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.

Squidoo Christmas Cash Video Series
Step by step video tutorials walking you through the entire process of creating a Squidoo Christmas Cash lens
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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 it would be likely that lenses with such duplicate content would be locked within the next few days.  I have gone through my best lenses that are ranking well, and making me money and taken out the review module. I suggest you do the same.

I’m pretty sure this change (or crackdown as it were) is due at least in part to Google’s changes over the last couple weeks.

As I was looking into this a little bit I came across a new blog post on the Official Squidoo blog that would be worth your time to read. The Scroll of Originality.

I will be working on revamping the Squidoo Christmas Cash Blueprint, but wanted to give you the heads up before you found any of your lenses locked.

This is just my interpretation of the situation, I could be right on, or totally off, but I did want to let you know. I will continue to bring you updates as I hear them, but for now, make sure you continue to write original content on your lenses, and take out any of the reviews from Amazon that may be considered duplicate content.

I followed a few more links to the new Original vs. Duplicate Content lens and found this:

Q: Can I post other people’s Amazon reviews on my lens?

A: Let’s look at an example. Here is the list of Amazon reviewer comments about the Marx Brothers DVD collection. No, certainly you cannot copy and paste full reviews that other people have written and post them on your lens as your own content. But yes, if there is a review you particularly agree with, I don’t see why you couldn’t quote a sentence from it, attribute it to the Amazon reviewer, and link to his or her post. Just do this very sparingly.

So there you have it… that’s a no no.  Everything changes, and as times and policies change so must we. I’ll see what I can figure out as a different strategy to create social proof, and maybe rethink the entire process of the Christmas Cash lenses… until then, if you have questions please feel free to ask. I have no idea if I’ll be able to answer them or not, but I’ll be glad to try.

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 gets a lot of comments, and a lot of thumbs, a lot of tweets ~ all of which have helped it rank not only for the original keyword, but for many many others as well.

Seeing how well this lens has  done  in the search engines, made me think about all the people who were slipping through my fingers.   I was not doing anything to connect  with all the people going through this lens. I was totally dropping the ball. They stopped by once, and then I could never contact them again.

As you probably know, I’ve done a lot of posts on my other blog about backlinking, and I knew I was going to create my own backlinking product so I decided to start a new list… a backlinking list and start collecting the names and email addresses of people who were interested in learning more about backlinking.

Now this is easier said than done, since Squidoo has taken out the module that allowed you to put an opt in box right in your lens. But that’s ok. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, right?!

How to add an opt in box to a Squidoo lens

I created an opt in box in my get response account. I then did a “preview” of the opt in box. Using Jing, I took a screen shot of the opt in box.

Then I created a squeeze page that had an actual opt in box on it ~ where people could sign up and they could see the benefits of signing up on the list. (I am giving away some backlinking tutorials ~ which are some of my best backlinking posts I’ve written).

Once I had the squeeze page done, I added the opt in image to a text module at squidoo ~ but then I didn’t like how it looked (couldn’t center it), so I tried a “big black box” module and that looked much better. In the big black box module I created a clickable image using the image of my opt in box, that when someone  clicked in the space to put their name in they were taken to the actual squeeze page to sign up. (Make sure you open it in a new window so they can get back to your lens again.)

How’s it working?

Generally I get about 5 new people a day. I’ve grown that list (without doing any additional work) to over 850 people. It’s working pretty well.

Why bother?

Being able to contact people once they’ve left your site is huge. Now I can send these people emails ~ which generally lead them back to my blog (for the tutorials they asked for), and they get to know me better. I get to help them out, they get to learn about products that might help them out in their backlinking journey, AND when I put out my new backlinking product I had over 850 targeted people to invite to check it out.

Who should try this?

I’m not going to advise you to start sticking opt in images on every one of your lenses. In fact, you probably won’t use this technique on many at all… I have, I think this one and maybe one other out of all my lenses. But, when you have a lens that’s stable at number one for a rather general topic, and it’s getting quite a bit of traffic, and it has multiple products that could be recommended, it might be worth it.

Having a way to connect with your lens readers even after they leave your lens can be priceless.

What do you think? Do you have a lens that might be worth adding an opt in box to?

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 I’ve seen so far.

No. I don’t think they will be considered junk sites at all. Provided you are using the blueprint correctly. If you are creating unique content for your intro module, your benefits module (and not just copy/pasting the product description), you’re adding your own two cents at the top of your other modules. If you’re adding in the interactive modules like the poll and guestbook. Even with Amazon reviews you’ll be fine.

The key here is you are not just copying and pasting content that is found elsewhere. You have plenty of unique content of your own creation. You are also helping people make buying decisions.

I think the real concern will come in, not with Squidoo lenses, but for people (like me) who are using wp robot to pull in content for their Christmas blog. Although, at this point my Christmas blog is still sitting on page 1 for its main keyword. I think my wp robot sites will probably be dropped at some point soon, unless I take some time and go in and do a real review of the products… like recommended in the Amazonian Profit Plan. Pulling products in with software probably isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Again though… think about the purpose of your site. My Christmas blog (though it does get traffic around the holidays) serves the purpose to give me a place to link to my lenses. It’s main purpose is NOT to rank on the first page of Google.  So unless it ends up getting completely deindexed it’s not going to be a problem, Google will still be able to find the links from my site.

I also think the other sites that will be nailed in this new change are RSS scraper sites. You know the ones. You’ve spent all this time writing this awesome unique content only to get a pingback saying you’ve got a link from another site. You hop over to check it out and realize it’s your exact content, copied right out of your RSS feed. I do not think those type of sites will make it through this change.

Your Christmas Cash lenses? I think they’ll be fine.

I checked my Ironman lens this morning, as well as other lenses I have that are ranking well and they are all right where they were a few days ago. I haven’t seen any movement.

I suggest you keep doing what you’re doing. Keep creating unique content for your lenses. Keep making them with your user in mind… thinking about how you can help your reader make the best buying decision, and give them the information to do that. You’ll be fine.

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 create your lens, and then write another article and submit it to Ezinearticles.com, and as many other article directories as you could find. You could use software like Unique Article Wizard to automate this process.

This is one backlinking strategy, and it works… if you do it.

2. Creating content on web 2.0 sites.

You could create your lens, and then go to other free sites and create content there as well… including a link back to your lens of course. There are hundreds of sites you can add your own free content to, you just have to find them and use them.

This is a very valid backlinking strategy, and will work if you work it.

3. Bookmarking

While this is not as powerful as it used to be, you can take your lens and submit them to bookmarking sites. You will get a link back to your lens from each site you submit it to. You can find a long list of sites at socialmarker.com. You could automate this process by using a service like Traffic Bug.

Bookmarking is definitely not the BEST backlinking strategy all by itself, but it definitely adds momentum when used in conjunction with article marketing, or web 2.0 content creation.

4. RSS submission.

You can take your lensmaster feed and submit it to all the RSS directories you can find. You will only have to do this once for each squidoo account, because as you create new lenses the feed will update itself automatically at each directory ~ which is super fun. You will get a new link each time you create a new lens, or update an existing lens in each of the RSS directories.

This is yet another valid strategy to create links to your lenses. It is not as powerful as articles, or web 2.0 content, but it is especially powerful when you use it in conjunction with those strategies.

5. Linkwheel

The best possible backlinking strategy is to use all 4 of the above methods strategically with one another. This is called a link wheel. It can be a little confusing, because it has a lot of steps, and you have to be sure you know where your links are pointing and from where, but when you get the hang of it, it is a very powerful system to create links to your lenses and get them ranking on the first page of Google.

You may or may not know I’ve created a program called Backlinking 101. It will walk you through each and every step of creating a linkwheel, and thus help you create hundreds (if not thousands) of quality links to your lenses. I’m going ot be launching the program on March 1st.

There will be a bonus available for the first 25 buyers… it could be a seriously life changing bonus if you take advantage of it… but the full details I’m saving until Tuesday.

I’m going to send out an early bird email to my Backlinking Tutorials list when the product goes live. So if you want a chance at the first 25 spots and you’re not on the list, you might want to get on it. The list consists of backlinking tutorials once a week… I don’t send out post notifications or anything else to that list, just the tutorials ~ well and the advanced notice that Backlinking 101 is live.

Not having a clear backlinking strategy in place is one of the things that keeps most people I see from succeeding. It’s such an important element of the puzzle, but it’s confusing and boring and tedious ~ and people just don’t do it.

Let me walk you through it…3 assignments a week. One step at a time. See you Tuesday.