Instead of just showing random avatars of their lensmasters, now they show the top lenses in each category, and you can click a “More” button to see the top 100 lenses in each category.
They’ve also made it easier to create new lenses using their various popular Squid Projects (see the bottom of the page).
I like this much better than what they used to have.
I know that the majority of people who will see this post are probably happy WordPress users. I’m one, too.
Still, after years of building websites and blogging on a lot of platforms, I still keep coming back to thinking Site Build It! is a better choice for building a business website.
When Ken Evoy first raised this question, I was leaning towards blogging and disagreed with some of the things he said about it. Now, however, after months of blogging, I’m not as in favor of WordPress as I once was, especially when building multiple blogs.
As part of my goals for 2009, I’ve decided to do more to promote local businesses in Murphy, NC. I already have several blogs and websites related to Murphy and Cherokee County, NC. I’m really not happy with any of them.
I’m considering mothballing all of them except for my Murphy, NC 28906 blog, which needs serious updating. First off, I have to upgrade to WordPress 2.7, change the theme, add plugins, add widgets, and then I’m faced with finding things to write about, in addition to updating the blog software whenever necessary.
I can probably get the blog to where I want it in a couple of days without too much of a problem, because I’ve been doing this a long time and know what I want to do. I’m going to change it and fashion that blog after this one.
One of the problems with blogs is always having to manage the software and that takes away time and energy from actually writing content.
My Act On Your Dream! site is powered by Site Build It! and has been sadly neglected over the last year or more. Now that I can devote full-time to building my business, I can put more effort into building it into the site I have planned. Still, even with little work on my part, it continues to attract visitors and makes a nice profit.
There are lots of things wrong with that site, however. I’ve only built a small fraction of what I have planned for it, and there are a couple of main reasons for that.
For over six years, I was my Mom’s full-time caretaker and the duties associated with that took precedence over everything else. I am happy that I was able to care for her so long when she needed it.
The second reason is that I wasted a lot of time and effort testing a lot of different ways to build websites. I’ve lost track of how many different blogging platforms and content management systems I’ve tested. What do I have to show for it? A lot of neglected or abandoned blogs in my wake. Of all the blogs I’ve started, there are only two or three that I’m going to continue updating.
What do I do with the others? Some of them get traffic and even earn a profit. Do I delete them and redirect the domain to a page on a site I’ll keep? Or, do I just throw them out with the rest of the clutter and delete them and then let the domain expire?
It’s hard enough to build traffic to a site. I really don’t like the idea of just deleting a site that actually gets visitors.
Is it better to keep the domain and put up a static page explaining that the blog has been taken down and link to one of my related sites, or is it best to just let the domain expire and forget about it?
Being a packrat, I tend to want to do the former, but I’m thinking this is a good time to declutter my online life as I unclutter my offline world.
I continue asking myself this question: Why do I have so many blogs?
I think the main answer is that the cost of entry is so low that it’s easy to throw up a blog on the spur of the moment and just as easy to lose interest in it somewhere down the line.
I already have a reseller account on HostGator, so I can add a new domain for basically no cost, except for registering the domain. So, there’s little to stop me from testing an idea.
But, I look at those blogs and consider that I am paying over $500 per year just for domain registrations. For that amount, I can get two subscriptions to Site Build It!
I’ve already decided that I’m going to buy a new subscription to SBI to build a new site promoting businesses in Murphy, NC, because only SBI provides all the tools I need to do it right. That means that I’m going to be deleting several sites that I started over the last few years. I hate to do it, because they’re ranked well in the search engines, but I’m sure I can get page one listings on the keywords I want with a new site powered by Site Build It. I know, because I’ve tested it.
So, all of this boils down to my dithering over deciding what to do this year. When it all boils down to the essentials, the only real sites I have that I should keep and maintain would be this blog, Act On Your Dream!, Murphy, NC 28906, and a new SBI site for Murphy.
I’ll probably keep JohnDilbeck.com, but it will be trimmed to a much, much smaller size.
Of course, I’ll continue to maintain my brother’s site, Georgia Drag Racing. There’s not as much to do on that site now that he’s unable to continue building it as he wants. Still, it gets a lot of visitors and there are a lot of people interested in the subject.
I’ll also keep a couple of communities I created on ning.com.
I have a couple of forums that I’ve been trying to build for a couple of years, but they aren’t gaining any traction, so now may be a good time to shut them down, too.
So, in looking at all my sites, blogs, forums, and communities, I can probably drop the number from over 60 to just a half-dozen or so and actually accomplish more with less effort. I don’t know this for sure, but that’s the direction I’m leaning.
When I build a site with Site Build It, I make a commitment to my own success by paying the $300 upfront for an annual subscription. I just don’t have that commitment when I create another free site somewhere.
I often wonder how many other people have gone through these same experiences. Have you?
I’ve read many messages on the members-only SiteSell forum where SBI webmasters tell their stories of floundering around until they find Site Build It and finally concentrate on building a successful business website.
On the other hand, I’ve read many posts on blogs and forums from people who feel that WordPress offers them the best set of features for the lowest cost.
All I know for sure is that I have gone through my testing and learning phase, and I’m ready to implement what I’ve learned.
One of the keys to success is to focus on what you want to do and then put all your effort into manifesting what you imagine. I just don’t believe that can be done when we try to do too much.
I’m really having a hard time making this decision. Part of me wants to simplify everything and focus on affiliate marketing and promoting local businesses. Part of me doesn’t want to lose all the other sites I’ve started. I have to make this decision and implement it, soon.
I welcome your comments, advice, and suggestions. I value the opinions of the people who read this blog.
Who knows? I may have a bunch of domains to sell or give away.
As I’ve written previously on this blog, you can treat your Squidoo lenses as a sort of mini-blog by sending a SquidCast whenever you create a new lens or make significant updates to an existing lens.
The SquidCast is a very limited posting (500 characters maximum) about the lens. This is added to the RSS feed for that lens.
In order to make use of this, you must remember to send a SquidCast whenever appropriate. Fortunately, we are reminded to do this whenever we publish a lens.
You can treat this RSS feed as you would any other. It can be added to feed readers, syndicated using RSS modules on other lenses or your blog, and it can be syndicated via email, if you want.
Essentially, her method uses the RSS feed for all a lensmaster’s Squidcasts, provided by thefluffanutta’s SquidUtils.com, and syndicates it using the free services of FeedBurner.com.
Each lensmaster can get an RSS feed through SquidUtils.com that includes the SquidCasts you’ve made for all your lenses, combined. The URL for my feed is:
Feedburner.com provides tools for publicizing your RSS feeds, including syndication via email. It is a free service, and you can syndicate as many RSS or Atom feeds as you want.
Using the method Linda describes on her lens, anyone who subscribes to the email updates will be notified whenever a lensmaster updates any of his or her lenses. This may be a very good way to keep your fans updated if your lenses are about similar topics.
However, if you have a lot of very different types of lenses, it may not be the best approach, necessarily.
Linda provides a caution on her lenses reminding the subscriber that they’ll receive updates on all her lenses, not just the one they’re subscribing from.
On the other hand, you may want to restrict updates to just the lens that’s being read.
You can do this by syndicating just that lens’ RSS feed via Feedburner, instead of the combined SquidCasts feed provided by SquidUtils.
That way, your readers will not be surprised by updates totally unrelated to the lens from which they subscribed.
So, which is better?
Do you want an easy way for your readers to subscribe to your SquidCasts for all your lenses combined?
…or…
Do you want an easy way for your readers to subscribe to just the SquidCasts about the lens they are currently reading?
I think syndicating the SquidCasts for all your lenses may be more useful, unless you have a lens that will be updated frequently. There’s not much point to subscribing to updates to a lens if it is only updated every few months or so, is there?
Fortunately, you can do either - or both - depending upon what you think is best for your readers and the particular lens they are visiting.
Thanks for the reminder, Linda, and for providing clear instructions on providing our fans with another easy way to be informed when we make changes to our lenses.
If you set this up, don’t forget to offer it to your fans on your lensmasters’ page, too.
So, what do you think about this? Is it something you would want to offer to the readers of your Squidoo lenses and to your fans?
I was just updating my Promote Your CafePress Store lens on Squidoo and started wondering why someone would add a link to their shop, but would neglect to reload the page and vote for their own shop so it would rise closer to the top of the list.
What would be a valid reason for this behavior?
Could it be a basic lack of understanding of how the Squidoo Plexo modules work? On most of my lenses with a Plexo module, I have it set to add the link right away and send me an email message. When I get time, I go through those messages and look at what has been added to my lenses. If something is off-topic, I delete it.
Usually, I click on the link to see what was added. If I like it, I’ll click the up-arrow on my lens and vote for it.
The more up-votes, the higher the link will appear in that list.
Now, I’ve been remiss in looking through the CafePress shops in this lens, but I’m going to rectify that omission in the next few days by visiting those shops and voting for the ones I like.
I made some changes to the lens this evening. Instead of showing just the top 25 lenses (based on vote count), the lens is now showing all of them. I also removed the option to vote down a store in the list.
Still, I wonder why someone would build a store at CafePress, want to sell their merchandise, would add a link to their store on my lens, but would neglect the simple act of voting for their store and asking their friends to do the same.
Lack of understanding? Being too scattered in what they’re doing? Lazy?
I’m not going to make that mistake.
If you visit my Promote Your CafePress Store lens, I hope you’ll take the time to click the up-arrow next to my store, John Dilbeck - Shirts, Mugs, and Hats : CafePress.com. Currently, it’s at the top of the list with only two votes! Hopefully, after writing about it, my store will stay at the top of the list, or at least near the top.
If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too. I created the list with the anticipation that CafePress shop owners would list their store, and ask their friends to vote for it. I’m hoping other visitors to the lens will look at the stores in the list and vote for their favorites. Maybe the best stores will rise to the top, eventually.
Helping my friends promote their shops
Originally, I created the lens because I had friends with CafePress shops who were not selling their merchandise. Some of them had some high-quality designs, so the lack of sales must have been due to the lack of proper marketing.
Now, I know that one link on a lens will not create an overwhelming rush of customers to your store with their credit cards outstretched as they join in a mad frenzy of shopping, but it is a start.
Promote your shop
Have you taken that first step? If you have a CafePress shop, have you added a link to your store on this lens? Don’t forget to reload the page and vote for your shop.
Have you promoted your shop anywhere online? How are you attracting visitors to your shop so they’ll buy products with your designs?
Squidoo Marketing Community
A few months ago, I started the Squidoo Marketing Community so my fellow lensmasters could share ideas, help each other, and do a better job of marketing using their Squidoo lenses. There’s even a CafePress Shops group there so we can focus on discussing ways to promote our CafePress designs.
CafePress Affiliate Marketing Program
Did you know that CafePress has an affiliate marketing program managed through CommissionJunction.com? They do, and it pays pretty good commissions.
As a shop owner, I welcome sales by affiliates and I’m happy to provide part of my profits to them for any sales they make.
As an affiliate, I’m happy to accept a commission for helping to sell someone else’s items through my marketing efforts.
As you may know, my CafePress shop is located at Shirts-Mugs-Hats.com and I welcome anyone who would like to purchase my designs and/or any affiliates who would like to earn a commission by marketing my designs to your readers.
An even better deal is opening your shop and upgrading it to a premium shop. You’ll be able to do much more with it. Considering all that CafePress provides, the low monthly fee for a premium shop is a real bargain.
How satisfied are you with your CafePress store?
I know everyone isn’t as satisfied with CafePress as I am.
So, what’s your experience?
What do you think?
Tell us about your CafePress shop and what you are doing to promote it.
I’m interested in your experiences with CafePress, learning more about your shops and the designs you sell, and how you’re marketing your products via CafePress.
How can we work together to help each other increase our sales and make more profits from our CafePress stores?
In the last day or so - I don’t know exactly when - Squidoo released a new Workshop editor for editing lenses.
I didn’t know about it until I was editing a couple of lenses yesterday and there it was. Everything looked totally different, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what to do.
So, I did what I normally do. I started poking around to see what would happen when I clicked on things.
In just a few minutes, I felt pretty comfortable with the new editor and started liking it.
Many things are much faster. It looks like they’re using more AJAX to speed things up.
Although I haven’t tried adding a module or changing the order of the modules on a lens, it looks like the new system will be faster. I’m going to try that later today.
Well, why wait? Hang on a second while I go edit a lens and republish it…
I have a lens about Ken Evoy that hasn’t been updated in a long time. So, let’s update it.
Ken’s role at Sitesell changed in 2008, so I wanted to add a text module for updates.
With the old Workshop, I’d have to click on the Add Modules link, go to a completely different page, add the modules I wanted, drag them to the correct order, and then go back to the editor. That took some time, especially for people on dialup connections.
With the new Workshop, I just went to the right column and clicked the plus sign next to Text module. At the bottom of the list, I clicked Add. That’s it. I wanted to change the position of the module, so I went to the next section in the right column, Reorder Modules, and dragged the title of the new text module to where I wanted it. When I clicked the Apply button, the page reloaded with the new module right where I wanted it. This was much faster than the previous method.
Once I had the new text module where I wanted, it was just a matter of writing the content and visiting a couple of sites to get the proper URLs.
Done.
Publishing the lens worked as expected and it’s now live in its updated form: Ken Evoy.
Everything that I tried worked great, but there is one thing that is a bit irritating.
I’m using a Mac and Firefox 2.
At the top of the new Workshop, there is a gray section across the top that has links to several things related to the lens, including the Publish button.
For some reason, that section deactivates the scroll bar and the scroll up button. Now, I’m an old dinosaur and I prefer the scroll arrows on each end of the scrollbar, and not next to each other. As a result of the changes in the new Workshop, I can’t scroll up by using the up arrow. This really bugged me, at first. Then I found a workaround. All I have to do is click in the scroll down part of the bar until the scroll button (what used to be called the Thumb) is below that gray section. Then, I can drag the thumb back up to find the part of the page I want to see. It’s a bit annoying, but easy enough to work around.
All things considered, I like the new Workshop. I’m sure they’ll get the bugs worked out in the next few days.
So, what do you think?
I’m looking forward to your thoughts and comments.
I am a huge fan of Squidoo and use it as a major part of my marketing mix.
I recommend Squidoo for a number of reasons. The lenses are easy to build and you can always go back and modify them whenever you want. It’s free to use. They even pay you to use their free service - how’s that for a deal!
Why do they call it a lens?
Squidoo calls it a lens, actually one page on their site, because you can focus the page on a particular topic. Not every lensmaster does this, but the more successful ones tightly focus a lens on just one subject. If you want to cover multiple subjects, you can always create new lenses, and Squidoo offers several ways to help you cross-promote your related lenses.
Are you a Squidoo lensmaster?
I am happy to be a squidoo lensmaster and I currently have about 70 lenses. I had more, but had to delete almost 50 of them when one of the companies I was promoting changed direction. It’s time to start creating new lenses about the topics in which I’m interested.
If you examine this page, you’ll see that in addition to listing all my lenses, I can customize the page to link to other sites, including this blog, my Cafepress store, my Lulu store (which needs lots of work next year), my profiles on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and more.
I think you can see at a glance that your Squidoo lensmaster page is a good way to link to other sites that are important to you.
If you get serious about Squidoo, you may want to create your own lensography to list your lenses in whatever way you want to present them. Here’s my main lensography (you can have more than one): Who is John Dilbeck?
Now, remember that you don’t have to build a lensography about yourself, although it is recommended to keep track of all your lenses and to present them however you want. You can build multiple lensographies.
Let’s say that you are promoting a particular product or service and you want to have multiple lenses, each of which discusses a major feature or benefit. You can create a lens about the main topic and then link to each of the sub-lenses. Even though each page is totally separate on Squidoo, you can present them organized logically and all together. That gives you a lot of flexibility.
Do you have a blog?
If so, you need to create a lens about it.
Why? Because you can tell people about your blog, syndicate your RSS feed, and get the benefit of Squidoo’s high rankings in the search engines.
How would you like to promote not only your store and the products within it, but also be able to promote other products sold on Cafepress - and earn some money doing it?
CafePress has an affiliate program on Commission Junction, and it pays a nice commission when you sell other people’s products. However, just by building a Squidoo lens, you can promote products without having to join at CJ.
But, you’ll make more money if you sell your own products from your lenses.
I have a CafePress shop at Shirts-Mugs-Hats.com and sell products just about every day.
I created a lens, John Dilbeck’s Shirts, Mugs, and Hats, where I link to the store and some of my best-selling items. There’s also a section where you can add a link to your Cafepress store, and I show random products from searches farther down the lens. I earn money on every sale, and you can do the same thing. It just takes a little time and creativity.
I even created a lens mainly designed to help you promote your CafePress shop. Several dozen shop owners have taken advantage of this, but few have gone back after adding their shops and voted them up higher in the list. Always remember to reload the page after adding something to a Plexo list so you can vote for it.
By the way, did you know that you can open a CafePress shop for free? Once you’re serious about it, you may want to upgrade to a pro shop. I did, and it’s basically free for me since my first couple of sales every month pays the fee and the rest of my sales are all profit. Not a bad deal.
Promote Your Favorite Products and Services at Squidoo
As you may already be aware, one of the services I enjoy promoting the most is Site Build It! I’m both a satisfied customer and a very happy affiliate.
I think one reason this lens is popular is because I help other fellow SBIers promote their sites and lenses there. If you are an SBIer and have a website powered by Site Build It!, you are welcome to submit your site to the appropriate module on that lens. If you have lenses about SBI, there is a place you can add it, too.
You’ll note that I even welcome affiliate lenses from competing 5 Pillar affiliates.
As I have time, and as more services are announced at SBI, I’ll be adding more lenses discussing the benefits of those services.
Hint: I can’t tell you any more right now, but Sitesell will be announcing an exciting new educational service in about three weeks. Stay tuned for more information. I was on a conference call about it, just this afternoon, and I think there will be people who will want to take advantage of this new service. That’s all I can say, right now.
Squidoo offers much more
There are many modules that can be added to lenses to help you promote what you’re doing and help people find what you’ve written.
They offer a Twitter module where you can show your latest tweets.
Lijit.com has a special module so people can search your content via their search engine. When you add it to a lens, you can specify which lenses to include in the search results.
By going directly to Lijit.com, you can get code to add their search to your blogs and sites, too. You can see it in action in the right column of this blog.
Want to sell products from Amazon? There are modules designed to make it easy to do just that.
It would take a lot of blog posts to cover all that Squidoo offers to help you accomplish what you want, so I’m going to stop here.
How do you become a lensmaster
It’s easy to start building lenses on Squidoo. Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, and you may even earn some money from it. Do it now, while you are thinking about it.
Remember, you can start simply and then expand your lens(es) whenever you want. I edited three of my lenses and republished them while I was writing this. It’s pretty easy once you learn how to do it.
Come and learn from people who are using Squidoo in their marketing mix. Share what you know. Tell us about your lenses. Promote your CafePress shops.
It’s a friendly little community, and I’m looking forward to you joining us and participating there.
What’s your opinion?
So, what’s your opinion of using Squidoo as part of your marketing mix? I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts, opinions, and comments about your experiences with, or lack thereof, using Squidoo.
Welcome to the 2008 Giant Squid Awards! We’ve hand picked over 100 Giants in 15 Categories for you to vote on along with “Best Lensography” and “Giant Squid of the Year”.
Now sit back, relax and take a look at these fabulous lenses. I know it’s going to be hard to decide because all these lenses are truly amazing…but there can only be one winner. So get ready, get set, start VOTING…once per category, please!
PS - Everyone can vote! So blog, e-mail, create a lens and get creative about getting votes for yourself and your favorite lenses.
Why can’t active sign-up forms for AWeber mailing lists be added to Squidoo lenses?
Is there a solution?
Today, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this subject, because the ability to add AWeber subscription forms to my Squidoo lenses is very important to my plans for next year.
I don’t believe there are any unsolvable technical problems stopping these two companies from working together.
It is very easy to add active AWeber subscription forms on other sites. They provide two easy-to-use methods: Javascript and HTML forms. You can see an example of the HTML version of a subscription form on every page of this site, right below my photo in the right column. You can see an example of the javascript version of a sign-up form on the Subscribe page on this site.
In both cases, I accomplished what I wanted in just a few minutes.
Unfortunately, I’ve been looking for a way to do this simple task on my Squidoo lenses for months. I thought I found a solution last week, and it worked very well, but it is being killed by Squidoo.
I just created a new lens with an open letter to Tom Kulzer, CEO and founder of AWeber.com, and Seth Godin, Founder of Squidoo.com, asking if they can find a way to work together to make it possible for us to do something that I believe will have a relatively easy solution. I also emailed each of them and invited them to view the lens.
You are invited to come read the lens and express your opinions:
Perhaps this isn’t a technical problem. Maybe it’s just a lack of motivation on the part of both companies to develop a solution. I don’t know.
Tom and Seth, I hope you’ll find a way to make this happen.
While it may not be important to the vast majority of Squidoo lensmasters, it is important to some of us - possibly many of us. I believe it may be important to many AWeber customers.
I’ve added a couple of polls to the lens and I invite everyone who reads this to come and voice your opinions and help spread the word to others who may want to combine the power of the services AWeber and Squidoo provide.
Last week, Lewis Smile added a comment to the post and told me my dream was answered. Today, I finally found enough time to see what he was talking about.
Update: Before you get too excited about this, I’ve learned that the folks at Squidoo are working to defeat this “trick,” as it is being called. This means that any AWeber sign up forms on our lenses will stop working at any moment.
Please see the comments on this post for more information.
I purchased his report for only $7.00 and downloaded it immediately.
Being the frugal person that I am, I looked at the source code and saw that the form was actually a javascript widget that was powered by Clearspring.com.
Immediately, I grasped the concept. Lewis was using a widget as an intermediary between the Aweber javascript, which won’t work on a Squidoo lens, and the lens itself.
I joined Clearspring, but after a few minutes of looking around, I decided it would take longer to work out the details for myself than it would to purchase the report, download it, read it, and put what I learned to work.
If the report had been $47, or $27, or some other higher amount, I’d have learned how to do it myself. But, for a report that costs only $7.00, it was a no-brainer to just buy it.
As someone who earns his living from affiliate marketing, it pains me to send you to such a valuable site without using an affiliate link, but the information here is too useful not to tell you how to get it for yourself - even if I’m not earning anything from it.
Sigh.
In just a few minutes, I bought the report, downloaded it, and read it.
My initial thoughts were correct. I probably could have worked it out for myself in an hour or two, but Lewis has done an excellent job of telling you just how to make this work for you.
I went to Aweber.com and added a new sign-up form for my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog. I use Aweber to manage email subscriptions for what I post to this blog, as well as a growing number of mailing lists I manage for myself and for my clients. I wanted to create a new form that I would use only on Squidoo lenses so I’d be able to track the source of new subscriptions.
That took maybe 10 minutes to do.
Following the instructions in Lewis’ report, I copied the code I’d need and proceeded to the next step - create the new widget on Clearspring.com.
Even though I’d not done anything but look around Clearspring for a few minutes, I found his instructions extremely clear and easy to follow.
It took maybe 20 minutes or so to create the new widget and another couple of minutes to add it to my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing lens on Squidoo.
(If I had broadband, it would have gone much quicker, but slow dial-up is still all that’s available here where I live.)
I didn’t follow all of Lewis’ instructions on creating the widget.
He advised us to hide the “get and share” links at the bottom of the widget. While I can see reasons for doing this, I don’t like to ever use code on a site that hides the text by making it the same color as the background.
Plus, I don’t mind if someone gets that widget and puts it on another site. I’m not sure why anyone would want to do it, but I’ll take all the subscribers I can get.
It took a total of maybe 45 minutes from the time I bought the report until I had an active Aweber sign-up form on my lens, and that includes downloading and reading everything.
Lewis has done a remarkable service for us by providing such clear instructions.
Now, all I have to do is add this Clearspring.com widget to the other lenses where I syndicate this blog.
Then, over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing the same thing for other mailing lists I manage through Aweber.com.
This has come at a particularly fortuitous time, because I am in the planning stages of setting up quite a few new mailing lists and Squidoo lenses. Lewis’ method of adding a subscribe form to a lens will make what I plan to do much easier and probably more effective.
There is a lot more information there than what you would have seen a couple of months ago and much of it can be customized by you.
Depending upon what you choose to show, your profile may show more or less than mine.
Some of the content is automatically generated by Squidoo, however.
Basic information, such as a list of your lenses and the number of lenses you have created, favorited, and ranked, and the members of your fan club, is shown automatically on your profile.
You can add additional information such as your bio, lenses you want to feature, and links to your blogs, other websites, and social networking sites like Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook. Other links can include your CafePress shop, eBay store, and more.
That’s a lot of information that can be shown on one page, and Squidoo even creates an RSS feed for your lenses, although there seems to be a problem with the correct link right now. When I clicked the RSS icon in my browser’s URL box, it took me to an invalid feed, but there really is an RSS feed of all my lenses that can be read in a newsreader and/or syndicated on other sites.
If you haven’t updated your Squidoo profile, what are you waiting for?
That’s an important page. It is already linked to from each of your lenses and from any lenses you’ve favorited. You should be linking to your Squidoo profile from your other sites and blogs, too.
I didn’t really like it the first time I saw it, but after reading Megan Casey’s SquidBlog post, New lensmaster bio page, live now!, I realized there was much more than what I was seeing initially.
More sites, including Squidoo, are helping you link to your Twitter profile so you can grow your list of followers and also notify them when you’ve updated a lens or are reading one you want to recommend.
With some extra work on your part, you can include these updates using tools provided by sites such as FriendFeed.com or MyBlogLog.com.
With the use of RSS feeds and tools like Twitter, it is becoming easier to write once and publish (or promote) your content on multiple sites.
Even if you don’t add all the bells and whistles to your profile page, you should be promoting it wherever you can to get more exposure to your lenses.
But, why stop there? It will only take a few minutes to customize your profile and bio and get much more use from the page that Squidoo has provided us.
I have found that participating on social networking sites has helped my business grow and I’ve met some great people in the process. Some have become real friends.
It takes time and effort to network effectively, so don’t think it can be done in a few days or weeks, and don’t try to do it more quickly by using software to speed up the process.
If you sincerely want to network with other like-minded people and you’re willing to take your time and socialize with them - not just spam your ads towards them - then you’ll find a great list of social networking sites on Kelly Stone’s blog:
I just found Kelly’s blog and I’m finding lots of topics that interest me there.
Yes, I found her through social networking.
I saw her on a Recent Visitors widget on my Squidoo Marketing community and followed the link back to her MyBlogLog profile where I found her blog’s community and then visited her blog.
It sounds like a lot of effort, but it took only a few minutes.
Along the way, I joined her blog’s community and added her as a contact at MyBlogLog.com. Then, I subscribed to her blog via email so I won’t forget to keep in touch.
Have you been using social networking to help build your business and make new friends? It takes time, but it works.
I noticed that she didn’t have a link to www.apsense.com, which has a Google PR of 4, and an Alexa rank of 45,857.
I like Apsense, but haven’t had the time to play in their sandbox lately. It’s one of the things I intend to do more of in the near future.
If you’re not already a member, I’d like to extend an invitation to join Apsense and network with me there.
For an example of what you can do on Apsense, I would like to invite you to visit my profile and business center on the site.
If you would like to network with me on some of the other major social networking sites, please see the links to my profiles on the About page of this blog. I look forward to meeting you. We can probably connect most quickly on Twitter and MyBlogLog, because I’m more active on them than the others.
If you are active on any of the major social networking sites and would like to network with the readers of this blog, please leave a comment with links to a couple of your profile pages. While you’re doing that, I would enjoy reading about your experiences in social networking and your major areas of interest.
So, on which of the social networking sites have you pitched your tent?
Do you want to get started in social networking, but don’t have the time or expertise needed to do it yourself? Now, you don’t have to. You can have your lenses built and promoted and then transferred to you, all in a couple of weeks or so.
Here’s part of what Tiffany has to say about herself and her qualifications…
I know how to get into the Top 100 LensRank, how to create content both Googlebots and human traffic devour (since I’ve been the top ghostwriter to many famous marketers over the past 6 years), and how to use group participation to garner traffic! I’ve achieved lens of the day for an instant flood of traffic and I’ve earned tens of thousands of dollars using Squidoo as my traffic funnel to products and services alike.
Seth Godin (owner of Squidoo) even blogged about my Squidoo success on his own blog! Plus, I’ve been bestowed with Giant Squid Status!
Lewis talks about his qualifications and says this (and more)…
He’s a Citizen Squid Alumni (one of the 6 original lensmasters chosen by Squidoo HQ to work on secret Squidoo projects). He is also a retired SquidAngel (one of the 12 human elements of the Squidoo algorithm).
He has achieved Lens of the Day THREE TIMES, which is more than anyone else, so he knows exactly what it takes to make a great lens. In total, his lenses have spent over 600+ days in the Top 100 LensRank list, and he has achieved the elusive Lensrank 1.
And he has created over 500 lenses and groups across various Squidoo accounts, so he’s no stranger to the ‘Create a Lens’ button! Lewis is also a Giant Squid. Oh, and he recently won the ‘I Love Squidoo’ competition.
Even if you don’t know anything about Giant Squids, Squid Angels, or Citizen Squids, you can appreciate the talents of anyone who can compete with over a quarter-million people building lenses on Squidoo and still get in the top 100 of all lenses based on a number of criteria that isn’t known outside the people who own and manage Squidoo.com.
Anyone who can achieve what Tiffany and Lewis have, obviously know what they’re doing.
They’ve been developing their skills for building Squidoo lenses for a combined total of over four years and almost 1,000 lenses.
Now, as someone who has built about 70 lenses and who has been working on it a couple of years or so, I can tell you that there is a difference between building a lens - which anyone can do - and building a lens that ranks highly, attracts visitors, promotes your business, and earns money.
I’m a Giant Squid, too, but I haven’t achieved the kind of success that Tiffany and Lewis have. I’m still working on it, however!
Now, you don’t have to develop the skillset, do the research, write original content, build the lens, and promote it. You can outsource these tasks to a couple of specialists who will combine their talents and do it for you.
As they say…
So - you want to get into social networking, but don’t have room in your busy schedule to navigate a new site and set up your system of socialization?
Who has the time, knowledge and skill to set up a Squidoo lens, write 100% unique content, bookmark it at social bookmarking sites, add tags, blog about it, post it to Twitter, and generate some backlinks, to give it the best chance possible at pulling you visitors from Google and other search engines to funnel them to your main site as customers?
As a successful business owner, you already know the value of outsourcing tasks that require special skills, qualifications, and talent. That’s why you have a lawyer, accountant, copywriter, and other specialists on your team.
If you want to develop a better presence on the web, you should consider hiring Tiffany and Lewis to do it for you, in as little as two weeks.
Don’t put this off. Go right now and see what they will do to build your lens for you. It doesn’t cost a single penny to click the link and see what they have to say.
Act on your dream!
JD
PS. On the other hand, if you prefer to learn new skills and do your own promotions, you can build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free.
Click the link to get started. Don’t get stressed out about your first lens. Build it on something you love and learn how Squidoo works. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can delete it and use what you learned to build a real lens.
Feel free to play with the first one just to learn how it all works.
You’ve taken the time to research a topic for your new blog and decided there should be enough interest to make it worth the effort.
Then, you created the blog, chose a theme, modified the theme, selected plugins and widgets, and now you are ready to write great articles on all the topics you researched before starting.
Right?
Hopefully, that was your approach.
I think most bloggers throw up a blog and then look for something to write about. I know I did that on some of my first blogs.
I was a lot more focused and took more time to research what I was going to do before I started this blog.
Either way, now you have a blog, you’ve been writing on it for some time, and you want people to find you and read what you have to say.
Ideally, they’ll also post great comments so you and your readers can learn even more about the topic of the article.
So, where do you promote your blog?
There are lots of ways to promote your blog, and I’m sure you know of many that I’ve never used. I hope you’ll share them with us.
Let’s start with some that work well for me.
Create a lens about your blog on Squidoo
My main place to promote my blog is on Squidoo. For instance, I created a lens especially for this blog at 21st Century Affiliate Marketing.
Syndicate your RSS feed on your other blogs
I syndicate the RSS newsfeed from this blog on several other Squidoo lenses and some of my other blogs, such as you’ll see in the sidebar of my Marketing With Squidoo blog.
There are several benefits of creating a community for your blog there. First, it syndicates your RSS feed as headlines on the page. Second, it makes it easy to increase your business networking as people join your community. Third, they offer widgets so you can see who has visited you lately. This makes it easy to visit their sites and/or make contact with them on other social networking services.
You can see this in action towards the bottom of the left column of this blog. Look at the Recent Visitors widget. If you hover your mouse over the visitor’s face, you should see a fly-out that lists the blogs and sites for which they have created communities on MyBloglog.com. It also makes it easy to join their communities and increase your business networking.
About half-way down every page on this blog, in the right column, you’ll see a section called “New with John Dilbeck.” In that section is a widget provided by MyBlogLog that shows my latest activities on this blog and other sites and blogs I author. It also shows what I’ve been doing on several networking services such as Twitter, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and others.
It has taken a long time to set all of this up, but now, whenever I do something on one of my blogs, websites, or forums, that action is recorded in the RSS feed and is automatically syndicated on multiple other sites. I get visitors from a wide variety of sites as a result.
You can see another example of this at work on my profile page at the Squidoo Marketing community I created. In the right column of the page (and every other page of the site), you’ll see the Recent Visitors widget for the MyBlogLog community I created for that social networking site. In the center column, you’ll see the wider widget from MyBlogLog that shows my activities on my sites and the social networking services I use regularly.
Syndicate your blog’s RSS feed as widely as you can
Syndicating the RSS feed from your blog on multiple sites is a good way to get your writing noticed by both new readers and the search engines.
At first I was unsure about this and created a Squidoo lens called Should You Tweet Your Blog? to learn what other people think about the idea of automatically tweeting new blog posts. I’d welcome your opinions and feedback either on that lens or by leaving a comment here.
Link to your blog on forums and in comments on other blogs
I’ve talked about my blog on various forums and in comments on others’ blogs.
Be sure to add value when you post to the forums or comment on someone’s blog. As long as you’re adding to the conversation and helping others, the link to your blog will be welcome, or, at least, tolerated.
If you just jump in and write a post or comment about your blog that doesn’t add any value to the discussion, it will probably be deleted. At the very least, you’ll look like a spammer, and I know you don’t want to do that.
One good place to list your blog is in the thread started by Michael Galante on the ConquerYourNiche forum, Share your active blog here. I’ve found several blogs there that I’ll be reading and I’ve subscribed to a couple of their RSS feeds.
Another good place to link to your blog, especially if it is related to Internet marketing, is in the Members, show off your blogs! thread on Lynn Terry’s Self-Starters Weekly Tips forum.
(By the way, I’m one of the moderators of the SMO: Social Marketing & Social Media section of Lynn’s forum, and I invite you to come and share your knowledge and experiences about social networking with us.)
I have links to this blog in my signature file on a number of other forums where I’m active. Each post I make to those forums will link back to this blog.
Make good comments on other blogs
One way you can promote your blog is to make good comments on this one.
WordPress, by default, uses “nofollow” links so the search engines won’t follow links to the site you list when making your comment.
I’ve installed the DoFollow plugin so you’ll get some linklove when you post a good comment here. I also installed CommentLuv, which will try to find the last post you wrote on your blog and will link to it below your comment.
Additionally, SezWho is active on this blog and it will keep track of the comments you make on blogs with SezWho installed. It’s a pretty cool tool and I think we’ll be seeing more blogs using this nice tool as time goes by.
I hope you’ll make use of the rating feature SezWho provides to express your opinion of what I write and the comments others leave. By rating what we say, it will go into the multi-site comment aggregator that SezWho maintains and we can raise (or lower) our reputation based on the quality of our writing.
Now, I welcome substantive comments that are on-topic and I look forward to talking about affiliate marketing with you in any discussions that develop here.
However, I’ll delete your comment if it doesn’t contain anything worthwhile or is off-topic. So, don’t bother leaving a comment that says something like, “you have a good point,” or “that’s great.” I’ll delete ‘em in a heartbeat.
Don’t spam something I write with an off-topic comment full of advertising. Poof! Gone.
But, if you write something about the topic that adds to our understanding of your viewpoint or which offers links to on-topic resources, then I welcome what you have to say.
Yesterday, while looking for something (I don’t remember what), I looked at my lensmaster bio page at Squidoo and was surprised to see that it didn’t look anything like it did the last time I saw it.
What!?
I don’t like surprises and I generally react negatively when one of my pages changes without my knowledge or approval. So, I didn’t really like the new appearance of the page.
But, I tried to keep an open mind about it.
I went searching for more information about the change and found an active thread in the Lensmasters Lounge at SquidU.com.
That’s were I learned that what I was seeing was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential information the page could show.
I immediately edited the profile page on my Squidoo dashboard, and you can edit your profile, too:
http://www.squidoo.com/member/profile
I was able to add links to my blogs, websites, social networking profiles, and more. There’s even the ability to feature up to five of your favorite lenses right in the middle of the page.
It took all of a few minutes and now my lensmaster bio page is much more useful to me and I hope to any readers who find it.
I still don’t like surprises, but I do like the features in our new bio pages.
Aussie Sire asked a question on one of my twitter update posts and suggested that I rewrite my reply as a blog post. I think that’s a great idea.
He said:
Hi John, I had a look at your Squidoo page and I must say it is very impressive. I have heard of Squidoo and lenses and such but never really looked into them. It seems like another blogging platform but I assume there is a difference?
Hi Sire, thanks for the kind words about my Squidoo page for this blog:
Squidoo is not a blogging platform, but it works well with blogs. I try to build a Squidoo lens for each of my blogs for one specific reason: I can syndicate the RSS feed on the lens and Google likes Squidoo lenses. That means that some people may find my blog indirectly via the lens I create on Squidoo.
Squidoo is more of a simple webpage builder and they call each page a lens because the object is to focus on a single topic per page.
You may understand Squidoo a bit more if you read my lens at:
It also links to other lenses that have information about marketing using Squidoo.
You can build as many (or as few) lenses as you want and it’s always free. In fact, if you build lenses that attract visitors and get clicks, you can earn money from your lenses. Some very few people earn over $1,000 per month; a few dozen lensmasters earn around $100 per month; and most of us earn less than that. Your earnings come from sharing with Squidoo the commissions from Adsense and Glam ads on your lens.
I get a welcome deposit from Squidoo into my PayPal account every month.
Since you already have several blogs, perhaps you could start by building a lens about the main topic of one of your blogs.
But, I earn much more than the payment I get directly from Squidoo, because I promote affiliate links on my lenses and don’t have to share the proceeds from those commissions with Squidoo.
I also promote my CafePress shop on a few of my lenses and link back to some of my websites on other lenses.
So, I use Squidoo both as a traffic generator and as another profit center. It’s also great at cross-promoting lenses, blogs, forums, websites, social networking sites, and other web presences that share common themes and topics.
If you have a blog and you’d like Google to pay more attention, you may want to build a lens about the blog’s main topic and syndicate your RSS feed on the lens. You can also recommend books and other products from Amazon.com.
You can even recommend products from CafePress without having to join their affiliate program, but you’ll be sharing the commissions with Squidoo. It’s worth it because the CafePress module makes it so easy to promote the products you like on CafePress. There are thousands of shopkeepers selling their designs on CafePress and you can select from millions of product/design combinations.
Once a lens is built, it doesn’t take a lot of work to keep it current, and your blog’s feed is automatically updated on the lens on a schedule you can choose, i.e. every hour, every six hours, etc.
Another thing you can do to build interactivity into your lens is to add a guestbook, set up polls, start a duel (conversation/argument), and there are other modules that are of interest, too.
There are a lot of things you can do with Squidoo easily that are more difficult on a blog. I think the two of them work very well together.
Again, you can learn more, if you’re still interested at:
If you have any other questions, I’d be happy to do my best to answer them or refer you to another site with the answers.
I almost forgot. There is a social networking aspect to Squidoo where you can meet other highly-motivated lensmasters and help cross-promote each others’ sites, lenses, and blogs.
For example every time you add a quality comment to another lensmaster’s lens, you’ll get a link back to your lensmaster page.
Then there is the ability for a visitor to your site to join your fan club. Whenever you post a SquidCast about your lens, people in your fan club and anyone who has marked that lens as their favorite will see the SquidCast on their favorites page at Squidoo.
You can even get a chicklet to show how many fans you have and it links to your lensmaster page:
A lens is like a blog in one respect. Each time you publish your lens (after the initial build or whenever it is updated), you can send what is called a SquidCast, but which is really a posting that is added to the lens’ RSS feed. Then you can ping that update to spread the word among the large RSS aggregators.
Of course, the SquidCast is also shown on the favorites page of your fans and the people who favorited that lens. It is also promoted on the Squidcast Twitter feed.
So, there are a lot of reasons to include Squidoo as an integral part of your marketing mix, even if you are a blogger or webmaster, already.
And, don’t forget, you don’t have to join Squidoo because you want to make money. You can build your lenses on the topics of your choice, so tell your stories, publish your poems, or show photos of your kids and pets.
Are you an expert on something? Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, and you may even earn some money from it.
John Dilbeck 
