Squidoo Lens Promotion Tactics

Thank you all for being patient. I know you have probably been on the corner of your seat, checking every other hour on the hour to see if I had posted again yet. ;)

Just like I promised before my life got absurdly crazy with finals, today's topic will cover promotion tactics of your Squidoo lens. First we will review the promotional tips suggested by Squidoo, and then we will discuss some other more unique methods.

Squidoo-Suggested Techniques
On the right hand column of your Squidoo Dashboard is a module entitled "6 Steps To More Traffic!" Here is a list of what it suggests:

1. Make a lens worth talking about.
   
2. Send it to 5 friends.
   
3. Add it to del.icio.us.
   
4. Blog it, or ask someone else to.
   
5. Favorite it on StumbleUpon.
   
6. Play with your tags.
   
7. Make something worth talking about. (It's worth saying twice).
   

This list provides the basic framework of things you should be doing on a regular basis to promote your content. If you have worked hard to make a lens worth sharing, all of these steps will be much easier!


My Best Promotion Techniques
I am going to list off for you here some general guidelines that I have used that have yielded some fairly good results. Some of these I have seen hinted at on other sites, but many I learned the hard way- by experience. That being said, I admit that I have not had the time to follow all of my own advice here, but I have seen extensive results when I have followed these guidelines. So why I'm giving these away for free? I don't know, I guess I'm just hoping that when you make the big bucks and can afford to live the good life off of your Squidoo lenses that you will remember this little blogster and the tips she gave and send me a check to help me cover tuition! But seriously, these are all tips I wish someone would have told me when I first started at Squdidoo, so I hope they help you achieve the highest lensrank your lens deserves!

1. Be the first one to bookmark it on social bookmarking sites- it makes it easier for others to do the same after you because they don't have to fill out the initial description forms.
   
2. Utilize the Social in Social Bookmarking: Instead of just opening an account on one of these sites only to bookmark your lenses, websites, and other web projects, be sure to set aside a little time on the socializing part of social bookmarking. Check out someone's profile and leave a note commenting on one of their links. This will be especially appreciated if it's a link to their lens, website, or web project! I should warn you, though, that this tactic can be overused and abused in a way that will render it essentially ineffective. Do this only occasionally- no more than two or three comments a day, and make sure that they are genuine in nature (i.e. don't just copy and paste the same short, vague message over and over). In time, you'll have more connections on these sites that will be watching what you Digg or Stumble or whatever. Use this appropriately and you might be able to finally gain yourself some momentum in the social bookmarking sphere.
   
3. Add lots of tags. This will allow your lens to be more easily found not only in Squidoo's search engine, but also by Google, Yahoo, etc. giving you better traffic results for your hard work.
   
4. Harness the power of groups. Signing your lens up for a group is like signing it up to get traffic. You are almost always guaranteed to get at least the groupmaster to your lens and they will usually leave a nice comment and a rating. Note: Ratings can greatly affect your lensrank!
   
5. Make your own group. I tried this about a month ago. I created a group called Pen Pals for writers who use Squidoo to promote their writing. For the longest time, I was the only member, then one lensmaster added a lens, then another. It's still a small group, but it's growing consistently and, as groupmaster, every single member recognizes my pen name and has a higher probability of visiting my sites. I also have the ability to "promote" each of their lenses and drop them a line of congratulations. This will create a goodwill attitude between me and the members I choose to promote, leading to more traffic, more ratings, more comments, etc., all of which increase lensrank!
   
6. Squidcast when you create the lens. If you already have fans, they will get the message that you have established a new lens and they might want to check it out. Introduce them to it and give them the chance to say hello properly with a visit and possibly a rating and comment.
   
7. Squidcast again whenever you update or change things around on your lens, or just to send out a special message about your topic. For example, the people subscribed to my Doris Day Lens received a reminder via squidcast on April 3rd about Doris' 84th birthday. This random piece of information may encourage people to re-visit your lens and pay tribute to your topic of interest.
   
8. Interact in the Squidoo community. Visit lenses, comment, become a fan, etc. As you send traffic to other lensmasters, they will return the favor and your lensrank will climb. Bonus: each time you comment, it adds a "linkback" to your profile which lists all of the lenses you have created. Everyone who visits that site often will see your comment and have a way to navigate to your lenses.
   
9. Interact in other online communities. When I joined Zazzle and set up my gallery, I included a link to my "online portfolio" (which is essentially my Squidoo lensography combined with a list of links to my Associated Content Articles). Every time I leave a comment or become a fan of another product designer at Zazzle, they have a link to my gallery, which encourages them to check me out at Squidoo. Incorporating your different spheres of online identity like this will make you a more "real" web presence and afford you more consistent traffic from people who like your voice or your unique view on the world and decide to keep up with you in several spheres. They will be able to see your view on various topics, and learn with you as you grow and develop as a lensmaster, writer, designer, artist, etc.
   
10. Publish more lenses. A little while back, things got kinda crazy for me and I was not actively maintaining current lenses or creating new ones. Updating my old ones boosted my lensrank a little, but publishing new ones boosted it significantly. So if you want to maintain a fairly high lensrank, publish quality lenses, deserving of repeat traffic, often. Several of my lesser ranked lenses had fallen into the 100,000 lensrank area. Publishing actively again increased all of my lenses rank so that my lowest one was less than 50,000! I would say that is a HUGE improvement, wouldn't you?!
    

If you want more tips, here's a shameless plug for my article on Effective Ways to Promote Your Squidoo Lens.

Apology: Small Break

I know that in my last post I promised I would write soon about promotional techniques for increasing traffic to your Squidoo lenses. Unfortunately, I've been very distracted this week. It's getting very close to the end of the semester for me, which means finals time is just around the corner and it's crunch time. I have so many projects, papers, and tests I'm working on right now that it's ridiculous. So, unfortunately, I will not be able to post again for a little while. But do not think I have forgotten about you or my promise to give you some great Squidoo promotion tips. I will do everything I can to make the next post worth your wait. So be patient, subscribe to the RSS feed and you'll be notified when things normalize out for me again and I can post as usual.

In the meantime, here is a link to a very appropriate article I wrote a little while back that might be helpful for others going through finals right now also: How to Conquer Test Stress. It's based mostly on personal experience and some random tidbits I learned along the way.

Creating a Successful Squidoo Lens

Okay, so I hope you enjoyed our discussion yesterday about Squidoo and have had time to check it out if you aren't already a lensmaster. Being a lensmaster can be rewarding on so many levels. I have found it to be a way to share my knowledge on a particular subject without having to update a blog several times a week or limit myself to only textual content. I'm able to use many tools including YouTube Videos, Flickr pictures, interactive guestbooks, and many other features to help my topic grow into a life of it's own. So, what are some essential ingredients, then, for creating a successful Squidoo lens? Well, in my experience, the key is the right modules, the right content, and the right layout.

Modules
The key here is to remember that you are creating this lens for a reader. While this may seem like a no-brainer, many lensmasters appear to forget this simple point. It can be difficult to write enough on a lens to make it seem "full" enough and many lensmasters make the mistake of adding multi-media "fill-in-the-blank" modules that unfortunately distract from the actual point of the lens. In order to avoid making this mistake, learn to think like your potential readership. If you saw the title of your lens and were intrigued enough to click on it, what would you expect to find? If it's a lens on gardening, it's unlikely that you will find many relevant YouTube vids on how to grow a potato, although I could be wrong! If you find a video that really backs up what your content is about, feature it proudly! Be sure to include, however, a type of "introduction" for why you chose to place the video or videos there and a brief explanation of how the module will add to the topic at hand. When possible, hand-pick your videos, pictures, products, etc. and provide a brief note about them. This extra measure might take some more time upfront, but it will keep your content very relevant, which is the most necessary ingredient for keeping your reader's attention.

Hint: There are lots of modules under the "Search A-Z" tab of the Add Modules page that you probably do not even know about! Some of them are next to useless, but some others can be very helpful! As always, choose wisely.

Content
Quality and personality is key here. If you have a lot of textbook answers, your average reader will probably get bored really fast. Use your introduction area to cover not only what your lens is about, but also lay out your plan to cover the topic. This gives the reader an immediate understanding of how you have designed the lens and how to navigate around it. This can be helpful even if you also offer a Table of Contents because it allows you to describe the message of entire sections of modules as a whole and prepare your reader to navigate within your page.

As far as text content goes, simple grammar mistakes and mis-spellings are simply not acceptable. By creating your Squidoo lens, you are asserting yourself as an expert on the topic, and faltering in the way you communicate what you know will often cast a shadow on your reputation and lose you readers, which will negatively affect your lensrank and ultimately your earning potential. If you have trouble editing your own work, find someone who enjoys it and ask them to proofread your content before you update. It shouldn't be that difficult since it doesn't have to be a piece of literary genius.

I should also mention here that the most successful lenses I have contain lots of relevant textual content. When creating a lens I want to succeed, I usually begin with a minimum of 5 Text/Write modules. Often, I end up adding more than 10, but 5 gives me a good start.

Layout
Squidoo makes creating a layout easy, in some cases almost too easy. With a couple clicks of the mouse and a few simple questions, Squidoo will spit out a layout based on why you are creating the lens. The possible trap in relying on Squidoo's layout wizard is that you do not actively participate in the process. I strongly suggest choosing the option "I want to do my own thing" when creating a lens. This will generate a lens with only the Introduction module on it. While it may look very bare at first, it is a clean slate. You can now think about the content you want to offer your readers, the modules that would be appropriate, and, most importantly, what the best order of these modules would be to take your readers from A to Z of whatever topic you choose.

In general, I suggest that the first module you add be a Table of Contents. If you want your lens to be successful, it will probably have to be somewhat long and detailed with lots of modules. As I suggested above, you will need at least 5 text/write modules, and finally, you will need a guestbook. The guestbook allows people visiting your lens to leave you a message, comment on your content, offer additional resources on your topic, etc. I consider it an absolute must-have module because it offers your readers a chance to respond to what they read. Also notice that I said "finally, you will need a guestbook". This is because the guestbook should go at the absolute bottom of your lens. No matter how many modules you have, any higher than the bottom is simply awkward. It almost intrudes on your content and you can be sure that any modules posted below your guestbook will be ignored more than if they were positioned above the guestbook.


I know this has been a rather long post, but I hope you have found it packed with useful information that will help you become a successful lensmaster. In my next post, I hope to address the topic of promoting your Squidoo lenses, so be sure to check that out. Until then, happy Squidooing!

Let's Talk Squidoo

So I know for the last week or two of blogs, I have been focusing on fractal art and all the tools available to help you get started capturing beautiful images, but I realized yesterday that while this is definitely a deserving topic to cover, I feel as though I have been neglecting discussion on some of my other projects. So, today and maybe for a few more days, I will be talking about Squidoo. If you are disappointed I won't be talking about fractals today, here is one more amazing resource I found just for you. Check it out and leave me a message with any questions if you want to discuss it further.

Alright, now before I can really get into discussing Squidoo, I need to explain what it is- Squidoo is basically a place where you can go and make one page websites on any topic you wish. The single-paged site is referred to as a "lens" because a good one will focus the reader's attention and enlighten them about the subject. Often the lenses are used just to inform, sometimes it's more of an extensive joke, or sometimes they are used to "pre-sell" a certain good or service. The person who creates the lens, called the "lensmaster" can make royalties off of the lens through Google AdSense and a host of other Affiliate Marketing techniques. Squidoo is unique in the sense that it also partners with some of the biggest, well-known charities to allow lensmasters the right to donate a portion or the entirety of their earnings to a charity of their choice. This is relatively unheard of in the affiliate marketing realm! The heart of Squidoo, however, is the community among the lensmasters. Almost every single lensmaster I have encountered has been genuinely interested in seeing everyone succeed and do well in this crazy adventure of creating and promoting lenses.

Still not convinced? Well, here is an article I wrote recently detailing 10 Reasons to Become a Lensmaster. It gives a better insight into what it means to be a lensmaster.

That's all I have time to cover today. In the next post I will get more into the tips and tricks I have learned from being a lensmaster.

Apophysis, Scripting, and Resources

Okay, so I blogged briefly yesterday about the new Fractal Art Freeware Program I had discovered thanks to a reference from a good friend. I also mentioned that it was an "advanced" program. Well, that is definitely no understatement! After taking some time since then to investigate, play with the controls, dabble in scripting and trying to render a decent fractal, I quickly realized that this program is only good for those who are patient! Luckily, I am, so I will continue plugging away at it and see if over time it gets easier, but I figured it was only a fair to offer a warning with my recommendation. If you are not patient, don't even look into downloading because it will drive you to the brink of insanity. But if you are, take a deep breath and dive deep. Work hard and see where you go. While it does take a lot of patience, I stand by my earlier claim that it is still the best fractal art program I have ever seen in the free price range!

If you are serious about diving in and getting the most out of this program, you will need to learn to script. I'm not going to act like I am an expert, but there are some pretty fantastic resources available on the web. Most of them are linked to the Apophysis online wiki, but the most comprehensive one on scripting can be found here. Be sure to grab a caffeinated beverage or something else to keep you awake though- it's not exactly an exciting read, but you will learn. Personally, I choose to bookmark it and come back to read a little bit at a time. I'm hoping this will help me to not be too overwhelmed.

Diving Deeper into Eternity

In case you didn't know and were wondering, the math behind fractal art is related to how the 3D geometrical shape corresponds to infinity. No, I do not understand fully the math that is really involved, but I have found a more advanced tool for creating fractal art. It's called Apophysis. It's comes with some great pre-sets but also allows you to create your own fractal designs instead of simply filtering and editing the ones already available. And even if you're too scared to build your own fractal from scratch, you can actually manipulate the pre-sets in 3D! That means way more possibilities than anything I have seen so far offered for free! I've only just begun playing with it and the online tutorials and wiki manual are slightly overwhelming at first, but I know that in order to continue growing as a fractal artist, I must conquer my fear (mainly of math) and step out. Like I always say, you never know till you give it your all! If you fail, well, then, at least you know your limits and you can brush yourself off with pride, knowing you did your best!

Crazy Zazzle Productivity, Fostering Creativity... and Facebook

So, this last day or so, I have been extremely productive on Zazzle. I now have over 100 products- crazy! I've found that I produce the most when I focus on "chunks" of the process. By that I mean that I take a little while to work on capturing some great images that would look good on several different products and saving them at a high resolution, typically 1400x1400. Then I might spend some time uploading images, five at a time onto the site. With such high resolutions, this can take a little while, but I usually do it while I'm watching tv or blogging. Once they are updated, I start creating. I do not finish the products then, however- I simply choose an item, slap an image on it, adjust as needed and save to post for sale later. Finally, I go back and do the tedious work of posting for sale. This process may or may not work for others, but I find that it helps me be much more productive than doing the entire process all at once.

I also managed to publish another lens on Facebook. It's about Fostering Creativity. It's got lots of great quotes and information I gathered up a couple of years ago for a Child Development course I took during my undergraduate work.

I also began really working on a lens I've been planning for a while now. It deals with privacy on Facebook and includes a tutorial to the privacy options for users as well as tips for parents. It's slow going only because it's not the most exciting subject, but it is one I feel needs to be addressed. I will let you know more when it's live, which may be a while, but it's something to look forward to!

A Word About Fractal Art for the Beginner: A Personal Observation

While it may look like it took a painstakingly long time to create fractal art, it didn't. This art medium is perfect for the not so perfectly creative with an eye for beauty. In many ways, its a lot like photography- you don't exactly create as much as capture the beauty that is already there. As I have stated before, I'm using a free program called Tierazon. It's taken me a little while to get used to it. Some of my first images I made silly mistakes like not saving them at a high enough resolution to use on anything more than a postage stamp, but there's an online tutorial that walked me through most of the controls and after that it just takes some time and experience to get the hang of it.

While it is a fairly easy artistic niche to enter, I do believe that fractal art should come with a warning attached. It is addictive! When you stare at a computer screen constantly zooming in, re-sizing, filtering, and capturing images over and over again, the concept seeps into your daily life functioning. For example, the other day, I was walking up a set of marble stairs. The marble had a very tiny design on it and in my mind I wished I could "zoom in" to see it more clearly, slightly change the colors, and save. I know that sounds silly, but it happens a lot. I saw a tree the other day and it reminded me of one of the fractals I had been working on. I wondered if I got close enough if I could see the fractal repeat itself. In many ways though, this is a big blessing- it allows me to appreciate the beauty in nature more and because the math behind fractal art is natural math, you see it everywhere!

Personally, I think that every artist could hone their "eye" for art by utilizing fractals. I've been amazed at how it has impacted my life in such a short amount of time!

New Lens Showcasing R.W. Designs on Zazzle

I began working on a new Squidoo lens yesterday. Now that I have created over 75 products on Zazzle (wow!), I'm hoping to use the lens to showcase my designs. I'm also including several cool modules to feature other Zazzle artists like this talented 10-year-old Canadian girl I found. She may be young, but she has a big talent for art and design! I would imagine that she inherited it from her mom and
dad (yep, also Zazzler's!)

I also plan on updating regularly with tricks and tools as I learn the ropes. I'm not sure how popular it will be, but I'll never know if I don't try!

Beginning T-Shirt Design

::Sigh:: Fractal art has become in many ways a very quick and easy hobby for me, but fractals do not exactly look great on t-shirts and other apparel, so I've begun trying to get my feet wet with t-shirt design. I do not believe I have the patience to be a great digital artist, so instead, I have tried to create simple but fun designs that catch people's attention. I've decided that funny is usually best. However, that can be difficult when I'm trying to create. Inspiration often comes when it's least expected, though, so I wait. I did have some ideas that I want to run by some people before I post them for sale.

Sorry this is such a short post. I'm exhausted and my bed beacons me even as I type. Good night all and I will blog again soon.

Squidoo Update

Today I noticed that during the last week or so of diving head-first into fractal art, my poor Squidoo lenses have suffered greatly. So, I took a little extra time to update some of my favorites that I believe have the most potential. I took the opportunity to tighten up the formatting and add a little more content to each of them. I deleted some of the modules that appeared to be excessive, such as Flickr modules that were not showing appropriate pictures.Here's a brief overview of my progress:

I Want to be an Occupational Therapist!: improved intro. module and guestbook

Write Out of the Box: improved intro. module and improved appearance

The Works and Life of Cherangelry: added a new blog entry

Big Bang Theory, CBS Sit-Com: updated with fresh information about the latest episode (It's a really fun show- you should check it out if you haven't already fallen in love with it!)

The rest of my lenses I might work on later, but I am finding that the ones I am most passionate about are the ones I update most often. I'm considering dropping some of the ones I have built in order to focus on building lenses that are more geared towards what I know about, what I enjoy talking about. I guess we'll just see what happens.

P.S. Associated Content updated their servers today and I am up to 5806 pageviews! Yay! I love AC Update Day!

Discussion of Fractals

I realized earlier today that even though I have often mentioned fractal art, I haven't actually talked much about what a fractal is and how fractal art is created. So, that's what I want to talk about in this post so that you'll know exactly what I'm talking about when I use these terms.

The Fractal Geometry of Nature by Mandelbrot defines a fractal as:

"a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole"

The best way to really understand what fractals are, however, is to learn how to recognize a fractal. Wikipedia offers help in the form of the following list of common fractal features:

* It has a fine structure at arbitrarily small scales.
* It is too irregular to be easily described in traditional Euclidean geometric language.
* It is self-similar (at least approximately or stochastically).
* It has a Hausdorff dimension which is greater than its topological dimension (although this requirement is not met by space-filling curves such as the Hilbert curve).
* It has a simple and recursive definition.

As for how fractal art is created, well, that is a discussion so entirely complex that I cannot begin to explain- mostly because I'm not so sure myself. All I can do is point you towards a resource that will help you understand it better. Here is an introduction to fractals that goes more into detail on this topic.

Did you know?
Fractal comes from the Latin word fractus, meaning "broken" or "fractured".

Corrugator Supercilius, Pendulums, Dark Matter and General Academia

Sadly enough, my day really did incorporate all of the items mentioned in the title. And no, I'm not a genius, I'm a student taking way too many science classes. I had a test in Anatomy (Corrugator Supercilius is the muscle above your eye that allows you to make frown lines). Then I had a Physics Lab involving Simple Harmonic Motion of Pendulums, followed by a short lunch break and a two hour Physics class, where we went so far off topic we began discussing Dark Matter. (We were supposed to be learning about thermogenesis!)

At the end of the day, I was pretty exhausted. Needless to say, I did not work much on any of my projects. I did, however, manage to create a couple more products based off of some fractals I had already uploaded and make some minor adjustments to a Squidoo lens or two. Doing this helped relax me a little after my long day. Oh, and I also watched the finale show to "Here Comes the Newlyweds" online. It's a great show! If you haven't seen it, check it out for free here. Be sure to grab a box of tissues before you watch the last episode- it's an unexpected tear-jerker!

Lazy Day

Today was a good day. I had the house to myself almost all day. I finished off my taxes, wrote a paper for class, and studied for a test tomorrow. In between all of this, I managed to play with fractals a little more. I've found some cool tricks and I'm realizing that it's as much an adventure as it is an art form. I love the thrill of picking beauty out of what often appears to be a tragic mess at the start. It's addicting really.

Oh, I almost forgot- BDKZ also sent me the link to her Squidoo lens on How to Create a Beautiful Squidoo Lens for Your Zazzle Gallery. Once I have had time to create some more products and really organize my online "storefront", I will be creating a lens specifically for my Zazzle products. She's been very helpful in offering tips and advice as I figure out the whole Zazzle thing, and you can tell by her store that she knows what she's talking about.

I guess that's really all for now. I'm kinda exhausted since I've been up and going strong all day long, so I'm going to sign off for now and go hit the hay.

Zazzle Experiment: Day Two

Since it's Saturday, I took out quite a bit of time to learn about fractal art and digital design. I made some much better attempts at creating better quality images that someone might actually want to buy. Not that my first attempt was the worst ever, but I fully admit that it was a very sloppy first attempt.

I found another great freeware program to help me create images. It's called Tierazon. I confess that I don't quite understand how it does what it does, but it's very user friendly and you can get some pretty fantastic results from just playing around and goofing off. Below is an example of one of the products I made today. It's a poster.



Pretty cool, huh?! It just goes to prove that you need no great experience with art to create beautiful images with this FREE program.

Also, I have added a cool little widget to the bottom of this page which will automatically rotate all of the products I have for sale at my Zazzle store. This way my blog won't become a sales catalog for my store and I can talk about the other stuff I'm getting into as my interests and focus change course and diversify.

Zazzle Experiment

Since my first post yesterday, I have dipped my toe in a whole new pool of internet creation- digital art. I've created an account on Zazzle.com. Zazzle is a print-on-demand store where anyone can design their own product lines and open a merchant store. As each product is ordered, Zazzle deals with the customer relations and you make commissions on each sale. In addition, you can open an associate account and earn commissions for every sale made through your ad placement. Most people are calling it the next CafePress.

Here is my sloppy first attempt at design- it's an abstract postage stamp! Random? Yes, but that's how I roll.


I still have a lot to learn about digital art, but I created this image using a FREE software called Artweaver. In the little bit of time I've had to play around with it, I cannot believe that this is being offered for free! It's incredible and does a lot of the same stuff that most people pay hundreds of dollars for! I definitely recommend it if you want to get into digital art but don't have the money to buy Corel, Adobe Photoshop, or some other high priced software. If for some reason Artweaver isn't exactly what you're looking for, here's the site with a bunch of other great FREE software downloads that might suit you better.

The Awkward First Post

I began this blog as a way for my family, friends and fans to keep up with me and all of my ongoing projects. Here are some links to some of my ongoing projects and interests.

Associated Content

AC boasts of being the "The People's Media Company". They pay regular people to write quality content articles on a wide variety of subjects. The result? A media source completely reliant on the power of the people! Now that is an amazing concept! You can find my articles on Associated Content here.

Squidoo

I have also been playing around on Squidoo lately. If you have never heard of it, it's basically a place where you can create one page websites, called "lenses". If you're interested,check out the FAQ page.

Personally, I use Squidoo for a number of reasons- to promote my AC articles, to create lenses about stuff I care about, or just have fun. I've found that it's very addicting!

Here is a lens where I have aggregated all of my lenses and articles by topic. I can almost guarantee you will find something you like. If not, leave me a suggestion in the guestbook at the bottom of the page and I'll see what I can do.