It All Starts with the Basics

I received an email from a subscriber today. He wanted to know if I had a “newer list”  for Squidoo because he felt this list was pointless to be on as  he was being sent to posts that were from 2009, and with all the changes at Squidoo and Google he couldn’t believe they would be at all relevant.

This was a little disturbing to me, because I strive to provide good information that works if you work it. I went back through my list emails and have to say I don’t really agree.

What I provide links to in the email series you get when you subscribe (and get the Squidoo Christmas Cash Blueprint) are basics. The basics don’t really change. It doesn’t matter how many things change at Squidoo, or how many times Google changes their algorythm… the basics will stay the same.

In fact, the basics for making Squidoo work, are pretty much the basics for any strategy you plan to use to make money online.

You need to figure out what people want (not necessarily what they need). You have to figure out how they are asking for what it is they want. You then have to give it to them.

What this means in internet marketing terms is this: You find a product, find a keyword people are using to find that product, then you create great content that leads people to the product, and then build links to the content to get it ranking on Google.

That is it.

So, is that what I did in 2009? YEP.

Is that what I do today? YEP.

The basics don’t change. The only thing that changes are some of the tactics and tools you can use to implement the basics.

So many people online are continually searching for the latest and greatest thing, the one thing that’s better than the last thing. The thing that is going to be IT for them.

Let me tell you right now… there is no such thing.

There are the basics. The basics done over and over and over again. Internet marketing… especially on a free platform is all about the basics. You can spiffy up the basics a bit, but when it comes down to it, there’s only 3 little things.

1. what people need

2. how they’re looking for it

3. them being able to find YOUR solution to what they need.

Don’t make it any more complicated than that… at least in the beginning. There will be gurus and others who will tell you you have to do this, and that and of course that other thing or you will fail. This is a lie. It is not true. The basics will get you started. They will create an income for you (if you do the work) and they will allow you a little breathing room to grow.

So, don’t knock the basics. They’re what your business is built on.

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The New Scroll of Originality

This morning I received an email from Giant Squid headquarters, it was not such a happy email to receive. The email stated that too many of my lenses were not original enough, or contained too much “duplicate content”, otherwise known as content that could not be found anywhere else online.

I’m thinking that what they are referring to is the amazon reviews on my Squidoo Christmas cash lenses. The email went on to say that [...] Continue Reading…

Building Your List With Squidoo

Quite a while ago (back in 2007)… when I was relatively new to Squidoo I put together a lens on backlinking. I talked about a bunch of different ways people can create backlinks to their lenses to help them rank in the search engines.

I did a little bit of checking on keywords at the time (but like I said, I was relatively new to the game). Well, this lens has done really well. It [...] Continue Reading…

Will Christmas Cash Squidoo Lenses Be Considered J...

You may or may not be aware that Google has recently made some changes to its algorithm. (that’s a link to the actual post by Matt Cutts on the Google blog about the changes) They are trying to get more and more junk sites out of the index.

It didn’t take long before I got my first concerned email, wondering if the Christmas Cash lenses would be considered junk sites.

Here’s what I think and what [...] Continue Reading…

5 Backlinking Strategies that Work

We all know, by now that there’s more to making money with lenses than just making a bunch of lenses. You have to have a linking plan as well. This can really trip people up because there are so many different ways you can create links they don’t know how to put together a plan, what goes where, or when.

I get that.

Let me run through a couple possibilities with you.

1. Article marketing.

You could [...] Continue Reading…

Are You Building Lenses or Building a Business?

I hear from a lot of people… many times I hear something like this:

I have built a bunch of lenses, but I’m not making any money.

My first question for them is this:

Are you just building lenses or are you doing the rest of the work?

The thing is, you can build lenses until you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t do the follow up work ~ which is really like 80% of the [...] Continue Reading…

Finding Keywords When Your Chosen Product Has No S...

Finding a product to promote, is key. However, finding a product that has keywords with search volume is even more important. If your keyword doesn’t have search volume, you get no traffic. Period. In the Christmas Cash Blueprint I suggest you go directly to Amazon to find a product.  The purpose of doing this is to find a place to start doing your keyword research. This will give you an idea, and from there [...] Continue Reading…

Changes to Squidoo Modules… what do you thin...

I noticed this week there have been some changes made to some of the Squidoo modules. Mainly to the modules we use as call to actions… you know those modules we use to tell people what to do next.

The two main changes have come in The Most Important Thing module and the Big Arrow module.

You may remember the old version had a large orange box around the module, which made it really stand out… [...] Continue Reading…