My Etsy Shop is Live!

I did it! I opened an Etsy shop! You can see my hand crafted items on the side bar over there. It's been a lot of work putting it all together. Like I said in my post, "Planning Today," I want to do it right, if I'm going to do it.

There's a whole lot more to opening an Etsy shop than one would think. Not only do you have to make what you're going to sell, you have to list it, and promote it. Okay, that did make it all sound simple, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, there's really a lot to it.

Etsy suggests listing 10 items to start with. Well, for me at least, what I want to sell requires a lot of thought, sewing, drawing, assembling, and supplies. For example, one piece I made to sell requires upwards of $70 worth of supplies and equipment just to make it.

Hey Diddle, Diddle!

Given all that, and the time it took me to make it, I decided to make smaller pieces to help even the scales.

Twinkle, Twinkle little Star!

Hubby and I discussed the cost of overhead, time, and the "what ifs" prior to opening shop. The idea of starting with 10 items flew out the window. However, I'm working on more inventory anyway.

So, in an effort to help with branding, I started a blog just for my Etsy shop: Truly Unique Baby. (Notice how the new blog and my store have the same name? Cute huh?) Check it out if you have some time. Right now there's only a couple of posts. But, I'm working on creating more.

Along with all that, I'm still cleaning up this blog. The Internet has evolved so much since I started it, a lot of the old links don't work anymore. If only there were more hours in a day...

Well, if I'm going to get anything done, I better get to it.

 

Take care!

Ellen Wants 1 Million Twitter Followers

I watch Ellen almost daily and, like many, she's jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. She's looking to get 1 million Twitter followers. I'm sure if anyone can do it, she can. As of this post @TheEllenShow followers are over 120,000.

I don't usually do posts at this time of day, I should be cooking dinner. As a matter of fact, I haven't posted this many times in one week in a long time. I guess playing around with the blog's back end so much lately has made me post crazy.

I've been playing around on Twitter myself, not actually tweeting. I'm reading and following tweets to see what exactly Twitter is all about. So, I get it that Ellen is intrigued with it.

I've learned quite a few things about networking, marketing, and surviving on the Internet from various Twitter-ers. I suspect I'll learn more before it's all said and done.

If you're on Twitter, let's help @TheEllenShow get to 1 million by following. Good Luck Ellen!

Pepperjam Network: The Best Affiliate Program!

Did you know Pepperjam Network made Inc 5000? PJN is in the top 100 of the fastest growing businesses in the United States! I recieved a newsletter telling me all about it.

PJN is also:

• The 2nd fastest growing company in Pennsylvania
• The fastest growing affiliate marketing network
• The fastest growing full-service Internet marketing agency
• The fastest growing interactive marketing agency
• The fastest growing search-engine marketing firm
• The fastest growing advertising/marketing in Pennsylvania
• PJN ranks #5 in the United States in advertising/marketing

I'm really happy I signed up with Pepperjam Network. Doing the affiliate ad work has given me a whole new perspective on what to do with my Squidoo lenses. I've gained a lot of new ideas using the banners and links Pepperjam provides.

You know what else? PJN is very helpful. They have a great support system. Plus, all of your banners link back to your PJN account, they track everything for you, and all of your information is laid out so you know exactly what's what!

The more affiliate work I do using Pepperjam, the better I get at building the ad content. I'm almost thinking I'm better at writing ads than any of the other writing I've been doing. Which is baffling to me. I'm building the Squidoo lenses faster and better than I ever had before.

I think everyone should sign up with PJN! If you haven't done it yet, do it now!

Do it Right, Or Don't Do it at All

It's just about lunch time so I'm going to make this quick, or so I say.

Last weekend I helped my husband change the rear brake shoes and drums on the Ranger. It was not the cleanest job in the world. The guy at Auto Zone said, "You're going to need some brake cleaner to do the job." My husband looked a the cost of the stuff and bypassed it--he's cheap like me--he figured we could use the compressor to spray the brake dust off. Plus, we already spent a small fortune on the parts and the spring tools to do them right.

After we got into the job he realized we needed the $8 spray. We live about 40 miles from Auto Zone so we did without...

The job took just about all afternoon to accomplish. The mess on the garage floor was extensive. The spring puzzle those Rangers have connecting everything together gave me a headache and a broken nail. I think part of the headache might have come from inhaling brake dust too. However, in the end (and two aspirin later), the brakes work great.

I learned a lesson doing the brakes. You must have the proper tools to get the job done right.

Speaking of proper tools, I've been building a lot of lenses. I decided to build a lens about the tools, information, and references I use to build my lenses. I actually have a lot of other tools bookmarked here and there but this is what I have gathered so far:

• My Squidoo Cheat-Sheet

I'm learning so much building these lenses. All of the marketing and promotion stuff I talked about here months ago applies to the lenses too...I have to go back and change some things on the lenses after revisiting some of my old posts. I'll get it right in the end.

Affiliate Marketing: Getting My Toes Wet

I've been busy, too busy. I had to put the blog on the back burner for a bit. I hope to get back to my 3/week posts by the end of summer. I am still visiting blogs. I just haven't had too much time for posts.

I signed up to be an affiliate marketer. You can see some of the ads on the top of the blog. Adsense just isn't cutting it for me. I signed up for their "image" ads and still only got text. So I took the plunge to be an affiliate. Guess what, it's free. You should check them out because Pepperjam Network is Now Offering a $10 Affiliate Sign On Bonus. Join Today.

Here's how I'm using the Pepperjam affiliate ads on Squidoo:

• Swimsuit Model Selections for Real People
• Food Recipes: Variety is the Spice of Life
• Debt Free! Real World Credit Management Solutions
• Dereon Makes Perfect Back to School Clothing
• Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question...
• Old Vintage Jewelry is Beautiful and Stylish
• The Pepperjam Affiliate Marketing Program is for You!

Here's another affiliate program: ClickBank. Their ads are in text link ads to digital products. I just signed onto this one. I created Bass Fishing Guide for Fishing Largemouth like a Pro. I don't know how many clickbank lenses I'll do, but that lens was a fun one to throw together.

You probably won't have to hear me ramble on too much about affiliate marketing until I get to know the ropes a little better. So far I'm doing alright with it. Every day another advertiser accepts me as an affiliate at pepperjam. As long as they do, I'll keep building the lenses.

If you are looking to run ads on your blogs or make more money on Squidoo, I think you should give Pepperjam a go.

Squidoo Talk Time

I've been updating. I like to go through pages, check links, and decide if I'm ready to change up the format, style, or direction. I play with the blog constantly, so if you're looking for changes here you probably won't see much.

The biggest changes I've made were on the Squidoo lenses. I decided to work on those a bit since they are getting a little traffic. I was reading through some tips Squidoo has to make desirable lenses and get them to produce. So I've started applying some of the tricks and adding relevent fun applications and widgets.

I read that some lensmasters are earning quite an income from their lenses. I can see how that's possible. I can also see those top earners have bucket loads of lenses--many are similar in nature. I guess I need to make more lenses so I can cash in.

I need to gather ideas. The last few posts here have covered some topic discovery tricks I use for my articles. The lenses are different though. They're not really articles. They're more of a lead to some of my other stuff.

Right now I have two I'm working up but haven't published yet. One may not get published at all because I'm waiting for an okay to use an image. Without the image the lens would be rather lame. If I can't use it I'll just delete it.

I want to build some hobby lenses, a few more local attraction lenses, and of course a few more promotional lenses. Then comes content, which takes time. Given I'm always short of time, I've decided to start the lenses and add to them as I can to freshen them up.

On the lenses I've got up, some of my content is short. Some of the content only directs to other articles. Some of the content is pictures and links--something different I was trying.

Since Squidoo only requires 5 modules to publish a lens, you can have a table of contents, a text/write, an Amazon and eBay selling module, and a guest book--there's 5. Lens started and published tout suite.

The trick is updating the lens and adding to it over time. So much to do...

I was hoping to build 30 more lenses before June 30. If I could accomplish that I would become a Giant Squid. I don't think it will come to fruition at least not this go around. With summer, the kids, and family stuff, I can barely keep up posting to the blog twice a week--I was doing 3 but I cut back for summer break.

Maybe I could still get the lenses done... Three a day... No, I'm not even going to try. I have bigger fish to fry.

Have you built your first lens yet?

Friday Roundup, the Weekend is Here!

Do you remember your first kiss? How your heart beat so hard and fast you thought surely it would burst out of your chest? I do. I caught these two kissing the other day.

Then they realized they had been caught.

I think they're a little young for this, don't you?

I've been busy. Yesterday I took a ton of pictures. I need a better camera. I've been looking at an Olympus. It has all I want and more. Plus it takes sequential shots! How cool it would be to capture sequences without waiting for that digital to do whatever it does between shots.

Yesterday I also decided that we need a new computer. Ours is starting to really lag, hang up, and be just plain slow. Well, it's either the computer, or it's the DSL. I'm voting for the computer.

I did a lot of updating and site work yesterday. I added a new widget here for the reviews I've been doing at Shared Reviews. That site is turning into a pretty good side-line for a lot of people. I've even made a little money. I'm going to work on bumping that up a bit since it takes so little time.

They only require 750 characters for the reviews. That's short. Mine are running about 1400. It takes me a few minutes to write a review and post it. Then I vote on reviews--takes only a few minutes of my time. Then I get paid. It doesn't get any better than that.

I wrote an article and submitted it yesterday also. (I actually did two but one was just for fun). I don't know if they're going to buy the real one yet. I think the topic was pretty time conscious and should remain "evergreen."

Evergreen articles are it online. That's what everyone wants. Something that will stand the test of time. Something that will be hit over and over again. Okay, so that's what I will give them.

Yesterday was a busy day for me. Today will be also.

This weekend we will be taking the boat out for a test run. We completed all of the wiring, did the tilt trim unit, installed the new extinguisher, and battened down the hatches. The driveway run proved well, now it's time to put it in the water. If we forget the plug, all will be fine because we got the new bilge pump in also.

This should prove to be a great weekend. I hope everyone has a good one!

Pageflake: Another Promotional Backlink Idea

Here we go again! I have another page link tool for you to check out. Remember backlinks are what gets your blog ranked higher in the search engine. The higher your rank the more hits you will get. The more hits you get...Well, you get the picture.

The tool, well it's not really a tool per se, is actually a like a homepage. It's called Pageflakes. You set this page up with a series of modules, called flakes. The Pageflake you create can then be published as a pagecast for the world to see. You tag your Pageflake just as you would anything else and publish it.

Pageflake is free. You go to the site, set up favorite modules, edit those modules to suit your taste, and when you've got what you want you can register to keep it. Once you create an account (which requires email verification, a user name, and a password) your page is saved.

After you have saved your page you can add flakes (modules), feeds, and personalize it with a theme. Then you publish it: make a profile, decide the level of privacy (for link building you really want to go full board with it), and then you get your URL.

If you want, you can make your Pageflake your home page. This is optional. Just don't forget to bookmark or favorite your Pageflake so you know where it's at.

I put my AC, blog, and myspace feeds on mine. You can look at it HERE. I'm going to keep adding stuff to it over the next few weeks. You can bet I'll link it on my sidebar--just like everything else.

To put your Blogger blog on it, you can do an anything flake or choose another Blogger module in the entertainment section and edit it to read your atom feed. The same goes for myspace.

The process is simple really once you get to playing around with it. Total time for my set-up took about 30 minutes.

I have to give credit where credit is due. Thank you Christopher Reed for letting me know about Pageflakes.

Squidoo Lenses are Up, Up, and Away...

I did not get a chance to post yesterday. Not only was I busy putting the house back together after the party, I had laundry to do--such is my life. I did manage to put together a couple of new lenses on Squidoo. They are getting so easy to do!

I like how I can get one started with my basics and go back to edit or add to them. As a matter of fact, I started two more this morning--those are still WIPs so they aren't showing yet.

I want to share the two I completed yesterday:

• Scenes from the Texas Guadalupe River
• Scenes from Canyon Lake, Texas

Of course I still have my other lenses up. I did a few updates and changes on those too:

• Blog It...
• Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question...
• Just One Click Can Make a Difference
• Make My Day eBay
• How to Flip an Old Boat

The two I finished today are not live yet, but if you want to check them out tomorrow, or ever, you can see them on my Lensmaster Page. I also created a side bar link under the Join Squidoo button.

The lenses I completed today are Bettas: The Fish Full of Personality and Cypress Cove Community.

Some may think I'm going wild, or something, but that Squidoo is addicting. Especially since I'm actually getting readers out of it.

I'm going to try to keep the new lenses coming. I'm at 9 and I have more planned. Since I can edit them at will, I'm going to continue building the basic lens and go back to add on to them after they are published. Here's my list:

• Inspired Day by Day--just about the blog with links to my favorite posts I've done.
• Food Recipes: Variety is the Spice of Life--recipes of mine and some I've tried.
• Shared Reviews: Paid to Review Site--a how to.
• Sproutbuilder Widgets Help You Market and Promote Your Content--a how to
• Swaddling a Baby--a how to.
• Dr. Brown's Baby Bottles--a sales lens.
• Teen Pregnancy--get the word out lens.
• Teen Pregnancy Monkeybrain lens--a debate lens.
• Led Zeppelin
• Nascar
• Butterfly Alphabet Book--a review/sale lens.
• Vintage Jewelry--a just because lens.
• Port Aransas

The two scene lenses are pretty much done except for a few photos I want to scan and add to them. Those I really want to keep as pictorial references and highlight the article links.

I think I'll be doing some major edits to the Betta lens. The photos on it did not fare to well through the Polaroid module I used. I think I'll have to direct link them from photobucket to get the quality a bit better. I'll see once it goes live if there is any difference in photo quality.

Now that I'm getting more used to Squidoo; I think I'll start sharing more links for making better lenses to the blog. I've found a bunch. Then I'll throw in my own two cents as usual.

It's Friday! Fabulous Fun Friday

It's Friday! We've got another busy weekend ahead of us. We will be hosting a birthday party for my brother-in-law. I've got a lot of cooking and prep work to do today.

I wanted to mention Squidoo. I put together another lens on boats: How to Flip an Old Boat. That lens went together rather quickly; I was surprised. I found a funny you tube video to go with it pertaining to the joy of boats--there sure is a lot of funny stuff out there. I had seen some of this video on one of those funny home video shows. I love how they put the videos together with the theme from "Love Boat."

Speaking of Squidoo, I still think its a great venue for promotion. My next lens is probably going to be about fishing on the Guadalupe. I've got tons of pictures I could put on it--of the scenery not fish I've caught (fish avoid my line for some reason).

This week I managed to get myself in gear around the house, write a couple of articles and reviews, and keep up with my three posts on the blog. I'm proud of myself. I think I finally have this time management thing down

I better get to cooking. If I don't, there's going to be a mess of angry guests here tomorrow. I hope everyone has a superb weekend!

Promotion Play...

Promotion is a daunting task. I've been working through a few different things, trying new stuff, and throwing out bits and pieces of what I'm learning. I have joined yet another site: BlogFlux.

Blog Flux is a blog directory. I learned about it when this blog was just an idea floating around in my head. I wanted to get a few posts under my belt before I joined. I had forgotten all about it until I was doing some spring cleaning and organizing on my favorites tab. When my memory came back to me, I decided to log my blog with them.

They offer different tools that you may find useful for your blog. Note my new Page Rank button down on the right side. Okay so I'm only a 2, but two is better than zero. They also have blog templates, mapping tools, and button makers. Everything is conveniently stationed on one site for you to use to enhance your blog.

Once you register your blog, you join the ranks of other blogs and hopefully gain more readers. Blogs are categorized by genre. You can sift through like-minded bloggers to find new blogs, different blogs, and maybe generate topic ideas.

Since promotion is what makes the Internet go 'round, I guess joining all these sites is what you have to do.

I signed on for something else, but I'm going to work on it for a bit before I post about it. So far it has given me some new inspiration. The Workshop Wednesday post this week will give you a little clue as to what I did.

I'll be playing with it some more this week. I'll write a detailed post about it on Friday or Monday.

More Stuff Added on to the Blog...

You know me, I like to change and add to the blog occasionally. Okay, more than occasionally. I've known about this for quite some time, but I've only just gotten to adding it here: Add This. It's for social bookmarking and blog promotion. You should be able to see the drop down button at the bottom of my posts.

To get the button you have to create an account. They don't have a email verification process, so it's fast. They do require an email, user name, and password for registration. It is free--you know how I like free. The site provides usage stats also.

Adding the button to your Blogger blog is really simple. Add This gives you all the instruction you need for several blogging platforms. For Blogger, you insert the code in the template html so it will show on each blog post automatically.

Why do you need this? So people can bookmark your posts. The more you are bookmarked, the more readership you gain. We've discussed this before here mostly, but I discuss it a lot throughout the entire blog.

My next find came while I was playing around on the forum at AC. I came across a post about custom widgets. There's a pretty neat site called Sproutbuilder that lets you build and customize your own widgets. Note my new AC widget on the top right--it matches my avatar.

Sproutbuilder is still in beta. I have had some minor issues like slow loading and linking issues. I changed the settings to avoid using pop ups to link as a temporary fix. The slow loading is something I just have to deal with.

The site is super easy to use. You can begin building widgets instantly, but if you want to save and use them, you must register. Registration is typical: user name, email, and password. You do have to do email verification. The best part about it is it's free!

You can build calendar, news, video, and music widgets. Whatever you want to promote, you can make and have it be customized with your own photos, artwork, or designs. Pretty neat stuff.

The last two adds came from BlogCatalog. I used to have a visitor widget, but when I updated the blog it got deleted. I put it back on. They have other networking widgets available, like neighborhoods, communities, discussions, groups, and news. I chose visitors and communities. The communities widget lets others know where else you can be found on the web.

I know there is a lot to swallow here.

Have fun!

Shortstop Friday

This will be a shorty today. I built another Squidoo lens. (I'm still working on it so don't be too critical.) This one is for Conda and Kathy and the Freerice site they have promoted in the past. I just love that little game. I've probably donated a billion grains of rice so far.

I added a little you tube video that goes along the same theme. There's a feed the hungry site that all you have to do is click and food will be donated. Now that site does have sales stuff on it, but the proceeds are supposed to go to the charities. The video is really heart wrenching so be sure to have a tissue handy.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Backlinks: The Chains Part Three

In Backlinks: The Chains Part Two, we talked about stats and I discussed the tracker Who Links to Me? At the end I mentioned another site I was looking into. The site is StatCounter.

StatCounter logs visitors to your site, blog, or pages. Most of us are familiar with blogrush, which shows you the clickthroughs you are getting on particular articles through blogrush. Who links to me? Tells you who's linking to you. Feedburner is good for some statistic action also.

All of that's great, but I want to know a few other things. How am I being found? What keywords are working and which aren't? Like most of the tools I mention here, StatCounter is free for the basic service; if you want to log more, you have to pay.

Along with a page view counter you get keyword analysis, which tells you what people are searching for to get to your site. Popular pages tells you which pages people are hitting on the most. Entry sites tells you which pages they come in at, whether its the home or another page. There's a lot of other more complicated stuff you can use, but I'm more interested in the keyword statistics.

Unlike Who Links to Me? You have to register this tool and set up an account. I think it's more geared toward those selling through their site. But some of the SEO information is useful for the web writing aspect.

Backlinks: The Chains Part Two

This is going to be a quickie, I say that but you know how I am. After going over the linking thing in my last post, I did a little more digging. I just have to know. It's in my nature. I found a nifty tool called Who Links to Me? If you look on my sidebar you can see it just below my favorite blogs modular.

The tool gives you your page rank, the number of links to your site, your blogroll stats, Google, Yahoo, and MSN links. All in all, I'm doing much better than I thought. You can see my stats by clicking the link. If you want, you can also retrieve code from that page to put on your blog to get your stats. You can also just visit Who Links to Me?

Sometimes I can be too visual I guess, but seeing those numbers gave me a new perspective.

I actually found two tools. The Who Links to Me? was the first and fastest I tried. The other I have to register and research. Don't worry, I'll share it with you in a later post once I get to know it...

Backlinks: The Chains that Bind

My last post covered a little bit of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Diving into the subject, I began to question certian aspects of it and how one would actually increase their number in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Why I got started on this is beyond me, but the chain that seems to tie it all together is the backlinks.

I woke up in the middle of the night, actually the wee hours of the morning, and began doing some reading on the subject. Backlinks are links back to your site, blog, page, or information on the net. Simple enough for me.

Backlinks make search engine algorithms hum. A site with a number of links back to it that is rich in keywords and phrases, offers quality content, and is frequently updated will rank higher.

In Filthy Linking Rich, by Mike Grehan, the Web is looked at as a small world that is intertwined from network to network by paths. It said you could randomly pick two sites and get from one to the other within 4 clicks. I haven't tried it, but it sounds plausible.

The next relation comes from page links. The magic number of links for pages is 19. This comes from a network theory. The entire article is really quite interesting, long but interesting. I suggest giving it a read when you have the time.

Grehan made a comparison using Kevin Bacon and the "erdos number." I remember discussing this topic in some course work myself, so I won't go on about it. Basically, it rings true to the small world theory and we are all connected either personally or are a friend of a friend.

So, the backlinks to our sites drive traffic to our content which increases page views. Increased page views combined with a number of backlinks will increase page rank. Once you rank higher in the search engines you will get more hits.

For some reason I have an image in my head of a water wheel. Like the one from Little House in the Prairie. I see the wheel turning round and round--the wheel is the net. I see the water spilling onto it--the water is our content. I see the sawmill powering up--the mill is our computer. I may be reaching with that, but I thought it, I was inspired, and so I wrote it.

SEO-Choo: Bless You--Sneezing out those Topics, Keywords, and Whatnot

Remember my keyword density post? I wanted to update you. The ranking is so far down that even a shovel couldn't dig it out. I attribute this to SEO. As we all know, SEO means Search Engine Optimization.

There are a few problems with that post. One is basic, and something I should have known, the term keyword is flooded in the search engine. How flooded? 769,000,000. Keyword Density is at about 1,860,000.

One of the main things about SEO and keywords is that ever looming topic choice. My chances would have been better had I chosen a topic like Luna Moth (which is at 159,000). However, that topic is better suited for a lepodopterist--speaking of which is at 71. Maybe that's what I should be writing about: Butterfly specialists (I know, butterflies and moths are related but different insects).

Another problem with the post is my credibility. I'm not up there in the rankings with this blog yet: not enough posts, I stagnate too much, and my topics jump around. Those are all easy fixes, if I never had to sleep and I found my niche. I'm working on these problems.

With SEO we have this phenomenally called SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Those numbers I mentioned above are those pages. Some sites do well while others lurk down the ranks.

SEO Strategy tells me there is a formula to follow:

1. Build a quality content based web site with original content.
2. Gain relevant backlinks with varying keyword anchor text to get indexed.
3. After indexing occurs create 1 new content page for the site every week.
4. Continue to gain relevant backlinks with varying keyword anchor text.

There is an entire "plan" offered through SEO Strategy, but let's start with the basic formula.

• Build a quality content based web site with original content.

We all know what quality content is: it is well written where spelling and grammar errors are non-existent. The spelling is easy, just run your spell check. Grammar, well that comes over time. You should know your basics, like every sentence should have a subject and a verb, then go from there.

How about original content? You can take a stale topic and make it fresh: add a new twist, merge related topics to make something new, or come up with something undiscovered (unflooded).

• Gain relevant backlinks with varying keyword anchor text to get indexed.

I link back to myself all of the time. Remember the Linking Myself Together post? Perhaps that's not what SEO Strategy means by backlinks (I'll look into that).

There's that word again: keyword. So, we have to vary our keywords and anchor our text together in order for the SERPs to index us high. Basically we have to stay on topic and talk about the same thing over and over again. Just tell me how that is keeping subject matter fresh?

• After indexing occurs create 1 new content page for the site every week.

I guess that's how you keep it fresh: after you've done the work and talked about your topic until you're blue in the face, you add a bit of new stuff. There's where the credibility/expert thing comes into play.

• Continue to gain relevant backlinks with varying keyword anchor text.

This last thing may be my main problem (and something mentioned twice in the formula): backlinks and keywords. I bet the backlinks have to be from other sites to me. At this point I'm only linking to myself and to others. I need to get more links back to me.

I'll research the backlink thing further and post my results...

Blog It Lens is Up! More Information on Squidoo

Well, I finished my Blog It lens! I also have been cruising around updating all of my pages for St. Patrick's day. It's been a busy morning for me indeed.

My friend Swubird commented: "What exactly is a Squidoo? Lens? I've never heard of the term outside of optical use. I followed the link, but I'm still unsure as to how you actually implement one of these little things. Do you put it on your blog, another blog, another site - ?"

I replied in a comment back but some how the comment disappeared into web land. So I decided to post it here along with the link to the latest lens: Blog It...

Squidoo is the name of the site. A derivative of Squid. I read somewhere that the lenses were like squid in the ocean--to be looked at, learned about, and multiplied. Lenses are, well, I'll just quote from SquidU:

• What is a lens? It's many different things. It's a small look at the world. It's a list of your favorite things. It's a way to share your resume or promote your business.
  The best way to learn what a lens is is to create one. Play with it. Add stuff. Delete stuff. Move things around. You won't break anything, I promise!

Like I said, my first lens took me a month to put together. Not only because of my lack of content, because I did not really understand what to do with it. I knew I needed to put some together for promotion and indexing; I just didn't understand the make up of the parts and how to use them.

SquidU suggests: Do Squidoo: A much requested guide to creating a successful Squidoo lens. This lens offers a guide to building a lens. However, I'm more of a put it together without the instructions kind of gal. I opted to build it first and read later.

Now as far as implementing them goes, the lenses are promotional tools. SquidU says:

• When used right, Squidoo is a promotion paradise. You can use it to drive traffic to your business or entertainment websites, boost your online resume presence, and position yourself as an expert on your topics of interest.
  Find the best tips for promoting your lenses, groups, charities, and yourself here!

I've heard that search engines love these lenses and they tend to rank higher than your standard blog post. Perhaps the bundling of so much information is what does it. What ever the reason, I want to utilize it to my advantage and build lenses to "advertise" my articles.

Looking at other lenses and reading forum posts about the site convinced me that joining Squidoo would benefit me. Not only is it useful for linking back to my work; it can generate a residual income and a portion of that can be donated to charity.

I say, just sign up because it's free anyway. If you don't like it you can always cancel your account. Once you sign up, you are not committed to building the particular lens you started your account with. As a matter of fact, I deleted the lens I began when I signed up.

I made a "Join Squidoo" button at the bottom of my posts if you want a quick link. You can also join from the Blog It... lens by clicking "make your own page."

If any of you do build a lens, comment to me about it. I want to see your work! Happy lens building to those of you that try it.

My New Favorite Toy: Squidoo

You're not going to believe this, but, I made another lens yesterday. The lens is, Make My Day eBay. I got this one done much faster than the Bar Tending lens. Of course I will be editing and adding to both lenses as I learn more.

One thing is you need to know a bit of html. You must to be able to add links to direct your readers to your work. We all do that here with the < href= "URL"> stuff. You can also do italics, bolds, colors...One lens with great Squidoo tutorials on the process is: Basic HTML for Squidoo.

I think what took me so long to finish my first lens was I didn't know which direction I wanted to take with it. Now I get it. The process eases after you complete and publish the first one.

Last night I thought of a variety of topics for lenses. You can take them in any direction you want--heros to pet peeves. I guess its similar to blogging. Each lens would be a post.

From what I learned, narrow topics do better than broad. The more information you can input about your specific topic, the better. Okay, so my lenses are a bit broad at this point. But you can bet that I'll trim the next ones.

The best thing about Squidoo is I can utilize the lenses as an index for my articles on AC. As I branch out, I can add to or eliminate.

Today I'm going to work on the lens for this blog. I'll post about it when it's done. I'm going to link to other blogs there as I have done here. The same, but different.

Look for the blog lens link soon...

Oh Squidoo! What a Promotional Tool

Well I did it; I built a Squidoo Lens. If you remember, I mentioned doing this in my updates post. Now its a done deal: Bartending or Bar Tending? That is the Question!

The process was quite easy, even though it took me a month to get it published. First, you sign up. Second, you find a topic you want to publish about. Third, you build your content. Last, you publish.

Cruising about the site, I found that the most popular lenses are chock full of information. Typical, because people enjoy learning. Popular lenses also have used the Youtube, Amazon, and Flickr modules to dress up their page. There are other modules to include like plexo (haven't quite figured that out), polls, and searches.

Right now I just utilized the text and image modules. As I learn more about the rest, I will add to my content.

A few things occurred to me as I built my lens. One was that I need more content. That just figured since I have been rather lax lately. So I cranked out a few more articles to boost up the page. I have a few other articles in mind, but I haven't written them yet.

Then I thought, using Squidoo to lump together my related articles will make for better traffic. Something I'd like to do for my blog also--Brainstorm! Remember when I referred to linking everything together? So, I'm going to start working on a lens for the blog.

I published my lens on Saturday (the 9th) and today (Sunday) I checked my stats and I've already gotten over 90 clicks. I better pump up the promotion because over night that's better than any other thing I'm doing. (For related promotion: here I'm under 200 since last August and Myspace is @ 170 since December)

If you have a Squidoo lens, let me know in the comments so I can check it out. If you want to build a lens, I put up a link button for you at the bottom of my posts and archive.