Thursday, June 25, 2009

Squidoo Policy changes: check your lenses NOW!

Squidoo has made some major Policy Changes!!

You have until mid-July to get your lenses in
order or they may be locked or deleted.

Key areas of change:


#1 No Spam
#2 No X-Rated or Porn
#3 No junk topics
#4 A new limit on "overly promotional lenses"
#5 Plagiarism takedown

You may think you know what these mean, but check
this out closely. "Junk Topics" may include any lens on
"weight loss" for example.

Let's help Squidoo achieve these goals:

"We're going to double down our efforts to help you
make good stuff, via education tools, newbie programs,
an ever-growing Giant Squids program, and constantly
developing valuable new publishing features.

At the same time, we're making the not so good stuff
a little harder to create. And the bad stuff, the really
useless, really wasteful pages, and especially harmful
pages, those don't stand a chance here."

ACT NOW, read the guidelines, check your lenses
and take action where appropriate. If you need to
export your lens content to another site, here's
how:
Giant Squid, PotPieGirl, has produced a number of great
posts to help clarify the policy and its implications - take
her advice:

Explanation of Squidoo Policy Changes

Should Affiliate Marketers Leave Squidoo?
(...the answer is NO!)

These are significant policy changes - for you own
welfare and for the good of the Squidoo community,
please check out your lenses.

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Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid. He provides free resources
for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority
site:
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

To learn more about Squidoo Affiliate Marketing
check out:
http://www.squidooaffiliatemarketing.com

Subscribe to Ron's free Squidoo Marketing e-course:
http://www.smsecourse.squidoomarketingstrategies.com/

Ron is the author of the e-Book:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies

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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

RedGage: pays you for your content!

One way to get good traffic to your Squidoo lenses
is to create backlinks on social bookmarking and
social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook,
MySpace, and HubPages.

I was recently introduced to a new, unique site,
RedGage, by PotPieGirl, the creator of the
Squidoo weekly marketing plan.

RedGage claims to be "the first-of-its-kind web site
that pays people for their online content and monetizes
their social activity".

The basic principle is that you get paid per 1,000 views
of the content that you submit (there are also bonus
payments).

Content can be pictures, videos, blog posts, documents
and links to websites, blogs or Squidoo lenses.

An interesting concept - leverage and monetize
further the content you already have on the web!!

RedGage is working towards automatic import of material
from your other social networking sites.

The content uploads are attractively presented so
they provide a constant temptation to linger and look
further.

However, I predict that RedGage will grow rapidly. It
combines social bookmarking, social networking and
revenue sharing - elements it has in common with
Squidoo.

I have already linked up with lots of Giant Squids
on the site and more are joining every day. They will
also be promoting RedGage to their lists.

You can join up here (please record ronpass as the
referrer when you complete the sign-up form):
http://www.redgage.com/

Here's some RedGage helpful hints when you join up:

1. work on getting your profile set up first
(with links to your Squidoo lenses, blogs, etc
and include your interests - this encourages more
friends/readers).
2. progressively invite others on the site to be
friends
3. upload blog posts, pictures, videos, links to your
Squidoo lenses, etc (and use the tags provided so people
can find your content)
4. promote RedGage to others
5. comment on, and rate, other people's content.

RGHelp is a RedGage member who provides tutorials on all
aspects of RedGage. You can check out the resources here:
http://www.redgage.com/RGHelp

Work at this progressively and you will gradually build
up heaps of backlinks, generate income, expand your
subscribers and create a reverse traffic flow to your
Squidoo lenses.

P.S. The site may be slow as the owners adjust capacity
to meet the unexpected splurge in demand. A lot of people
want to earn money for their content!

**********************************************
Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid. He provides free resources
for Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority
site:
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

To learn more about Squidoo Affiliate Marketing
check out:
http://www.squidooaffiliatemarketing.com

Subscribe to Ron's free Squidoo Marketing e-course:
http://www.smsecourse.squidoomarketingstrategies.com/

Ron is the author of the e-Book:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies

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Monday, June 08, 2009

Twitter Grader: measuring your power, reach and authority

Twitter Grader is an interesting free tool
that gives your Twitter activity a grading based
on criteria such as number of followers and tweets.

Twiter Grader explains their purpose below:
"What Twitter Grader is trying to measure is the
power, reach and authority of a twitter account.
In other words, when you tweet, what kind of
an impact does it have?"

The exact details of how the algorith is calculated is
secret but Twitter Grader includes the following
elements in their calculation:

1. number of followers
2. power of followers
3. number of updates
4. update recency
5. follower/following ratio
6. engagement

Each of these elements is fully explained here:
How Does Twitter Grader Calculate Twitter Rankings?

Twitter Grader then provides an overall score out of
100 (Grade) and an absolute ranking.

The Elite List is an ordered list of the top users (based
on ranking) and this changes daily.

You can get access to the elite list by location or by a specific
keyword and, if you are logged in with your Twitter username,
you can follow listed members by clicking the link beside
their name.

Here's my score and ranking:
  • Score - 99.3/100
  • Rank
    18,426 out of 2,314,488
  • Followers
    2,641
  • Following
    2,873
  • Updates
    1,197
  • Overall rank: Elite
You can follow me on Twitter by clicking the link below:
http://www.twitter.com/ronpass

*************************************************

Ron Passfield, PhD, is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid. He provides free resources for
Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority
site:
Subscribe to Ron's free Squidoo Marketing e-course:

Ron is the author of the e-Book:

************************************************

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Twitter Traffic Machine Review (after 6 weeks)

I started with the Twitter Traffic Machine on 26 April
2009 - about 6 weeks ago.

At the time I was following about 29 people and had
around 250 followers. I had made a few hundred
tweets/posts.

Now (6 June 2009), my Twitter stats show:

Following: 2846
Followers: 2596
Updates: 1,170

I was reticent at first to purchase the Twitter Traffic
Machine
for three reasons:

1. I wanted to maintain control over the number of people
I follow.

2. I didn't want to be distracted from what else I was doing
with article marketing, Squidoo and blogging.

3. I did not want to spend a lot of time installing a new system.

My objections re the first point have vanished. I originally
just wanted to follow people I knew who would add value to
what I am doing. However, I soon learned the richness
of having a wider group to follow. I have learned so much
and connected with so many more amazing people.

I also learned that far from distracting me, the Twitter
Traffic Machine
has enabled me to leverage my other
activities and expose my blogging, article writing and
Squidoo lens creation to 10 times the number I could
before.

The set-up of the Twitter Traffic Machine involves a
number of simple steps, mainly registering with various
tools and using the checklist provided to integrate them.
However, it's a set-and-forget system where you
continuously reap the benefits. Every day you receive
multiple new followers.

The system has an inbuilt viral affiliate program
which so far has enabled me to earn three times what I paid
for the Twitter Traffic Machine.

From my experience, one of the secrets of success in using
the system is to be focused about what keywords you want
to keep abreast of. I have focused on Squidoo and
affiliate marketing.

You can check out the Twitter Traffic Machine here:
http://bit.ly/155fpE

BTW my stats at 17 June 2009 are:
Following: 3502
Followers: 3190
Updates: 1,380

You can FOLLOW ME on Twitter here:
http://www.twitter.com/ronpass

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Related Resources

Twitter hints: promote your articles on Twitter

Squidoo lens: How to use Twitter


*************************************************

Ron Passfield, PhD, is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid. He provides free resources for
Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority
site:
Subscribe to Ron's free Squidoo Marketing e-course:

Ron is the author of the e-Book:

************************************************

Monday, June 01, 2009

Squidoo lenses: Use Google's Wonder Wheel














Image as illustrated on http:/googlewonderwheel.com

Google has increasingly committed to providing
diversification in both search results and search tools.

The Wonder Wheel is a great example of this.

In May this year Google released the Wonder Wheel
which shows search terms that are related to your
primary search and does so in the form of a wheel.

This visual image highlights the way Google views the
relationship between keywords.

You can deepen your keyword research by clicking
on any of the keywords in the wheel and this takes you
to another wheel of related terms.

You can then use the keyword research to build
Squidoo lenses (or a network of them), increase the
coverage of your tags, write articles around related
keywords or even build HubPages linked back to your
Squidoo lens.

How do you access the Google Wonder Wheel?

Here's the drum:

1. Go to Google.com and search for your keyword

2. Click on "show options" at the very top of the search results

3. From the menu displayed on the lefthand side locate "Wonder Wheel"

4. Click the Wonder Wheel menu item

5. Your first-level wheel will be displayed

6. Now you can click on any hyperlinked keyword on the wheel to
go to another level of research.

For further information, check out:
Google Wonder Wheel

Don't forget to do something with the results!

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Related Posts

Video: Google Insights for Search

Classified Ad Syndication and Google Insights for Search
Squidoo Lenses: Local marketing

*************************************************

Ron Passfield, PhD, is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid. He provides free resources for
Squidoo affiliate marketing on his Squidoo authority
site:
Subscribe to Ron's free Squidoo Marketing e-course:

Ron is the author of the e-Book:

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