstorm. Write down everything I can think of about the topic. I usually type it, but brainstorming is better done with pen and paper.
3. Keyword search, which might actually change the direction of the lens but will likely give me the URL.
4. Google it. What’s there that I didn’t think of? Check images and video.
5. Amazon, eBay, and other affiliate products available? Look for both bestsellers and something unique. Look for eye appeal to spur emotion. (I’d choose a product with a pretty picture over something plain, wouldn’t you?)
6. Set up the sequence of modules and make the lens. This is where the creative juices actually flow. I’m a visual learner and seeing my ideas take shape actually spurs new and better ideas, so it isn’t surprising that my final product is often not quite the same as what I thought it would be when I first visualized it in my head.
7. Publish and take a look. Rearrange modules to make everything look nicely balanced.

Assignment: What are your 7 habits? Make your own list, print it out, tape it to your monitor or to the wall and refer to it often. Revise when necessary. Make great lenses!

Non-Geek Gets Best Tech Lens Nomination

What an honor! My Kindle lens has been nominated for the 2008 Giant Squid "Best Tech Lens" award. Very cool!

It's kind of ironic, though. I'm not exactly known for my technical prowess and I'm rarely mistaken for a geek. In fact, I'm rather technologically challenged. Actually, that's what has made my Kindle lens a pretty good lens; I designed it from a "Why would a non-techie type person like me want a Kindle wireless reader?" perspective. Happily, that approach has worked rather well.

The prize for the winner is basically bragging rights on Squidoo, which is a great reward. I'd be thrilled if you'd consider voting for my lens. The link to the voting module is on the Kindle lens, which I'd love for you to visit to make sure it's award-worthy, or you can go directly to the tech lens module on the 2008 Giant Squid Awards lens here. Be sure to take a look at all the lenses nominated in each of the different categories - all 21 - and vote for Giant Squid of the year while you're at it. (Good luck with narrowing that one down.) Voting deadline is December 21, but go ahead and vote now while it's fresh on your mind, and thank you very much for your support!

Raise Your Conversion Rate With These Squidoo Tips of the Day

A couple of quick tips today that will help convert lookers to shoppers and shoppers to buyers on your Squidoo lenses.

• In shopping modules (amazon, eBay, or with your own affiliate items such as allposters.com) use wording such as, "Click on the picture to read more about or to purchase the item." Some visitors to your lenses might not be accustomed to shopping online and need a call to action or even instructions to help them learn how to shop.


• When setting up an eBay module, if you know there will be plenty of your search items with bids, choose to show items with 1 or greater bids rather than defaulting to zero. Look under the "display options" tab and check the box to display the number of bids. Seeing that someone else is already bidding on the items creates an instant demand for the products that are shown, resulting in a sense of urgency for your lookers/shoppers/buyers to click through. Here's an example.
  

Have any additional tips to increase conversion rates on Squidoo? Please share them in a comment!

People Are Watching

I've discovered something rather interesting on Squidoo. People pay attention. They watch you. Having a fan club is fun and cool, even flattering, but it's actually a big responsibility. Add Giant Squid to your lensmaster status and people really start watching. Add SquidAngel to the mix and lensmasters start seeking you out. Sometimes it can be a little scary.

I used to think that I was a rather anonymous soul on the internet and, in fact, I pretty much was with a couple of nondescript websites that were easily overlooked. Then I started blogging and found a few people who began listening to what I had to say, but even that was on such a small scale it seemed that what I said or how I said it wasn't particularly important.

After Squidoo came along and one lens grew to two then 10 then, suddenly, I had 50 lenses and became a Giant Squid, by golly, people began to know who I was and what I said began to matter. Hiding behind my childhood-picture avatar was somewhat comforting, but as time has passed and I've built not only my brand on Squidoo but a reputation, the comfort level has really changed. Now I regularly get contacted with questions as well as getting asked for advice. I've even done a couple of interviews. Whoa, people actually care what I think!

That's pretty humbling, you know? I may be a Giant Squid and may, for awhile, have SquidAngel as part of my job description, but I'm really still just little ol' me. I take the responsibilities seriously and try to do my best and not let anyone down, though I might from time to time. I'm still that little girl in the picture, just a bit older. Okay, a lot older. When you do see me around, just remember that behind that orange halo lies a regular squid person who puts her pants on one tentacle at a time, just like you.

What All Squids Want - and I Got!

What do all Squidoo lensmasters hope for, strive for, wish for, live for? Do you know? If you're a lensmaster I'm guessing you do. The answer? Having your lens chosen as Lens of the Day.

Today was my day. I woke to lots and lots of Squidoo comment emails, which was my first clue. One said "Congratulations on LOTD" and then I knew for sure. Hooray! This is my first time receiving this great honor. What a way to start the week!

Making Fun of Sarah Palin - Has Political Humor Crossed the Line? is my honored lens. If you haven't seen it, I hope you'll take a few minutes to visit and read all the great comments answering the title question. Do you think political humor has gone too far this year? Add your comments to the duel. It's great fun!

Thanks, everyone, for creating such great content on the lens with your opinions and comments. Thanks, Megan, for choosing my lens. I'm so honored and still so excited!

Thanks to Spirituality

Spirituality, whose real name is Katinka, is one of the many generous lensmasters on Squidoo. I was so happy to receive a request from Katinka for an interview to be featured on her "Thank You Lensmaster - Squidoo Reviews" blog, which she publishes as a way of paying it forward, thanking the lensmasters who have helped us all out.

Today my interview was published; you can read it here. Katinka also supplied me with a badge to display, which you can see with this post as well as on my lensography. Isn't it pretty? I think it's pretty special, too.

It's lensmasters like Katinka who make Squidoo so successful. Without people who give back to the Squidoo community, what an ordinary place Squidoo would be. Thank you, lensmaster Spirituality, for helping make Squidoo so extraordinary.

Is Your Squidoo Lens Boring?

What makes a boring Squidoo lens? Usually the answer is text that goes on and on and on. While informational lenses are fine and sometimes large amounts of text are necessary, here are a few things that you can do to keep your readers' attention, to help them get through the wordiness.

• Split it up. A text module can contain 10,000 characters; you don't have to use them all! Consider subdividing your copy into multiple text modules with a title for each, which makes it a lot easier on the eye. If you do have a large section of text that absolutely must stay together, consider breaking it up with drop caps on paragraphs, bolding key words and phrases, and certainly by using pictures here and there.


• Create some variety. Squidoo has dozens of modules that can be used to spruce up a lens. Emphasize your most important point with a Black Box module (now available in multiple colors, by the way) or a The Most Important Thing module (a white box bordered in orange). Is there a book that complements your lens topic? Use an Amazon Spotlight module to feature that book. How about a Polaroid module to showcase a nice picture that demonstrates what you've discussed in those long text modules? There are many, many more modules available, so mix it up a bit! (Warning! Keep on topic. Don't add an Igo Green Tip of the Day widget unless that is closely related to your original subject.)


• Get your reader involved. People don't want to read about you, they want to read about themselves, about how your topic can benefit them. Give them an opportunity to participate. Consider using a poll module to let them vote yea or nay on something having to do with your topic. Writing about something controversial? Go a step further by using a duel module to elicit arguments on both sides; people love to give their opinions! By all means include a guestbook and be sure to place it near the end of the lens. Don't expect comments on the topic that appears down below; they haven't read it yet, so how can they comment on it?
  

Those are just a few tips to help you keep from boring your lens visitors, and with a little experience you'll think of others. It all comes back to the Golden Rule of making lenses: Put yourself in your readers' place. How would you like your lens if you stumbled upon it? Would you be bored? Then they certainly will be, too. Spruce it up and have fun with it! It'll be worth the effort.

SquidAngel, SquidAngel, Won't You Be Me

I love angels, believe in angels, and know that I have angels surrounding me and mine. Now, I am an angel, at least on Squidoo.

One of my most recent Squidoo honors is to have been chosen as a SquidAngel. In case you don't know, SquidAngels are lensmasters who visit lenses all throughout Squidoo (and that's a LOT of lenses!) giving great lenses little boosts we call blessings, and that's a good thing! Sometimes SquidAngels leave comments to let the lensmaster know their lens has been blessed, but sometimes we visit quietly and unannounced. So, if your lens suddenly takes an unexpected jump in lensrank, it may have received a visit - and a blessing - by a winged lensmaster.

As I carry out my SquidAngel duties, I will be exploring the far corners of Squidoo. Maybe I'll visit your lens. If you want to increase your chances of having an angel visit your lens, the Angels Forum is a good place to make a request. Before you ask, make sure your lens is up to snuff, worthy of a blessing. SquidAngels have very high standards!

See you on Squidoo. Look up!