Sunday, July 18, 2010

How to Add Audio to Your Squidoo Lens

 
Squidoo has implemented a new option that enables you to include a
Yahoo audio player on your Squidoo lenses.

You can see it in operation in the Introduction module to my latest
Squidoo lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/gull

You'll see a hyperlink titled, "CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO - Ron Talks
About Richard Teare - Founder of GULL".

Beside the link is an arrow which indicates an audio player.

The process to activate the audio player for your lens is simple:

In edit mode, click on SETTINGS (right-hand column), then click on
"Play mp3 files with Yahoo Media Player" (just below "maxed").
Then click "APPLY" and PUBLISH.

Then whenever, you enter an mp3 link, Squidoo automatically
activates the player link by putting a small arrow to the left of your
hyperlinked text (as on my Gull lens).

This is not visible until you re-publish the lens after you have
added the mp3 link (and it may take a few minutes after
that to appear).

You can create your own mp3 or add one that you have rights to.
In the SquidooRoo training program, I will be showing you how
to create your own podcasts (mp3s) from free resources...
and I'll even give you royalty-free music as well.

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

Please note: the lens describes how the Global University for
Lifelong Learning (GULL) is bringing education and hope to the
youth and children in the tent camps of Haiti.

Please show the lens some TLC by commenting or Tweeting or
"Liking" or lensrolling or whatever will assist its promotion:
http://www.squidoo.com/gull

*********************************************
Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid100. He provides free resources
for Squidoo 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

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




SquidooRoo is coming - 6 month social media marketing course

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

GULL - Global University for Lifelong Learning (GULL)

The GULL Vision - Building Community Through Developing Leaders

GULL is a nonprofit public benefit corporation incorporated in California, USA. GULL is recognized by the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and endorsed by other Governments, Leaders & Institutions. GULL's aim is to equip everyone, particularly the disadvantaged and dislocated, to acquire practical knowledge and skills through lifelong learning. This approach to personal and professional development is designed to give access to practical education to people who would not normally be able to access formal education.

GULL - Enabling YOU to Make a Difference in OUR World

GULL, the Global University of Lifelong Learning, provides professional qualifications on a global basis to people who are unable to access education because they lack the funds or facilities. GULL, for example, is working in Haiti with World Vision to develop the young people as volunteer community workers who, in turn, are educating the young children in the tent camps. World Vision staff are acting as mentors for the volunteers. Both the community volunteers and the mentors can qualify for an action learning based GULL professional award.

Posted via email from Ronpass posterous

Monday, July 05, 2010

SEO for Squidoo Lenses






I was recently asked about the need to add
meta tags to Squidoo lenses for SEO purposes.

For one thing, Squidoo would not allow the
relevant coding. For html code that is allowable,
visit:
http://www.squidoo.com/basichtml

However, the main issue is that it is totally
unnecessary as the meta tags are auto-generated
by Squidoo (thanks to Seth's genius).

Meta tags are already embedded in the lens templates.
This is why Squidoo stresses the importance of
lens title, description, primary tag and other tags
- these are actually meta tag fields!

By way of example, here's some of the code
automatically created for one of my lenses:
http://www.squidoo.com/improve-personal-productivity

HTML code generated by Squidoo (an extract):

meta name="description" content="Personal
productivity is the antidote to stop procrastination.
This lens offers a range of strategies to improve
personal productivity online. It includes stop
procrastination tips... (full lens introduction)

meta name = "keywords" content="personal
productivity, audioboo, beat procrastination,
building focus and productivity, chakra energy,
chakra for productivity...(all tags)

property="og:title" content="Improve
Personal Productivity - Stop procrastination,
focus on productivity" (lens title)

So you can see how critical it is to get your
title, description and keywords right.

Also you need to remember that Google indexes
the whole of a Squidoo lens, including module
titles, module sub-headings, videos and even
comments. For more on this deep indexing
aspect visit my previous post:

Deep Indexing of Squidoo Lenses

If you want to check out some of these ideas for
your own lenses, here's some instructions:

Meta Tag Coding in Google

1. Enter your Squidoo lens URL in your browser.
2. Click "View" and then "Page Source" (HTML will appear)
3. Search for "meta" ("edit" and "find").

Check Google Indexing of Your Lens

This is a bit more difficult. You have to be
able to find a Google search result for the
keyword for your lens.

Take for example, when I search on - improve
personal productivity - my lens comes up on
page 2 (11th result). Here's the entry (note
the importance of lens title - shown in the
Google listing):

Improve Personal Productivity - Stop procrastination,
focus on
... - 7:27am
1 Mar 2010 ... Personal productivity is the antidote
to stop procrastination. This lens offers a range of
strategies to improve personal productivity ...
www.squidoo.com/improve-personal-productivity
- Cached

Now notice "cached" at the end of the listing
and click on this. You will see that Google highlights
in color any occurrence of the keywords - improve,
personal and productivity. Here's an example from
my lens description:
improve personal productivity

Now you can see what Squidoo indexes in your lenses
and what you can do to improve your ranking for your
keywords!

Google picked up productivity in the comments from
the guestbook.  Implications:
1. encourage quality comments (and reply to them
using your keywords or variants of them)

2. help out your fellow lensmasters by providing
quality comments on their lenses (using their keywords
or semantically related words).

If you want some way to regularly update your lenses, try
replying to the comments on your lenses.

*********************************************
Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
Giant Squid100. He provides free resources
for Squidoo 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

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




SquidooRoo is coming - 6 month social media marketing course.