Lensmastery by Linda

I definitely qualify as a busy blogger and recently had an inspiration, to use a Squidoo lens to list all my blog posts for the year. I created LindaJM’s Blog Log – 2009 and accidentally published it tonight. I was going to wait until I’d included ALL my 2009 blog postings, but then hit the ‘publish’ link… so now it is available for anyone to look at even though I’m still working on adding links to blog articles.

I won’t bore you by telling you about all my blogs – I have too many – but you might get the picture from looking at my list. I still have a lot of blog postings to add to it. I’ll have to make a separate lens for 2010.

You’re welcome to use my idea. I think it is cool that even though I’ve got many blogs, all the article links are together on one page now, and people don’t have to surf to each of the blogs to find out what I’ve been working on this past year.

While reading comments on another blog I noted that some lensmasters feel that lens making is more important than networking on social media sites. They feel that Squidoo is enough online activity, and that lenses will promote themselves as much as they need to.

I made a study of social media sites during the past few years for my lens, How to Promote Your Squidoo Lens. I’ve been looking for sites that provide good SEO backlinks, as opposed to sites that cloak or add ‘nofollow’ to links so they provide no SEO value.

Whether or not you choose to promote your Squidoo lens by participating in other social media sites may depend on what your goal is for your earnings. If you have all your lens earnings earmarked for charity, perhaps you don’t care about revenue as much as someone who lost a job and is in deep financial turmoil. If you are trying to make money with your Squidoo lenses, lens promotion has got to be at least as important as lens making, and probably even more time consuming.

Some social networking sites have minimal use in terms of SEO. For example, FaceBook and MySpace both cloak all outgoing links so any links placed on those sites do nothing to make your lenses more visible in search engines. There are many other social bookmarking sites and social media sites that are similarly useless for me, for the most part. I know that people can always go there, see the link, and click on it to land on my lens, but that’s pretty much nothing in terms of numbers. The big influx of lens readers usually happens from good search engine optimization or from having a link on a site that is capable of funneling large numbers of readers to a lens.

For example, if I put a lens link on Facebook I’m lucky to get one or two viewers clicking on it. However if that same lens link is on a high-traffic blog, I may be able to get hundreds of visits per week from that venue. Even better, if my lens ranks high for a popular keyword in Google, I may get thousands of visits per week. I believe that SEO is a vital issue for anyone wanting to make a lot of money on Squidoo.

My recommendation is not to toss out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, truly a lot of social networking sites are a waste of time — but not all of them. It is important to recognize good backlink opportunities and to follow up on them.

For example, the site Qondio states it is there to give good backlinks for content writers. For each article I write there I get a backlink for one of my Squidoo lenses or blogs. It is a wonderful opportunity and I’ve even been able to add AdSense to my Qondio pages. I don’t know how profitable this will be for me yet; I’ve just started submitting articles there.

Gather is a popular site for informal article writing and networking. Lensmasters can put links in their Gather articles to let people know about their lenses. You can even put them in comments on other people’s articles. If you want to join Gather, please use my link as it will help me earn a few more points. Gather pays with gift cards or PayPal payments but I think it is easier to earn money at Squidoo.

One BIG caution is not to let your articles look spammy. If your articles look like spam, promoting products like medications, ebooks, and breath mints, nobody will appreciate them no matter where they are. Make sure you speak from your heart, never copy writing from elsewhere, be a real person who is sincere in making friends and participating in the sites, and offer something that goes beyond the mere hope for material gain.

…

Recently I issued a challenge on SquidU: to create a lens listing your ten most recent lenses, and to place that in the “Featured Lenses” section of your Squidoo profile/bio page. Here’s my challenge: Quick Challenge: Your Ten Newest Lenses . . . and here’s my lens with my ten most recent lenses.

Have you ever wished that some of the lenses you’ve made could be sectioned off into their own topic-specific account? An account created only to hold lenses in a unique niche, something unlike most of the other lenses you’ve made?

That’s what I’ve started doing; I’ve made two new and separate accounts so far, and there will be more. I know there’s been some controversy on SquidU and in other venues about the wisdom of allowing multiple accounts, but I thank the Squidoo overlords for having the wisdom to let them be, and for allowing the simple transfer of lenses between accounts.

I’m having a lot of fun with this and feeling good about the project. My first new account is American Citizen – a place for all my political rants and rambles. I’m a bit on the Libertarian end of the political equation. If that appeals to you, go check it out. Otherwise, please don’t hold it against me, and move on. Just because I’m not Liberal doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.

My second new account is the niche site for all my heebie geebie type lenses — my energy healing, dowsing, predictions… and stuff you might be likely to hear about on Coast to Coast AM. Finally I’ve got a place where I can focus on these things without worrying that someone’s going to think I’m weird: Geniyyah.

My Bigfoot lenses are my most popular right now, and they’re still in my main account. I can foresee that eventually I’ll have a separate niche account with nothing but Bigfoot lenses. One of these days.

I know… seems like multiple personalities, but I feel the need to do this to help those who are truly into my niche topics not to be distracted by things that don’t pertain to their area of interest.

Is anyone else out there doing this? I’d like to know what you think of the lens strategy.

One thing I’ve done is wait — until after reaching 100 lenses. Now that I’m a member of the Giant 100’s Club I feel it is time to codify my diversified efforts on Squidoo. I will not allow my main account to drop below 100 lenses so I can maintain my Giant 100’s status.

There’s an infinite amount of money available, and we’re all entitled to a share of it.

“An INFINITE amount,” you say?

There’s a lot of money tied up in BANKS right now, as we all know. …But there’s PLENTY left for us. We just need to leverage our time and efforts to be able to get money flowing in our direction. (Or, for you who are here for charity, to get the money flowing in the direction of your dearly loved charities.)

Money, however, likes to flow. It is like a fountain… the water moving, changing, refreshing itself constantly. When held tightly in one place, water stagnates. Money does the same – and that’s not what we need. We’ll all be better off if we can help get that money flowing in all directions… to make a fountain of money… something beautiful to look at, be refreshed by, and to share.

There’s one great way to help that happen, and that’s to work hard at helping each other succeed.

A few days ago there was a phone conference for Giant Squids to talk to Seth Godin and Megan Casey. BDKZ (Bonnie) moderated, and we Giant Squids who could attend gathered in a chat room while listening to Seth and Megan answer some of our questions. A question I asked prior to the phone call was answered – it was “What can we do for Squidoo?” I wanted to know if there was something we could do to help make Squidoo a better site — to give back to this wonderful site and community that helps us so much. Megan’s surprising answer was that we should take a few minutes each day to promote someone else’s lens.

Someone else’s lens? Why????????

LOL

Seth explained that people tend to tune out a lot of self-promotion. I’ll bet you do that too. I know I do. But when someone plugs someone else’s site or book or Squidoo lens, people listen. When someone takes the time to point out someone else’s work, it is a signal that it is worth looking at.

He said that when the recommendation comes from someone else, it is much more likely that people will read it. When he promotes someone else’s book on his blog it sells three times as many copies as when the author promotes his own work.

This brings into play a whole alternate awareness of how prosperity happens. Too many people think that shouting “Look at me! Look at my lens!” is the answer, and it really isn’t. Self-promotion is boring! We all know that.

But this place, Squidoo, is a wonderful community adventure. A place where we can come together to help one another in many ways. Promotion is one of those ways that we should be helping each other.

I’m so excited about this. I like to promote other people’s lenses by Twittering about them, or adding them to Tagfoot. Ohhh, how I LOVE Tagfoot! I’ve also been known to plug other people’s lenses on my blogs. I really need to do that A LOT more.

I intend it, and so it is…

follow my footsteps

There’s a new Senior Center in town… right here in the Squidosphere. All lensmasters age fifty or older are invited to participate. Our new logo is the creation of Drifter 0658. I was surprised how many of our Senior Squids have artistic talent!

Quite naturally I’ve made a lens for the Senior Squids, though most of our networking takes place in a Ning.Com community. It is all explained with a link on that lens.

Fortunately lensmaster Katherine, another artist, is helping to make the community warm and welcoming as she’s administered other Ning groups and knows what she’s doing more than I do (this is my first Ning admin experience.)

So why do lensmasters over the age of 50 like to hang out together? Well, there’s some comfort in knowing we’re not the only ones of our age group getting into this Squidoo thing. Also it is fun to share with others who have the same world-view as you do . . . and anyone not born that long ago won’t have the same perspective of the world as it was in the fifties and sixties, and how much it has changed since then.

We’re a fine group of old-timers who are still very young at heart. . . . young enough to appreciate all the opportunities Squidoo gives us. We’re embarking on a new series of challenges and will be thrilled to welcome new members to our “older but no less bolder” group.

I couldn’t believe how fast it was to put together a Twttrlist lens. Fun. Easy. Fast.

I made my first Twttrlist the day I first heard about it: Great Writing Resources, Tips, Twitters, and Inspirations. Today this lens is #2 on the Twttrlist Top 100!!! I’m so excited about that!

The #1 Twttrlist is Fluffanutta’s amazing The Best Tweets Are From Space! He’s collecting the tweets from astronaut Michael J. Massimino who’s out in space right now! How trippy is that?!!??

I can’t tell you about all the cool Twttrlists, but I can point you to the Twttrlist Top 100. I highly recommend the Twttrlist experience. It is lots of fun.

Today I made my second Twttrlist, which is also about writing: NaNoWriMo News, Tips, & Resources on Twitter and Squidoo.

One problem a few of us encountered is that when making a Twttrlist you’re invited to enter your search term. Then you go to a page where there’s a list of Twitters using that term. From there it is just a tad confusing as there are no instructions on how to turn that list into a lens.

All you have to do is start choosing Twitters to use on your lens. There’s a bright orange “Add” button next to each one. As soon as you start adding, you’ll see the other link pop up at the bottom of the page: “Done Adding”. That’s the link that gets you out of Dodge and makes your list become a lens. Have fun with it!

See you on Twitter!

My Twitter page: Linda Jo Martin. Feel free to follow me. I follow back!

Me? An angel? Wow! I was so excited to get an email from HQ asking me to serve as a Squid Angel! Turns out there’s more to it than just sporting a pretty yellow shield. I’ve been given five categories to monitor – and my goal is to explore all top-100 lenses in each of the five categories each month. Busy, busy, busy! But fun, in a way, as I’m learning so many fascinating things from you wonderful and creative lensmasters along the way. My Squid Angel lens has lots more information: Helpful Words From a Squid Angel. The lens contains a contact link so you can request a possible blessing for your favorite lenses.

Speaking of creative lensmasters… I recently created a lens called Creative Lensmaking. I could use your help here, folks. I need to know where your favorite creative lenses are. Did you make a lens using some fantastic technique that nobody else seems to know about? I would sure love to include your creative lens. Please send me a link!

And now for the heavenly music… I just updated my Mountain Music lens and renamed it Mountain Music Elevates the Soul. It features dulcimers, drum-circle drums, and guitars, with videos and more. I believe now, during the recession, home-grown music will help thousands of people get through the dark days and develop their talents.

The last thing I want to mention today is my new niche… and I know, this has been done before by some talented people, but it is something very dear to my heart. I’m going to start my own online herbal on Squidoo. I’ve been studying and using herbs for more than thirty-five years, and have lots to say about them. I’ll start with the ones I’m growing, and the ones I can harvest locally in the wild.

That’s it for now… thanks for reading!

You’re invited to use and join the Squidoo News Room – a room I set up at FriendFeed. If you’re not familiar with FriendFeed yet, take heart, it is very easy to join and be part of.

FriendFeed provides a place for all your RSS feeds from a variety of online activities, plus interactivity options such as comments and special-interest rooms. I’ve collected all kinds of FriendFeed ‘how to’ information on my lens, How To Use FriendFeed.

In the Squidoo News Room I’m adding dozens of Squidoo blog RSS feeds. Pass your cursor over the little orange RSS graphics at the top of the page and you’ll see a tool tip box pop up with the link represented.

Please Note: If your blog isn’t included in the Squidoo News Room yet, please let me know! You can send me a note via my contact link. Nobody with a Squidoo-focused blog will be intentionally excluded… everyone is welcome!

Did you know you can offer a subscription option for your lens visitors to receive your SquidCasts in email? Recently I wrote a lens to explain this: Offer Email Subscriptions to Your SquidCasts.

In my lens I give step-by-step directions for setting up these emails using a SquidCast feed from SquidUtils, and FeedBurner, a service that provides RSS feed services for bloggers, including email services.

This may sound complicated, but using my step-by-step guide, it is very easy!

You don’t need to worry that this is spamming because the emails are sent with the permission of the person requesting them. Lens visitors will click on your link and be sent an email notification. In that email they will click again giving permission for FeedBurner to send your SquidCast emails. Every email also contains a link for the person to unsubscribe.

On my lenses I mention that my SquidCast emails will update them on ALL my lenses, not just the one they’re looking at.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I’ve experimented with this and found that it works great!

By the way, I put this information together because someone was asking for an email subscription method over at SquidU, a great place to find lens ideas!

Today I’ve been having fun adding my lenses to my MySpace. I just discovered that our MySpace links in the “Bookmark and Share” section of each lens now put Squidoo links directly onto the front page of our MySpace – and you get a choice of what section to put them in. I think last time I tried that link (the one on our lenses) it went to a MySpace blog posting.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of MySpace for a number of reasons. Most important is that the links there are cloaked. Though people may see them on our profiles and click on them, the cloaked links don’t do a thing to add to our search engine rankings.

In case you’re wondering what a cloaked link is, this refers to a link that directs the click to a secondary URL set up by the site owner, in this case, the owner of MySpace. That secondary link at MySpace directs the click finally to the correct destination which would be my lens.

You can see the cloaking in action. Go to my MySpace and run your cursor over the links in the left-side column – the ones that look like they’ll go to Squidoo lenses. Then look at your status line. You’ll see the cloaking link there, not the Squidoo lens link.

My main reason for having a MySpace page is to keep in touch with my five children. They’re all on MySpace. Even my mother is on MySpace! And as you can see, I’ve got other friends there too. If you’d like to do a friend request, be my guest. I like Squidoo people no matter where.