Google Blog Slap: Squidoo to the rescue

Google recently did a re-rank of web sites and particularly
blogs.

Many of the world's best blogs dropped in Google page ranking
(PR) e.g. from PR7 to PR5 or PR5 to PR3.

This action by Google has been the subject of heated debate
on blogs across the globe.

The interesting fact is that many of the blogs have had their
page rank restored. In some cases this was because they were
not in fact using paid links at this point in time.

The story so far

Here's a tracking of the story:

Darren Rowse, Problogger.com (PR7), wrote about it when
it first happened. He identified the fact that Google was
penalising "authority sites" for using paid (sponsored)
advertising links:

Problogger dropped to Page Rank 4
(Problogger drops from PR 6/7 to PR4)

Google Page Rank Pendulum Swings Again
(Problogger back to PR7)

A blogger reports that paid links are now worth more
(many bloggers have stopped using paid links
but there are still people willing to pay ...and pay
even more)

Andy Beard has shown the progression in ranking
after the third round. This great list gives you the
top blogs (so why not comment on them!). Check it out
here:
http://andybeard.eu/2007/10/pagerank-update-2.html

What has this got to do with Squidoo?

Well Squidoo seems to be going from strength
to strength while all these changes are going on.

Here's the Google ranking of three
of my lenses (at least at the time of writing):

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies - PR5

http://www.squidoo.com/digital-storytelling - PR4

http://www.squidoo.com/onlinelearningresources - PR4

Google PR5 is a ranking usually reserved for authority sites...
and often takes years of blogging to achieve. The Squidoo
Marketing Strategies lens was started in March this year!

So I suggest you get to it and build an authority Squidoo site
(with no paid links!!!) ...and then build multiple affiliate
marketing sites each dedicated to one product or service...and
cross-link the lot.

If you want to check out the Google page rank for your
Squidoo lens you can do so here:
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/future-pagerank/

****************************************************************
PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

I have just listened to Yaro Starak's Blog Profits Blueprint
on my iPod as I walked. Wow - this is great free stuff from
one of the Top ten bloggers in Australia (and a Brisbanite to
boot!). It really does give you the blueprint to make
money from a blog - step by step. Yaro should know - he
earns $5000 per month from blogging. This is a great
resource and you will not find a better resource on
blogging any where (even in the two $47 ebooks on the
topic that I have purchased).

Click here to download the Blog Profits Blueprint

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

Ron is the author of the ebook:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies


Technorati Tags: Squidoo affiliate marketing, Squidoo, Squidoo marketing strategies, Google page rank, Squidoo Marketing Strategies e-Book, affiliate marketing, Squidoo tips, lensrank, traffic

Squidoo Affiliate Marketing: Post, Publish, Ping

I recently received the following question from a subscriber:
"How do I get more consistent traffic without having to do
specific actions each and every day (pinging, bookmarking, etc)?"

The short answer is you need to do those daily tasks
- post, publish and ping.

Here's the long answer.

The amount of traffic you will get is a function of a number

of things:

• Level of interest in your keyword(s) and/or topic area
• Number of searches conducted for your keyword(s)
• The level of competition
• The value of your site to the reader
• The frequency with which you update

(Re competition: the keyword "internet marketing" brings

up 53 Million results on Google and is controlled by

long standing marketers, some of guru status).

The Law of Attraction works in this arena too.

Repeat visits will come if you offer free and substantial,

expertise relevant to the viewer's goals. They will not

return if your site does not offer value.

I have learnt this through my blog and my main lens.

I get enquiries everday from all over the world and offers
to promote other people's products.

People are starting to refer other people to my blog, my

lenses and my articles. Others are creating links on their

lenses and blogs to my lens/blog. Two top marketers

recently mentioned my blog/lens in their own newsletter/

blog. Still others are seeking me out on FaceBook.

So if you are offering something of value that is timely

and needed by a target market, they will eventually

come to you. But they have to know that you exist.

Both Google (and other search engines) and Squidoo

will naturally give priority to sites that are regularly

updated.

One of my Squidoo lenses had a bug in it

recently preventing me from editing it, and in four

days it dropped from 270 overall to 737!

However, it has now reached no 8 position on Google

(out of 400,000+ results) - by daily updating and

pinging (lens first published on 17/9/07).

The gurus tell us that the marketing power now lies

with the quality authority sites (Wikipedia is but one

major example). One of the top marketers refers to

these authority people as "Top Dogs" - in her words,

those who offer substantial, free expert advice on a

topic.

Jack Humphrey, who I referred to in a recent post
actually claims to have coined the term

"authority site" - he certainly pushes it and his site

is a great example of an authority site.

If you download his Authority Black Book, you gain

access to his special traffic blog and another service

he calls, Authority Site Center :
http://www.contentdesk.squidoomarketingstrategies.com/

Through the Authority Site Center he will create a
Wordpress blog for you and a header and host your site.
He uses special software to make your site a traffic generator.
Plus you get access to a mastermind group. All this for
around $97 a month.

I mention this mainly to make a point!

Despite doing all this (using software he developed at a

cost of $1Million), he insists that you post daily...and that

is how you become an authority and develop an

authority site. His software automates the pinging,

submission to social bookmarking sites, RSS feeds, etc.

As you know by now, if you want to post daily, you

have to learn a hell of a lot pretty fast.

So even the very top people with the most sophisticated

traffic generating software in the world insist on daily

updating.

The top bloggers post four or five times daily - that's how

they dominate the search engines and their niches.

You can also buy traffic but it won't be as targeted as

organic search engine or Squidoo traffic (unless you

use something like adwords - at considerable expense).

However, if you do not update daily you can

drop in ranking in both Google and Squidoo.

So the moral of the story is - Post, Publish, Ping...
on a daily basis.

If you find this a challenge, check out my Squidoo marketing
lens for ideas on what to add to your lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies/

****************************************************************
PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Submitting your latest blog post to the various Web 2.0
news sites is a powerful method to generate immediate
targeted traffic to your blog or lens. This generates
high-quality traffic and links and builds your authority
status getting you into search engines faster and ranking higher.

The downside - it takes a lot of time to cut and paste your post
title, keywords and description into each site. Here's a way to
save time and get instant traffic - autosubmit to Web 2.0
news sites:
http://www.web2submitter.squidoomarketingstrategies.com

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

Ron is the author of the ebook:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies


Technorati Tags: Squidoo affiliate marketing, Squidoo, Squidoo marketing strategies, web 2.0 traffic, Squidoo Marketing Strategies e-Book, affiliate marketing, Squidoo tips, lensrank, traffic

Squidoo Affiliate Marketing - Article Writing (2)

The Bum Marketing strategy suggests that you use
articles to target specific keywords that have
high monthly searches but low competition.

I have been using MicroNicheFinder daily to
identify such keywords for my articles, lens tags
and the URLs for my new lenses. This tool
is absolutely invaluable:
MicroNicheFinder for Article Writing and Lens Creation

I have previously reviewed MicroNicheFinder here.

Enough of this rave...but I so rarely come across a
tool that is so useful and opens up so many new avenues.

Through MicroNicheFinder I established that Squidoo
Affiliate Marketing was a keyword that had a good
number of searches but low competition, so I decided
to target it in my articles.

I already had multiple listings on the first page of Google
for the keywords squidoo marketing strategies
and squidoo marketing.

One of the secrets of article writing is to ensure
that your targeted keyword appears as the first term
in your article title (you also want it in your article
summary and spread throughout your article).

The title is critical - it's what Google looks at first!
The keyword does, however, need to be repeated as
indicated above to convince Google that the article is
really about the title topic.

It may take a bit of mental gymnastics to get your
keyword in the title but believe me it's worth it.

Here's proof - these two articles were written to target
the keyword Squidoo Affiliate Marketing
and submitted on 4 October to Ezinearticles.com:

Squidoo Affiliate Marketing - Use Squidoo to Leverage
Your Writing

Squidoo Affiliate Marketing - Get Multiple Listings
on the First Page of Google Results

Today (20 October) these articles hold nos. 3 & 4 positions
on Google search results for the term Squidoo Affiliate
Marketing.

In my next post on this topic I will talk about how
to use the resource box to reinforce your keyword rich
title.

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

Product of the Week - Authority Black Book

All I can say is WOW! This free, 64 page e-book
by Web 2.0 expert, Jack Humphrey, is something special.
It gives you the complete list of Web 2.0 resources you
need to generate a steady stream of qualified traffic.
Jack discusses blogging, RSS marketing, social bookmarking
sites, social media sites, video marketing and provides the
Big List of Web 2.0 Resources (with hotlinks). Well, Jack
should know - he gets 5,000 visitors per day to one of
his sites (and 850,000 page views in a month). Get your
copy of the Authority Black Book:

CLICK HERE

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

Ron is the author of the ebook:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies


Technorati Tags: Squidoo affiliate marketing, Squidoo, Squidoo marketing strategies, article writing, Squidoo Marketing Strategies e-Book, affiliate marketing, Squidoo tips, MicroNicheFinder, traffic

Squidoo Affiliate Marketing - article writing (1)

Article writing is one of the most effective strategies for
gaining traffic for your affiliate marketing Squidoo lens.

Articles bring targeted traffic to your site almost instantly
if you use the top article directories for submission of
your article.

Squidoo enables you to leverage your article writing through
the use of the link and/or RSS feed modules.

If you submit a number of articles to an article directory
such as Ezinearticles.com, you can use the RSS feed on your
Squidoo lens so that whenever you publish an article, your
Squidoo lens is updated.

In an article I published yesterday I show how you can
use Squidoo to leverage your writing:
http://www.squidooleverage.squidoomarketingstrategies.com/

If you need further motivation, here's some great reasons to
write articles:

1. your article, with its resource box links, can appear
on the first page of Google results for your
chosen keyword.
(The article I wrote and submitted to Ezinearticles.com on
Friday is number 3 on Google search results for my targeted
keyword today, Sunday.)

2. if you submit to high ranking article directories you
create valuable backlinks to your lens and/or blog.
Ezinearticles.com, for example, has a Google ranking of 6.
(A confirmatory story - when I edited out my blog links
from my articles on Ezinearticles.com, my blog dropped
from a Google ranking of 4 to 3!)

3. article writing and submission is an effective form of
viral marketing
(My 17 articles on Ezinearticles.com have attracted
7,667 views and been accessed by 328 ezine publishers
who,in turn, have shared them with their subscribers.)

4. article writing builds your internet profile
and establishes your expertise in an area.

5. article writing brings you targeted visitors because
visitors find your article through direct search
(another form of what Seth calls "permission marketing")

6. you get to access visitors you would not otherwise
reach
(one of my articles has even been translated into Spanish
and Greek would you believe!)

7. article writing gets easier the more you do it and
there are benefits for writing more.
(Ezinearticles.com, for example, gives you priority
reviewing and greater exposure once you have submitted
and published 10 articles. My article written on Friday
was accepted the next day and listed in Google results
the following day.)

8. you can get continual traffic to your Squidoo
lens for many years from writing and
submitting one article.

There are few internet marketing methods, paid or free,
that will give you a better return on your time than
article writing and submission.

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

Ron is the author of the ebook:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies


Technorati Tags: Squidoo affiliate marketing, Squidoo, Squidoo marketing strategies, article writing, Squidoo Marketing Strategies e-Book, affiliate marketing, Squidoo tips, lensrank, traffic

Build your ranking with internal links

Squidoo Marketing Strategies: Internal Linking

Google and Squidoo value internal linking
because it indicates the integrity of your
site.

Many spam sites are just full of external
links with no substance. Internal linking can
act as a signal that you personally have
something to say and that your website is
worth visiting in its own right.

Another application of internal linking is
to create a menu or contents list for your
Squidoo lens or website.

My lens on Squidoo marketing has grown so
large (over 35 modules) that I have had to
create a menu:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies Menu

How do you create internal links on Squidoo?

The secret to creating links to modules in your
lenses is to create a hyperlink with this basic url
structure:
http://www.squidoo.com/lensname/#modulexxxxxxx

Here's an example of such a hyperlink:
Step by step affiliate marketing

and the url:
http://www.squidoo.com/howdoaffiliateprogramswork/#module3899480

Two points to note here:

* you can find the Module Number
by hovering your cursor over the "up" or "down"
arrow near the module title when in edit mode.

* the anchor text you use for the hyperlink
should be a keyword that is different to the name
of your lens (as Google will have noted your lens
name in the url in the hyperlink).


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

Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
recently created his own SquidWho lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/ron-passfield

Ron is the author of the ebook:
Squidoo Marketing Strategies

******************************************
Technorati Tags: internal linking, Squidoo, Squidoo marketing strategies, tips for Squidoo newbies, Squidoo Marketing Strategies e-Book, affiliate marketing, Squidoo tips, lensrank, traffic

10 Tips for Squidoo Newbies

I provide detailed instructions on how to set up a Squidoo
lens and improve LensRank in my ebook,
Squidoo Marketing Strategies.

My free email course covers the basics in less detail and
with less emphasis on the marketing side.

Over the past few months, I have visited many Squidoo
lenses and answered numerous emails. In the process I have
identified 10 key things that newbies (and experienced
lensmasters) tend to overlook.

10 Tips for Squidoo Newbies

1. Make your keyword your Lens URL
Google gives priority to websites/lenses that
have "in url" keywords.

2. Include your keyword in your lens description
Google searches the description before tags and after
analysing the URL.

3. Make your lens description meaningful
Using long tail keywords can help here but avoid
keyword spam.

4. Use your 40 tags
You have up to 40 tags you can use for each lens
- find good keywords and progressively add these
as tags. Each tag can serve as a gateway to your
lens.

5. Learn basic html
You will need html to be able to add hyperlinks
and images. Visit the following basic html lens for
very clear instructions on easy-to-do html:
http://www.squidoo.com/basichtml

6. Ping the directories
Make sure you ping the directories each time you
update your lenses but do not ping any single lens
more than once a day (and only do it when you
have made a change). Here's a pinging service:
http://www.pingoat.com

7. Submit your lens to the search engines
Use the free search engine submitter on my lens to submit
your lens to the search engines including Google:
http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

8. Update your lens regularly
You will see your lensrank drop if you don't update
your lens on a regular basis.

9. Set "contact" to "on" in your Profile
This enables people to contact you via email through
Squidoo. They will not get your email address unless
you choose to give it to them.

10. Set the % share of income to go to charity
In your profile, you can specify if you want
100% of the income from your lens to go to you
or a percentage to charity. This only applies to
income from Google ads and the preset money-making
modules such as Amazon.com

If you keep these suggestions in mind you should have
a great Squidoo experience.

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

Ron Passfield is a Top 100 Squidoo Lensmaster and
recently created his own SquidWho lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/ron-passfield

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

Technorati Tags: tagging, Squidoo, Squidoo marketing strategies, tips for Squidoo newbies, Squidoo Marketing Strategies e-Book, affiliate marketing, Squidoo tips, lensrank, traffic

Turn Your Photos into Digital Stories

Digital storytelling has grown in popularity in
recent years as more and more people have access to
digital photos and video.

Digital stories are usually brief five minute tales that
use both audio and images (photos or video) along with
a musical soundtrack (this is optional).

Digital storytelling appeals to the less techo literate as it
is very easy to create a digital story using free software:
Digital Storytelling Starter Kit

Digital storytelling has become popular because you can
convey so much more meaning and emotion by combining
voice and image.

Digital stories are now used for instructing students,
in resumes and e-portfolios, in digital scrapbooking, in
communicating culture and sharing experiences and
journeys with family and friends. There is a huge
potential for using digital stories in affiliate marketing.

Caryl Oliver, whom I have known for more than five
years, has created a step-by-step resource to help you
turn your own photos into movies:
Digital Storytelling Starter Kit

Caryl's easy to follow guide comes with a number of
resources:

• written guidebook
• audio instructions
• sample digital story
• free software to create a digital story
• weekly Digital Storytelling Tips

Caryl is one of Australia's leaders in online learning
and teaching and has mentored other leaders in the field.

You can guarantee that you will receive quality and solid
support with her Starter Kit.

Why not dig out those photos of your trip that you
planned to put in an album? Create a digital story
and add it to your website or blog or Squidoo lens.

Caryl makes it easy for you to be creative through her
digital storytelling guide.

If you want to see lots of digital storytelling
examples visit my Squidoo lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/digital-storytelling

I have drawn together examples of people sharing
their experiences of love, fear, disaster, joy and pleasure.
There are examples of digital storytelling in education,
digital stories for communicating culture and digistories
about nature and places of interest.

What story do you have to tell?

********************************************
Get your FREE e-course on Squidoo Marketing
strategies:
FREE Squidoo marketing e-course

Technorati Tags:
digital storytelling, Digital Storytelling Starter Kit, Squidoo marketing, digital storytelling in education, affiliate marketing, digital stories