The first (and last) time that I wrote a current events lens, I found out after it was finished that about 4 other lensmasters had done the very same thing on the same day. I’ve shied away from the subject since then.
But last night, a thought jumped in my head and stuck there and now I’ve got a slogan, a lens, and (drum roll . . .) a button on Zazzle.
I was intrigued when I first saw the “Sammy the Salmon” quest on Squidoo. The thought of starting a new niche was exciting, but I wondered whether it would work for me. I’m very busy these days, so it would not be a positive thing in my life to take on another large project. UNLESS the project could be used to spur me on to do something else that I wanted to do anyway.
And the thing that I most wanted to do was spend better quality time with my kids. Which meant that my niche would probably have to relate to homeschooling. Which is one of the most covered topics on Squidoo, written about by some of the best lensmasters around. How could I possibly have anything unique to say?
And then the magic words came to me — “in Los Angeles”. Lots of Squids write about homeschooling, but none of them are writing about homeschooling in L.A. Taking on that topic would inspire me to seek out even more enriching activities that I can do with my boys. But they would have to be very low-cost activities because I certainly don’t have any money.
And that was when I knew that I actually had a worthwhile niche. My subject is Homeschooling Cheaply in Los Angeles. So far (along with the lensography) I have two lenses made: one on the educational benefits of going for a walk with your kids, and one about doing a very inexpensive field trip to Exposition Park. And I’ve got ideas for a lot more lenses.
And it’s causing me to pay more conscious attention to the activities I do with my sons and thinking about what other things we can do (without spending money since I don’t have any).
I think this is going to be a very good thing.
This week traffic to one of my best performing lenses has been down. It’s a lens of very helpful curated content, links to full-length exercises videos that can be found online. I started the lens because when I was looking for workout videos for my own benefit, I had to do an awful lot of searching through sites that had other types of videos that were not full workouts, or that required a membership or something. I pulled together all the full-length (20 minutes or more) workout routines I could find and made a lens that has been very popular.
But, like I say, traffic was down this week. I did a Google search this morning and found that for some of the prominent search terms, other sites have starting pushing me further down on the first page. I was accustomed to being somewhere around #4-7 or so, but now I’m down around #9-10 for some searches, and for one search I’m off the first page completely.
Which I would graciously accept if the sites that were ranking above me were better than mine. But they’re not. Some of them are the type of site that feature a lot of 2-3 minute videos demonstrating just one exercise (is that what people are looking for when they search on “free online workout videos”?). And one of them is a spammy site, with links about local chiropractors, rock bands, and getting your ex back, interspersed with actual workout videos.
To fight back, I guess I’m going to try some more backlinking, and I’ve also changed the title of the lens to try to attract more attention. The titles of a lot of the web sites that show up in the search really do look a lot alike, mine included. But this morning I actually counted the number of videos I currently have featured on the lens and it turns out that there are exactly 99 of them. So the new lens title I’m trying out is “99 full-length workout videos that you can find online for FREE!”
We’ll see what happens.
UPDATE (8-27-11): The update and name change seem to have helped a lot. I’ve reclaimed a solid spot on page one.
I never thought that Halloween costume lenses would be a part of my Squidoo portfolio, but I got an inspiration from talking with my sons and I saw that there was something I could contribute. I made a lens on Halloween costume ideas for brothers, focusing on costumes that would be good for two brothers, since that’s what I have.
Some of the suggestions I have on the lens could really use some supporting lenses, so I’ll be making more. I already had to make one because there wasn’t anything good on the internet at all on making Earl and Randy Hickey costumes. The Earl and Randy lens has already started getting a tiny bit of external traffic.
More coming!
UPDATE: Something that I’m learning and need to keep in mind is that lens titles need to make it clear to the reader that you’re not asking the question, you’ve got the answer. The original title of the lens, “Halloween costume ideas for brothers”, was identical to some other Page 1 search results that were message board posts where people were seeking ideas and asking others for suggestions. I just changed my title to “Great Halloween Costume Ideas for Brothers”. The addition of the word “great” suggests that I’m dispensing advice rather than seeking it. And the book-title style capitalization also, I figure, makes it look like a finished piece of work.
For this Conversation Starter quest, I built a lens about a fanciful idea that I had many years ago — What if people were drafted to serve in Congress? People are giving thoughtful responses about the notion. I have enough comments to qualify to submit it for the quest, but I’m planning to wait a few more days and see if I get more.
Yes, I’m in California. And I WAS an Amazon affiliate. As you may have heard, California is the latest state to decree that online retailers who have affiliates in California will have to collect sales taxes. Amazon has responded by terminating the affiliate accounts of all residents of California.
Sigh. I’ve got my work cut out for me, changing over all those lenses. Thank goodness Squidoo has its own affiliate account.
UPDATE: The State of California and Amazon have made peace, and the affiliate program is back. I’m gradually changing over links now.
I wasn’t sure whether I would ever see a reason to write on more than one platform. Keeping track of serious writing in several different places would probably be disorienting for me. But I’ve found a way to use HubPages, and that is for backlinks. I’ve got a few hubs now, with writing that is worth a read (I hope) but not extremely demanding. Each hub provides a backlink to a lens.
My favorites so far are the Urban Foraging Photos hubs. They are primarily for showing off pictures that I’ve taken of local edible weeds. My weeds lenses on Squidoo include some original photos and some public domain pictures, but the pictures on the hubs are 100% original. I wrote some text about the beauty of the plants and a little bit about their edibility, but not in the kind of depth that I have on my Squidoo lenses. Each hub is devoted to pictures of one particular plant and has a link, of course to my lens on that plant.
I blogged about it on my choir blog, but forgot to do it here. The lens gives advice about teaching complicated or difficult songs to a choir, especially a choir that does not read music. Included some sales links for a few songs I like that are on the complex side.
My instincts told me (and the research confirmed) that this is not a topic that people tend to search on, but it’s information that I think is valuable and want to share. I featured it in the usual way on my other choir lenses and one my Facebook page, and so far it’s getting enough traffic to stay in the third tier.
My goal for the lens is that it bolsters my reputation as an information source, regardless of whether it ever makes it out of the third tier.
This is really the first choir lens I’ve written that had very much competition. It’s been indexed and is showing up on the first page of Google, but there are a lot of similar-looking listings. Here are the current Google results for a desirable search term:
Google results for "choir director signals" June 5, 2011
That’s me down there where it says “Hand signals for choir directing”. I don’t stand out much from the rest of the crowd. (Some of the other sites listed actually have content with some relevance, and others are forum posts where people are wishing they could find information like the info I have on my lens.
So here’s what I just did to try and stand out more. I’ve changed my lens title to “20 Hand Signals for Choir Directing (and how to use them)”, and I added more written description (in numbered list form) of the the content that’s covered in the videos. Hoping that makes me more noticeable.
The topic I was writing about for this niche lens was using hand signals in choir directing. For that subject I would definitely have to have visuals. And that meant either taking pictures or making videos of myself, despite my camera-shy nature.
Somehow I managed to get my courage up and produce Hand Signals for Choir Directing, complete with 3 YouTube videos where I demonstrate hand signals and talk about their use. The videos aren’t perfect, but if I try to wait for perfection, I’ll never ship the product.
So here it is — I shipped.
Joan Hall