Squidlog.net

As I am not a member of Tenfinity, the group of lensmasters that has brought us the Squidoo Step by Step guide, I decided that I can feel free to brag about it.

Squidoo Step by Step is the absolutely best and crystal clear Squidoo guidebook that I have seen since I started on Squidoo in June of 2008, almost 2 years ago.  I read through the book just yesterday, (no one says that I am the first to get to anything), and realized that I already know just about everything in the guide.  What that says to me is that I have learned quite a bit in my not quite 2 years on Squidoo.

However, much of what I have learned was learned through trial and error, learning and unlearning, and wasting a lot of time boiling instructions from several sources down to the bare bones.  Had I had this Squidoo Step by Step guidebook in my hands at the beginning, I would have reached where I am today much faster.  Squidoo Step by Step is an excellent resource for all lensmasters to understand the basics and the intermediary lessons that Squidoo has to teach us.

If you want to see if you are moving in the right direction, especially if Squidoo is your initiation to the internet web 2.0 or web 3.0, I highly suggest that you download a copy.  What is the price, you ask?  $29.95? $5.95?  Nope, the Squidoo Step by Step guide is completely free.  How about that!

Now the group that brought us the Squidoo Step by Step guide has also started a wonderful Ning called Professional Squids.  The idea behind Professional Squids is to help people understand the Squidoo Step by Step guide, and go beyond the guide.  And the group is, yep you guessed it, totally professional in nature.  And guess how much this Ning costs to join and continue the excellent learning that started in Squidoo Step by Step?!  Free again.  Two amazing free resources that will vastly improve your efficiency and proficiency on Squidoo.  What are you waiting for?

Join Professional Squids by clicking here!

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I originally went on Facebook when my older daughter was in middle school, and she decided to go on Facebook. I befriended her to see what Facebook was all about, and what she was doing. At the time, it was a primarily social site, with loads of time sucking games, and other time wasters. Although I did establish a group for local Cleveland artists, I did not benefit greatly from the group.

I mostly ignored Facebook the last couple of years and kept my account, but went onto other social media including of course, Squidoo. I have spend most of the last two years discovering internet marketing, article marketing, and other internet savvy topics.

Back to Facebook:
While I have been ignoring Facebook, the site has gone through a massive overhaul, most especially when it comes to privacy, and business applications. The privacy settings on the site are much, much better and can be individually altered to the nth degree. So if you hate games like Farmville, you can tell Facebook that you do not want to receive those messages.

Fan pages or pages:
Facebook developed what were called fan pages, and now are called pages in the last year. And they are becoming increasingly useful. A page can be developed for a business or organization, and people can fan it. This allows them to keep up with your company’s information. I just attended a local seminar on using Facebook for business, and the marketing guru said that Facebook is one of the fastest growing sites in the world. And the sector that is growing the fastest is in the 35 to 55 market. The college age bracket is pretty much saturated, but older folks are really just now discovering Facebook, and you can keep in touch with them easily about your organization or company by setting up a page.

Pages are relatively easy to set up, and also easy to maintain. And they are totally free. You don’t have to be on them every day, just once a week or twice a week. You can post links, pictures, and videos to them, and you can get to know your customers. And we all know that selling of any kind is really a relationship business.

If you want to see a page that I have set up, you can go to my lakeerieartists page which is dedicated to my online presence.

Facebook is a site that you should reconsider if you left it previously, as it is definitely Facebook renewed.

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Learning to Fly

I wanted to bring your attention to a new feature on SquidU that I am doing called the Public Lens Critiques. This started in the Giant Challenge Ning, but since the Giant Challenge is not on the Ning anymore, we decided to move the critique to SquidU.

This critique is not meant for brand new newbies, but for lensmasters with some time under their belt. I am picking and choosing the lenses both from lenses people ask me to critique, and if no one does, I will most likely just randomly pick and choose.

The idea is for everyone to learn from each other, and to turn good lenses to great lenses with good SEO potential. And of course, sometimes a second pair of eyes picks up on things that you miss after revising your own work numerous times.

The first critique is here. If you would like your own lens critiqued, contact me via my contact me button on Squidoo.

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Too Cold for the Beach

For many of us, including myself, winter is a tough time of year.  The incessant frigid cold weather is taxing on our bodies as well as on our psyches, making it even harder to just get out of bed.  Then we have to go and put on several layers of clothes, and a coat over that just to leave the house.

January, too, can be a depressing letdown after the huge buildup to the Christmas holiday season, especially if you earn money from sales during the holidays.  All of the energy that you expended leading up to the holidays, takes its toll in January.

And you are not the only one.  Many people take a few weeks to recover from the holidays, often making January a sluggish sales month.

However, if you are goal oriented and smart, January and February are a huge opportunity to build up your resources, lenses, blogs, and other online money earning accounts while you are inside next to the fireplace. (Make sure to stay far enough away to keep your laptop cool.)  If you spend the first few weeks of the year strategizing your year, and writing your articles, lenses, and blog posts 4 to 5 months before they need to produce, you will allow your work to percolate, and gain authority and backlinks in time for real money to be made.

Visualize yourself on the beach this summer, while your summer travel lenses are making you money while you are sunbathing.  Summer travel lenses that you wrote in February, I might add.  This is just an example of course, as you can come up with numerous topics to write about for every season of the year.

My point is really two points.  One–take advantage of the slow time to rev up your income earning potential by writing, backlinking, and writing some more.  Two–write your articles way ahead of the time they are apropos to allow them to mature so that the right people read them when they are ready to buy.  In other words, plan ahead.

I started as a Squidoo lensmaster in June of 2008, and it is only in the last six months or so that I realized the value of time in the online money making equation.  The longer you stick with it, the more you write, and the more good sites you write on (including your own blogs), the more you get noticed, followed, fanned, the more income you will make.  Each item you create adds to your repertoire or resume, just like any other type of work that you do.  Even more so, if you link the items together in a network.

So let your space heater run next to your feet, and the cold wind blow, while you create income for yourself that will pay off in the next few months.

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As many of you know, I have been dabbling with Hubpages in the last 6 months, and in that time period, I have learned some valuable lessons that I am going to apply to my Squidoo lenses going forward, and looking back on my older lenses as I refresh and revise them.

For those of you that do not have a Hubpages account, Hubpages is an article writing site, however, it is much more streamlined and pared down compared to Squidoo. Because Hubpages is more basic, however, the author is required to really hone their craft to do well.

Writing on Hubpages, reminded me that I had been sidetracked by all the bells and whistles on Squidoo, and had sometimes let that get in the way of writing a strong keyword rich, traffic stopping article that would look good to Google and other search engines.

So since I find myself in this position, I thought these lessons might apply to some of you as well, and I will share them with you.

1. An article gets better Google traffic if it is at least 800 words.
2. Pictures are great but they do not take the place of text.
3. Most readers come to your article in search of information. If there is too much other stuff in the way, they will not stay.
4. Items you sell on your article need to be directly related to the topic of the article for successful selling.
5. If you are selling an item, and that is your purpose, then take every opportunity to sell that item. Don’t beat around the bush.
6. There is nothing wrong with trying to make money. We all need to eat.

For those of us on Squidoo that have gotten excited about all the great new modules and features, but have forgotten to write enough text to attract readers and Google (and I include myself in this group), go back to your lenses and make sure that you have at least 800 words of keyword rich text to go with everything else.

Lenses that are all pictures are beautiful but they won’t attract Google, and they won’t attract a lot of readers. Also pictures need to have their alternative text filled in to get any attention on Google.

And there is no reason to feel ashamed that you want to earn money with your lenses. I am not against charities. As a matter of fact, I think giving to worthwhile charities is great. But in order for us to help others, we also need to make enough money to help ourselves. Wanting to earn a living wage online is not a bad thing, and it can be done. And I mean a living wage, one that we can actually live on.

Sometimes I think that some people in the Squidoo community do not realize that many of us are trying to earn a living online, to pay for basic needs like food. In my case, I am working to support a local gallery. And that is a worthwhile goal.

What I am suggesting is that we all go back to the basics in 2010. Don’t worry so much about the color of your text, and the look of your lens. Spend your time working on making a keyword rich, focused lens that will catch the eye of Google, and bring you the right kind of traffic, people who want to read what you are writing about, and buy what you are selling.

The rest is fluff, and will not earn you money. Even if you are doing it for your favorite charity.

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