New Promotion Tools

So, a while back I posted about Squidoo Lens Promotion Techniques. Since then, I have come across a host of great tools I never knew existed, so I thought I would do a follow-up post and hopefully you'll find a couple of cool new tricks you didn't know about as well. Before we dive in, though, I want to first suggest that if you have not yet taken the time to read the first post, you might want to do that now.

• Google Blog Search: Sure you've probably listed your blogs with this search engine, but did you ever think of also listing web pages? Any web page that you intend to update on occasion, such as a Squidoo lens, can also be the perfect addition to their search engine! Individual articles can also be registered and will be pinged any time a new comment is added.


• 01dir.com: If you have an excessive amount of links you want to organize, why not create your own directory? This can offer a source of linkbacks and you can even offer the service to other people who are trying to promote similar links. They'll be more than appreciative!


• spynbuy
  This is a social network designed for people looking to sell stuff. Their specialty? Video marketing! But they offer several other options as well. The site is still very new and has about a billion and a half things on the to-do list, but getting in now and networking a little while the ground floor is still being laid will give you the opportunity to watch this young site flourish. But you should be aware that because it's so young, it's not very easy to navigate. If you are a novice, it might not be the best tool for you unless you are extremely patient.


• Squoogle:
  This is one of my newest absolute favorites! Why? It's a Link Directory for specific freelance sites including Associated Content, Gather, Squidoo, HubPages and LaunchTags. Why is this so incredible? Well, in case you haven't noticed, the growing area of people driven media sites full of single articles or one page sites is becoming more and more profitable. At the same time, we're the red-headed step children of the online writing realm. We aren't exactly blogging, even though we often ping our work and use traditional blog tools. But we also aren't "professional" in the sense that the vast majority of people contributing to these sites do not have the background education and the experience necessary to regard these sites as professional sites. Yet, here we are, somewhere in the middle. This directory, though, gives these lonely sites a bond. It also encourages interaction between these social networks, which is great for back links and building credibility in the eyes of the illustrious Google's search engine!


• SquidUtils:
  If you are on Squidoo and haven't found this site, you will want to bookmark it immediately! It is a great supplementary resource to the new and improved Squidoo Dashboard. (If you haven't visited your lenses in about a week or two, go check them out right now because the new Dashboard will blow you away!)


• Lensroll.com:
  This is a social bookmarking site exclusively for Lensmasters . I hope to post a more in depth review at some point in the future on how to use this site effectively to promote your lenses and even boost your lensrank without using the you-vote-for-me-and-I'll-vote-for-you approach, which does not do much to improve your ratings in the long run.


• OnlyWire and SocialMarker:
  I lump these in together because they are pretty much offering the same service: an all-in-one social bookmarking tool to help you add a link to a ton of bookmarking sites at once. It takes a lot of online legwork out of the promotion process and makes adding a link to several bookmarking sites much easier! Out of the two, Social Marker seems to have more sites available, but Only Wire takes less time. I suggest checking them both out and deciding for yourself which you like. But remember to add more links than just the ones you are promoting- you don't want to be viewed as a spammer by some of these sites!

This is it for now. Take some time this week to muddle through these sites and find the ones that will be helpful to you and bookmark them. As time goes on and I have more experience with each of these tools, I may on occasion dedicate entire posts to tricks and cool stuff I have learned about them since writing this post. Until then, however, if you have any questions about these sites I haven't covered, drop me a line and let me know what's on your mind. If I don't know, I will do my best to point you to someone who will know. Thanks again for reading and I hope all of you will benefit greatly from these outstanding resources!