Easy Blogging with Results

Many lens masters swear by blogging - it’s one of the easiest ways to promote your work on Squidoo, and can even help improve your search engine ranks. It can be a little time consuming though, and you don’t always get the readership that you would hope for.

One of the easiest ways to get started with blogging is to use forums and other social sites which offer blog space as part of your membership. You don’t get the benefit of ad space or other sidebar content, but your posts are more likely to be viewed by others, especially if the forum you use has a lot of active members.

MySpace is a good example of one of these mini-blogs, but your posts will only be seen by your MySpace friends - or people who find it in keyword searches if you’re lucky. If you really want to get your thoughts (and lenses) seen, you’ve got to try Ning.

Ning networks are a lens master’s dream. Every administrator runs their forum a bit differently, but some of the cool features include an easy to use blog, a photo gallery, and a main page where you can display links to websites, photo slideshows and post updates about your activities. When you add a blog post, it will usually be displayed on the front page of the network, where members and visitors can see your update. Because you can add tags to your posts and other content, it can easily be found through searches of the forum, too.

I’m a member of several exceptional Ning forums, all with different topics, and a good portion of my lens visits each month come from curious members who view my pages and blog posts. Most, if not all, of the members are fun to interact with, and genuinely want to exchange ideas and insights about the forum topics.

Like any online activity - including Squidoo - you get back what you put into it. If you want people to get to know you, and be interested in what you have to say, then you’ve got to be an active member and pay it forward. There are a lot of easy ways to get involved in a Ning network, such as participating in forum discussions, rating and commenting on members’ photos and blogs, and joining groups that interest you.

You can search for networks from the Ning website - there are thousands to choose from, all on different topics. There’s even a few about Squidoo. The key is to find an active forum that focuses on your specific interests. If many of your lenses are about recycling and green living, you would probably benefit from joining and eco-friendly network and chatting with the members about cool ways to save energy. There’s no limit to the number of networks that you can join, and you use the same login for each one. Once you’ve joined your first network, you never have to upload another avatar again.

If you’ve ever had trouble finding a place to discuss your interests online, chances are there’s a Ning out there that will fit you, and your lenses.

Squid Stockings

I have started yet another group, and this one is the most exclusive yet. Anyone is welcome to join, of course, but the focus is on About Me lenses for the holidays.

I don’t remember how or when the idea came to me, but I decided that my contribution to the Month of Hope challenge would be to create a list of all the things I would love to receive for Christmas this year. Perhaps that sounds a little greedy, but I always say that if no one liked getting gifts, then there wouldn’t be so much fuss about giving. So let’s all just admit that we like getting presents just as much as we like to give them. And one of the best things about giving is knowing that the person is getting exactly what they wanted.

In any case, I wanted my lens to be autobiographical. Many lens masters indicate that they love to read about their fellow Squids. It’s true that bio lenses are fun to read, and anyone with a lensography knows that the more of You you put into it, the better. So I picked 10 of the things I’m wishing for most this year, and described what it is that I love about them.

It occurred to me that anyone and everyone could do a Christmas wish list lens, and so I created the My Christmas Wish List group. I’ve had no new bites so far, except for an hilarious lens by kab, which I stumbled across shortly after publishing the group. It’s actually a list of things that no-one - especially kab - would want for Christmas. Actually, I would like a couple of things on the list, but I’m not as normal as the average bear, so to speak.

Although the idea behind My Christmas Wish List is to make a lens devoted to charity, I thought it would be a fun way for lens masters to let their friends and family know what they’d like to find under the tree. I’ve even thought of posting my own list on Facebook. Either way, I think that Santa will appreciate getting a letter that has so many visual aids.

It's Good To Be Bad

So, ironically, The Worst Lens Ever Made is actually one of my best lenses. For the last few days it has been sitting at #5 on my dashboard, just hovering under my holiday lenses. It's been ascending in the overall rankings, and even broke the top 100 Squidoo Tips lenses. Who knew?

I found it interesting how difficult it actually was to create a slapped together lens. I began simply enough, by selecting one of every keyword driven module I could find. But once I had thrown those keywords in, there was so much more to do.

I wanted to pinpoint not only the faults of using these modules carelessly, but also other issues that many of us have with rushed lenses, such as poor language, lack of module titles, and a zero layout planning. When writing each module description, I tried to get inside the head of your average spammer-type, and figure out what they hope to accomplish when they add each module. I wonder if I was close? Sadly, we may never know.

Some things proved more diffcult than others. The New Delicious Bookmarks kept coming up blank. Apparently not a lot of people are using the tag 'Squid". So I logged in to Delicious, Googled "squid", and saved a few bookmarks of my own. For the Twitter module, I decided that it would be better to use "Squidoo" as the keyword, so that all of the Tweets showing would point back to lensmasters.

Even though the entire purpose of the lens is to parody pages that have no effort, it still needs touching up now and then. But I guess that's what separates the good lensmasters from the not-so-good ones. We just can't stop improving.

Take that Spammers!

I've had it up to here with poorly made lenses! And here's why...

Whenever one of my new lenses sheds it's Work in Progress status, the first thing I do is start searching related keywords and topics so that I can create a nice, juicy lensroll. I love the lensroll tool a lot. Most of the lensmasters that I recognize and interact with regularily I've met by finding their lenses on one of my keyword hunts. I think one of the things that makes a lens great is how many other lenses are in that little sidebar, and how many of them would be of direct interest to anyone who is reading that lens.

For instance, when I made my Top Ten Movie Vampires lens, I went looking for other content related to the films and characters that I had highlighted. I was really pleased to find a bunch of great lenses about "The Lost Boys" that were fun and interesting to read.

Sadly, I would say that at least 65% of the lenses that I look at for possible 'rolling are not even worth the bandwidth they're written with. The introduction draws me in, hoping that I'll find some thoughtful content that teaches me something new about the topic. But once I scroll down, all I find is a variety of non-written modules showing different things related to the topic. It's as if people start up the workshop and just add one of every keyword driven module possible - give or take an Amazon or two.

For example, when I made a lens about Christmas movies, I wanted to find a lens that was just about "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". I looked at about 10 lenses, and most of them were just a bunch of Amazon and eBay modules of Grinch movies, books and toys. Eventually I got so fed up that I didn't even want to search for any of the other movies I had written about on my lens.

It reminded me of The Best Squidoo Lens NOT To Do. This parody is about lenses that are just landing pages for webstores, a place where tasteless people try to get you to buy their stuff. While these pages are annoying, at least they're trying to hock their own products, and not cash in on hapless Google searchers. I've seen so many of these keyword sales lenses, I've started making a note of checking out the makers' bios - they're so identical that I'd swear it's one person making them!

I decided it was time to shine a spotlight on the stupidity of these Giant Squid wannabes. They churn out worthless lenses, hoping to get some recognition and cash, meanwhile wasting the time and patience of those lensmasters who actually take their Squid responsibilities seriously.

So I made this: The Worst Lens Ever Made

Enjoy!

Amazon Facelift

While browsing through lenses yesterday, I was thrilled to see that the regular Amazon module has been touched up. Now the pictures of products actually lines up with the text, instead of being slightly askew. Finally! This small detail was one of the reasons that I always used the thumbnail view in Amazon modules. I found that the abundance of empty space made not having prices and other details available worthwhile. As I touch up lenses, I've been switching all of my Amazon modules, and I couldn't be happier with how it's improved the over all look of my lenses.

Now that it's November, there are so many little bits of catching up to do. I've been examining the Christmas lenses that I've already made, looking for ways to improve them, as well as turning my Hallowe'en lenses into regular year-round lenses as well as I can without deleting too much. Just a few tweaks here and there, and they still have some non-seasonal appeal.

This month the charity drive theme is "Family Stories". I'm glad that I was able to contribute a ready-made lens this time around. I just couldn't come up with a computer themed lens in time for last month's contest. I chose Oxfam, and added my lens to a quickly growing list of great family lenses.

Well, only 50 days left until Christmas. It's time to get to work!