Thinking Outside the Computer
June 4, 2009 in Lensmaster Blogs by lakeerieartists
We often think of ourselves as unschooled in the ways of the internet, but if you think about it, compared to most of the people we know outside of our online friends, we are virtuosos when it comes to promoting ourselves online.
I read a great post by Mr. Lewis Smile called Could you run an Offline Squidoo Business? which organized very nicely some ideas that I have had lately about selling my Squidoo talents to brick and mortar businesses in my area.
My thoughts were triggered by a post in the SquidU forum blog, and from that I wrote this lens, Are You a Retail Business Looking for Free Reputable Marketing and Another Income Stream?. I also have a lens for my new gallery location Lake Erie Artists Gallery at Shaker Square to let people know that we are moving and our hours.
What I hadn’t thought through, mainly because I don’t search the internet this way, is to think about advertising business based on the city or town they are located in.
Here is the beginning of Lewis’s post:
“Here’s an interesting idea. Do a google search right now for driving lessons + your city
For example, for me it’s Driving Lessons Cardiff.
Stick yours into Google and see what comes up. Knowing what you know about how Squidoo lenses rank in google, do you think you could rank in the top 5?
Try something else. Maybe Personal Trainer CITY, or Car Cleaning CITY, or Plumber CITY. Try anything!
Can you use your skills to outrank what is top right now for these local searches? I bet you could.
You can create a whole new income stream from even the simplest of lenses. ”
This makes the entire concept much more doable and specific because the keyword search terms become much more definable. For my store, it could be “gallery shaker heights” or “gallery shaker square” or others in that vein.
And if you read through the comments on Lewis’s blog post, you will see that John Dilbeck for one, has already taken the concept another step further by partnering with a photographer and sales person.
This is a whole new income stream from Squidoo that is not paid to us by Squidoo.
Read through the post, and see what you think. Remember, Squidoo is only the platform. We can do so many things with it. It is just up to us to stretch the boundaries.
[ratings]
With thanks to 
Overheard on twitter...
Great post, Paula. I just left a lengthy comment over at Lewis’ blog with my experiences and ideas for pricing such services. I think we should definitely be more self-confident about our abilities as online marketers. Most folks (including some ‘web designers’) have no idea about all the things we’ve learned here on Squidoo. The difficult part is always: how to make a potential client actually understand just how good we are! I have to be careful not to overwhelm a new prospect with the huge amount of info on all the beneficial aspects of marketing with Squidoo.
This would be a fabulous and much needed ebook (or SL post first):
“How to best propose my Squidoo marketing services to a local offline business”