It’s almost the end of July, which means the holiday season is fast approaching. For me that means it’s time to get myself in gear and start building lenses if I want to cash in on the holiday shopping frenzy.
If you’ve downloaded the Christmas Cash Blueprint you’ve got a perfect outline to help you create profitable lenses. If you haven’t downloaded it ~ why not?! Grab the blueprint now! If it seems overwhelming here’s a couple tools that may help.
1. Squidoo Christmas Cash Checklist. This is a checklist that will help you keep track of each step you’ve completed for your lens. I particularly like it because instead of a bunch of pages in a book, the whole process is right there on one or two pages ~ where I can check things off as I go. (I LOVE to check things off as I go!)
2. If you learn better visually you might want to check out the Squidoo Christmas Cash Video Series. It will walk you through every step of the process on video. The videos are short, so you can take action on that step right after watching it. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback that it’s really cleared up some confusion for people being able to see the process in action. (I run through creating an entire lens from start to finish in the videos)
Ok ~ those things will help you if you need them, but I thought I’d walk you through what my week looks like when I’m doing lenses regularly.
My Lens Building Week
My week kind of starts over the weekend.
Fri – Sun: Keyword research
At some point over the weekend I do some research and figure out what product and keyword I’m going use for my lens that week.
Monday: Build the lens ~ As outlined in the Blueprint
Tuesday: Build links at free ad blogs (RSS feeds too if it’s your first go around)
Wednesday: Add links to blogger blogs and do a few commentluv comments for links
Thursday: Add blog posts to my own blogs (hosted myself) do a few commentluv comments for links
That’s usually enough to get my lens indexed and ranking. I know that my lenses will bounce around some so I just go on to the next lens next week.
In a week or two I’ll check back in on it and if it’s not ranking I’ll do a few more commentluv links ~ (this is a fun activity for me so it’s no big deal for me to do over the weekend) I suggest you find something that builds links that you find fun as well ~ that way when you need additional links you can do them and it’s not like work at all!
So there you have it ~ what I do during a lens building week. You’ll see I don’t do EZA articles ~ yeah, probably should, but just can’t force myself to do them ~ so I don’t. I don’t do a big mass article send out ~ I could, and probably should ~ but this process generally works for the level of competition I choose for my keywords.
**There’s no reason to make it more complicated or difficult than it needs to be**
Keep it simple, do one thing at a time, and over time you’ll get faster at it, and it will seem easier, and then if you want you can do 2 or 3 lenses in a week ~ following the same schedule or one that works for you.
It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is ~ you can still get started today! If you want or need some support, help or even to talk to someone who knows what Squidoo is there are a lot of Squidoo people taking action in the KISS Club!
Squidoo Christmas Cash Video Series
Step by step video tutorials walking you through the entire process of creating a Squidoo Christmas Cash lens
Get your Squidoo Video Tutorials NOW!
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Thanks for sharing with us this post. Succeeding in any business is a matter of taking action. Ideas with actions cannot deliver results. Its all about actions as you have put it on this post and results maybe immediate or later, but action is the first step.
Ndasika´s last blog ..LEARNING BUSINESS AND MARKETING MADE EASY
Hi Jackie
Hope you can help. I do not seem to be able to download seo for Firefox. The message in the left hand corner says error on page. What do I do now?
Hi Gillian,
You are using the firefox browser when you try to download it right? If it doesn’t work you can try to download seoquake instead ~ basically does the same thing.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m always looking for valuable resources to send to clients and my coworkers, and this post is absolutely worth sharing!
One of the things I like the most about the way you teach is the “chalk it up to experience and keep moving forward.” My biggest problem has always been the, “Oh, no, I made a mistake.” (the sky is falling, the sun will fail to set, the earth will no longer rotate).
Somehow, you give me confidence that, mistakes and all, it will all work out.
Thanks so much for being just the way you are.
awww, Thanks. I needed that today. And it’s true ~ as long as you keep taking action you will move forward ~ in spite of your mistakes.
You’ll probably find the mistakes are your best lessons as well if you allow yourself to learn from them.
Jackie – excellent weekly schedule! That will make things ultra-easy for me to keep on track.
Julie@Everyday Life and Happiness´s last blog ..FREE Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair
Jackie, Thanks for sharing your schedule with everyone, I downloaded your check list as I feel it will be very useful.
I’ve tried internet marketing before without much success as I think I was making it too complicated, I am going to implement your Christmas Cash Blueprint this year as I feel it will work.
Thanks again, Mike
Mike@Bush Furniture Sonoma TV Stand´s last blog ..Choose From 3 Different Sizes Of Beautiful Bush Furniture Sonoma TV Stands And Save Up To 41
Congrats on taking action Mike! Keep it simple, and if you run into problems just ask!
I have learned a lot about squidoo lenses by reading your blog posts, thanks
BobbyD@GoogleShockWave´s last blog ..Google Shock Wave updated Wed Jul 7 2010 1-48 pm CDT
Thanks for reminding us of all the steps Jackie. Sometimes I forget the importance of building backlinks
Kikij´s last blog ..Top Wedding Dress Trends 2010 updated Tue Jul 20 2010 12-00 pm CDT
Jackie,
I agree that a checklist of daily and weekly activities is a great help to keep moving. I find for me it is easier to do 2-3 lenses at a time and then do the backlinks for those 2-3 lenses at the same time and then go on to the next couple of lenses the next week. The point is – we all need to do whatever we need to do that works for us. I am at 27 lenses and planning on making another 3 lenses today and do the backlinks over the next couple of days. I was hoping to get to 50 lenses by end of July… but life happened…. so now I am shooting for 40. Traffic on my lenses is really picking up and quite a few are ranking on page 1 or 2 of Google. Thanks for all of your help Jackie!!
Jane ~ MoneyMom
Jane´s last blog ..Nostalgic Candy Baskets updated Thu Jul 15 2010 4-19 pm CDT
Awesome! Good stuff here. I remember last year. This is the very first program that made me money and over 200 bucks with just three review lenses.
Roth @ Yamaha Gigmaker Standard Acoustic Guitar Package Review´s last blog ..Yamaha Gigmaker Standard Acoustic Guitar Package Review updated Fri Jul 16 2010 10-55 pm CDT
I really look forward to your emails. My summer is now very busy with me learning about squidoo. I had played around with it in the past and received a few checks for my minimal efforts. Well, I just went in to my payment settings and realized I was giving half my $ to charity! Dang, I’m nice and all, but I need the money myself!
I made a stupid mistake in my latest lens (the one noted here), the name of the product is spelled wrong in my permanent url, and I can’t change it. Anyhoo, I am not going to obsess over it, I will just learn from my mistakes.
Thanks for this checklist, it will help a lot!
lisa @ Skechers Men’s Shape Ups´s last blog ..Skechers Mens Shape Ups updated Tue Jul 20 2010 10-09 am CDT
Those kind of mistakes happen ~ AND if you build links using the correct spelling it should work out ok ~ and who knows you might start getting traffic for the mispelling.
Chalk it up and keep moving forward.
Sometimes, among all the other things I have to do, I forget how simple it really is to take action on CCB. Thanks for the reminder.
Kelly @ Costume for Babies´s last blog ..Shrek Costume for Babies