My Squid Life

After working toward boosting my keyword density, I put a little time into some other tasks this past week. I wanted to incoporate some new HTML to improve the look of some of my lenses. I want to try to use one or two “tricks” each week to broaden my skills in this area.  This past week I focused on adding a splash of color while dressing things up a bit.  I published My Gorgeous Green Cell Phone and A Red Cell Phone for Everyone lenses. I incorporated some of the HTML to wrap text around a highlighted capital letter while adding a bit of color. I’ve avoided some of the colored backgrounds as I prefer a more polished look and want to avoid anything that might make reading more difficult.

As I’ve talked about previously I’m also trying to focus more narrowly on my sales type lenses. The above efforts are part of that but I also did a Texas Instruments Calculator and Sony Ericsson Phone Charger. I hope next week to be able to create some more informative and recreational type lenses, but with holidays creeping up soon I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

I spent my work time over the weekend targeting the keywords on my lenses in an attempt to improve their placement in searches and thus increase traffic. There were a handful that I actually changed the keywords I was targeting as the competition was too intense. For the majority however, I attempted to simply increase my keyword density. 

I’ve never liked reading the same word or phrase over and over on a page so I tend to go a little light on keyword density but felt it was worth the time at this point to make a conscious effort to kick it up a percent or two. I’ve read advice about the appropriate density but the range appears to be wide among “experts”.  I’m happy with 3-5%.

Now I need to go do some testing to see if I’ve made any real improvement…

The last day or two I’ve tried to get back into the swing of things following the election and some autumn outdoor time off.  I’ve created a few new lenses and caught up a little on some blogs. I swung by the forum to offer some feedback for some new lensmasters seeking help as well.  While I was there, I ran across a discussion in the “Chatter Box” about Squidoo payments; should they change and so forth.

Although I would love to see the tiers expand a bit as the total number of lenses increases and competition is fierce, I try to focus elsewhere.  I know that for those who make the most money on Squidoo, it’s via affiliate sales not a share of the AdSense payment from Squidoo. The fact that the pages are free to construct makes them fantastic as well. The interaction with more experienced internet marketers and entrepreneurs is also unbelievably valuable. I’d like the monthly payout to continue to grow but it’s still not my focus.

The number of lenses I have in the top two tiers has not grown nearly as much as my total number of lenses in the past two or three months. However, my Amazon sales and affiliate sales have grown. Thus my reason for wanting to focus on the other forms of payment.

Payday is coming soon, I don’t anticipate any significant improvement over last month.  Hope we all get a nice November surprise!

I’ve had a few days off recently to be sure I got out and enjoyed some gorgeous autumn weather before it was too late. Perfect hiking weather!

I’ve managed to create a few lenses though.  First I did Homemade Vegetable Soup.  It’s actually a Beef Vegetable Soup. Apologies to the vegetarians out there but this is just a description of how my mother/grandmother used to make soup. Very basic but the addition of an apple adds something.  Interestingly, it’s had a good start during it’s first week with a 103 visits. The good news is that the visits are coming primarily from Google followed by other searches on AOL, Yahoo and MSN.  That’s some pretty quick indexing and reasonable search engine placement for a lens that hasn’t been  (and probably won’t be) promoted to any significant degree.

My second one was Sightseeing Indiana. I just put together a bit of information on some sites that I know about primarily just because I’m local. Perhaps someone just looking for a way to kill some time or who happen to be passing through would also find them interesting.  Hopefully I will be adding to the list over time.  It’s been found by Google searchers several times although it’s only about 3 days old so that’s not too bad.

I published a quick lens then yesterday about the Blackberry Bold 9000. It wasn’t something I had planned; I felt it was just too competitive to bother with doing.  I seldom do standalone lenses about the latest releases or the most popular models but with only some limited time yesterday I decided I had nothing to lose. It is a pretty remarkable phone, the screen is really leagues above most of them.

Well that pretty much sums up my week. For those of you in the U.S….don’t forget to VOTE!

I guess I’ve finally learned that when I’m not having a productive day doing one thing, I just need to switch to a different task, there is no lack of things to do!  I had set about writing some articles a couple of days ago and was frustrated by my lack of progress.  Finally, after a few hours, I got wise and shifted to tweaking some lenses based on the Health Check feature.  I think I now have my tags in order.

On Saturday, I thought I would put together a lens, but my creativity was lagging. By mid-morning I went over to Qassia and wrote a few articles though and made a more productive day of it. This morning my goal was to blog a bit but when that didn’t happen readily within the first half hour, I decided to pay attention to my poor neglected website.  I finally set up my Amazon electronics store although I wasn’t able to get it embeded into my site yet due to some technical glitches.  I did finally add some products however and edited several pages.  There’s still work to do, but at least I have a good start on it now.

I’m finally learning that if I hit a wall, I just need to move on to something else to stay productive.

My only real Squidoo news today is that my Text Messaging Help lens which has been my top ranked lens for “forever” was finally passed by my Cell Phones for the Hearing Impaired lens.  Although the Text Messaging lens has several hundred more visitors per week, it appears that the Cell Phones lens has more than 7 times the number of back links (396 vs. 52). The majority of those links are from Qassia and from my signature in the Squidoo forum (which I don’t visit all that often).  I still have several lenses I want to target more heavily and maybe this tells me for sure which direction to pursue in that effort.

How to go about promoting a website or webpage seems fairly straight foward. Getting backlinks is of course critical if you want to show up in searches and one of the best ways to achieve that is to write great, unique content, and to promote that content by writing articles, blogs, and other related webpages.

I’m capable of constructing reasonable sentences and can most often put my thoughts in logical order and express them in written form. I’ve certainly written several hundred blogs and hundreds of articles. However, I don’t consider myself a writer.  For this reason, I lack some of the necessary skills and at times, this is most evident in my ability to not only write well but to write quickly and in great volume. Hiring someone to write for me is out of the question right now.

As someone who would like to earn a living on line I guess it’s time to buckle down and focus a bit more on my writing skills in general. Over time, I’ve bookmarked a number of related articles which I probably need to actually review more thoroughly now that I accept this as a much needed goal. This all became evident to me as I began following Vbright on Tagfoot and Squidtop as she discussed her writing job. When I realized that a “writer” could produce 20 or more articles a day on a topic that was unfamiliar, I realized how far off the mark I was. I doubt that 20 articles a day is necessary for marketing purposes, but it’s a kick in the pants nonetheless to understand what some people are capable of doing.

I think I’ll start with some of the articles I have bookmarked on Tagfoot starting with the resources listed in this http://www.dumblittleman.com/2008/08/21-must-read-tips-to-write-better-web.html article.

I don’t aspire to be a professional writer, but the importance of writing is very evident. I guess that fact that web promotion is often about writing well and in volume has to be acknowledged and I need to find a way to do that in a more effective and efficient manner.

If anyone has other recommended online resources let me know!

Fresh content is always critical and the need to keep lenses updated is no different than with any webpage. Finding the time of course is another story. As I was perusing the news recently though I came across some nice information for several of my older lenses that will beef them up nicely.

First was news announced from MobileASL that they now have the software to allow US callers to make use of sign language on their cell phones. Now they just have to get manufacturers to incorporate their software.  I updated my Cell Phones for the Hearing Impaired lens to reflect this new development.  I was even able to include a video about the new software.  Although Sweden and Japan offers the ability to do this, data networks in the US couldn’t easily accomodate this until now. Great news for the deaf community here in the US.

Next I saw a press release announcing the Beta phase of Text Guard a new software program that will allow you to block text messages more easily, monitor your kids messaging if desired, and keep a log of messages in case you need to retrieve them later.  The best news is that it offers a free 60 day trial. I included this information in my Stop Unwanted Calls and Messages lens.

I didn’t get much participation on my Comprehensive Sex Education Should Be Taught in Public Schools lens and I assumed it just wasn’t timely enough.  I guess that isn’t the issue. Yesterday there was a front page story on MSN about the lack of evidence supporting abstinence only programs and the prospect of funding for such programs disappearing; particularly if the democrats win the White House.

I’m sure most of you have read about the recent module additions at Squidoo.  I haven’t tried the new text/write modules with larger pictures yet, but I’ll be excited to try it.  Pictures add so much to a lens and those tiny thumbnails do little more than break up text. Up to this point I’ve mainly used the Polaroid module to get my big photos.

This morning I noticed a small change on the dashboard that I hadn’t heard about. Along with the options to label, edit, delete or check your stats on a lens, you can now check your lens health. Tips about your titles, length of your intro module, your tags, and more is all available to help you improve the health of your lens.  Nice addition.  Now I need to set aside some time and go through each of my lenses.

I found several of my lenses had some bad affiliate links in them earlier this week.  I spent yesteday swapping them out. Unfortunately, they don’t alway show that they aren’t working at a glance and I fear they’ve been non-functional for 6 or 8 weeks. Nothing like losing revenue over something that basic!

I’ve created 3 or 4 new lenses this week but I believe my efforts in the coming several days will be directed toward tweaking and updating.  Fresh content, pictures, and checking “health status” and links is on my list to do.

I finally decided that I needed to try a Hey Monkeybrain lens. The ones that I like are those that are a really good debate; something that allows people to express strong opinions.  I am a bit timid however about stating an opinion that people will find TOO offensive. It’s a fine line I guess.

I finally settled on Comprehensive Sex Education vs Abstinence Only programs in the schools. For those who are more conservative it should bring out a bit of an opposing view but hopefully won’t offend them. I had searched to be sure it wasn’t done previously and found nothing.  Was disappointed to find later that I had somehow missed one created earlier. Grrr.

Hopefully, I’ll get something more unique next time!

I was working along this weekend and had a couple of pleasant surprises. First, when I stopped by to visit CleanerLife’s lens on Installing a Backup Camera I saw that a couple of my lenses were featured on the page. A very pleasant suprise! I don’t personally have a back up camera on my car, but I must say it’s something I’m considering. I’ve only had a few minor “fender benders” in my lifetime of driving, but amazingly the consistency is that I’ve backed into something that’s below my level of view. CleanerLife’s lens does a great job of showing you how to install one yourself.

On Sunday I did a very quick lens about The Samsung Instinct. It’s not the most fascinating topic but for people who love the iPhone & want to save some cash, it’s a great option. Anyway, it’s not the kind of lens I would expect to take off based on “popularity”.  After publishing it, I went back less than 3 hours later to find that it had 189 visits already. Zikes! What had I done?  Well, as it turned out I had done nothing. But pMolinero had stopped by and decided to submit it to StumbleUpon whereupon 180+ people decided to check it out.  If you haven’t seen any of pmolinero’s lenses, I suggest you check them out. There are a variety of topics, but some of my favorites are the food oriented lenses. All About Watermelons is my current favorite and Halloumi Cheese is another that’s caught my interest as I’ve never met a cheese I didn’t love.