Friday, May 01, 2009

Squidoo lenses: using the SquidUtils function on your Squidoo lens

If you have downloaded the SquidUtils
workshop addon feature for Firefox, you will
make management of your lenses and groups
that much easier.

When you are in edit mode for your Squidoo lens,
you can see a heading, SquidUtils.com,
below the TAGS heading in the right hand column.

If you click on the arrow beside the SquidUtils.com
heading, you will see a drop-down menu with
the following options:

1. Ping - this enables you to ping the search engines
and blog directories, when you have a new lens or made
significant change to an existing lens. This is a great
tool because you can ping from within the edit
mode once you edit and publish.

2. Check backlinks - enables you to see how many
and what sites are linking back to your lens. This
backlinking is a major factor influencing lensrank and
Google PR.

3. Table Generator - enables you to convert your
data into a table - great tool.

4. Amazon Links & RSS Feed - you can generate links
for individual Amazon products as an affiliate or an RSS
feed of multiple products. This feed can include items
from a particular category (node), or items from List.
The feed will also include images and formatting,
unless you decide to turn it off. This is very handy
if you are seriously promoting Amazon.com products.

This SquidUtils.com workshop feature has been
developed by Giant Squid, thefluffanutta , and is one
of the many Squidoo tools that have been created to
make life easier for Squidoo lensmasters.

If you want to know more about SquidUtils, check out
my next post.

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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:
Subscribe to Ron's free Squidoo Marketing e-course:

Ron is the author of the e-Book:

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Squidoo lenses: how to select modules

It is even easier now to create great Squidoo lenses
with the new module showcase to help you select
your Squidoo modules.

You can access the showcase by editing lenses as you
normally would and clicking the "Add Modules" button
on the top right hand side.

The new showcase will appear and you can make
your choice of module.

You can check out the most popular, see modules by
category (sell stuff, write stuff, web stuff, social stuff)
and even create your own list of favorites.

Megan Casey explains the new Module Picker here:
http://www.squidoo.com/new-module-showcase

As with all things Squidoo, there is always assistance
and guidance on hand to help you. Ener-G,
aka Gia Combs-Ramirez, has created a special
lens to act as mentor in your choice of modules. Gia
shows you how to use the different types of modules
in her module mentor lens:
http://www.squidoo.com/modulementor


**********************************************
Ron Passfield 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:

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

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

In Search of Excellence

Thanks to my recent efforts installing the
Twitter Traffic Machine, I discovered two new
Squidoo resource people who are both, in their own
ways, focusing on excellence.

1. Personal Excellence Tips

Mukunda22, aka Kate Loving Shenk, and nurse of 25 years,
has produced a Squidoo lens on 66 Personal Excellence Tips.
This is a challenging lens offering a lifetime of learning.
If you found just one pertinent tip here and implemented
it, your life would be richer and so would that of the people
you impact.

I found Kate's own tip (No.41) particularly relevant:

Gift of attention. Practicing the gift of
attention offers
the perfect mirror for our
self-centered tendencies.
As we engage in
deep listening, the need to fix or
offer
opinion is recognized in stark contrast
to the
mindful presence arising from the
practice. Thus, these
moments of ego are
allowed to pass without resistance.


This is one of the core themes of the management training
I do within the Health Sector across Queensland. I will
be able to use this quote (attributed) when I conduct
workshops in Rockhampton next week. It's something
I also need to put into practise myself.

2. Squidoo Lens Reviews

Squidoo Lensmaster, GrowWear, aka MiMi GrowWear,
has developed a blog to review Squidoo lenses that
exhibit excellence. Her purpose is "to give shout-outs,
nods and promotion to remarkable Squidoo lenses".

Mimi has also developed a Squidoo lens that discusses
her Blog.

On the blog you will find great resources for Squidoo
Lensmasters - interviews with Giant Squids and links
to Squidoo blogs.

The latest lens she reviews is one about a current global
issue - Swine Flu facts.

These are both great resources if you are in search of
excellence!

**********************************************
Ron Passfield 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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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Twitter Traffic Machine Review

I've set up my Twitter Traffic Machine with
great results.

Installation was easy with both video and
PDF guidance provided.

The viral traffic system uses free web-based
software to create a steady flow of new,
targeted Twitter followers.

In the last three days I have gained an
additional 300 followers.

I could have grown my Twitter following a lot
more with the Twitter Traffic Machine
but I wanted to limit my followers to selected
people (using specific tags). I could have used
broader terms to get more followers but the
advantage of this system is that you can make
your recruiting very targeted. This way you only
get followers who are interested in the areas that
you want to write and share about.

Now my Twitter follower numbers increase with
each hour of the day.

This gives me a much larger target audience to
share with. It has enabled me to leverage my
blogging and article writing.

I can tap more easily into relevant Twitter conversations
because I have a wider range of contributors to the
themes that I am interested in.

The Twitter Traffic Machine has also enriched my
experience of Twitter. For example, I came across
these two sites and joined the relevant groups:
  1. Squidoo Twibes
  2. Squidoo Marketing
See what Twitter Traffic Machine can do for you,
CLICK HERE.

**********************************************
Ron Passfield 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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Monday, April 27, 2009

Visbilty: free resources to boost your profile

Visibility Consultant, Nancy Marmolejo, provides
a free action report to help you expand your visibility
and increase your Internet profile:

Why Social Networking: 4 Remarkable
Strategies to Grow Your Business, Expand
Your Referral Network, and
Increase Your Visibility.

Nancy is a Visibility Consultant who offers a
wide range of services to support you to
develop your profile and brand yourself.

Her free resources include podcasts that
are valuable insights into strategies for
developing visibility
.

One has to be impressed with her choice of niche
given the timeliness of "visibility" within the
context of the explosion in social networking.

Nancy's choice of podcasts as a major marketing strategy
lines up with the busyness of her target audience
and serves as an appropriate medium for her
message.

Nancy offers a solid affiliate program for her product
offerings which include coaching and teleclasses.

Some lessons here for product developers and affiliate
marketers:

1. choose a focus that builds on an emergent trend (so
you grow with it)
2. choose a medium that matches the message
3. be mindful of your audience and how they access
information.

For more information about Nancy's approach,
visit:
Viva Visibility

Related Posts:


**********************************************
Ron Passfield 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:

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

How to become a Giant Squid

How to Qualify:

You need to create 50 great Squidoo lenses.

Benefits:

From Megan Casey (Editor in Chief, Squidoo)

"1. Access to our (secret) Giant Squids blog and
RSS feed, full of first-looks at new features and
insider tips.

2. A private email address to reach us about
Lens of the Day submissions.

3. A Giant Squid badge on all your lenses.
(And your bio/profile page too).

4. Gold stars on all your published, featured lenses.
Gold stars not only look nifty to your readers,
they also give you a little LensRank boost.

5. Your shot at making The Giant Squids Top 100
list, a list of the top Giant lenses, sorted by LensRank.

6. A Custom Lens Template tool. This one's BIG.
You can have multiple customized lens templates,
to help you pre-populate new lenses with modules
and copy that you like. Makes making lenses faster.

7. Did we mention first crack at our coolest new tools
and features? For example, the Giants got to hear
about HeyMonkeyBrain, Squidaholic.com,
the new dashboard, the Lensmaster Bio redesign,
MagicBuilder, Prediction module, and lots more
--days before the rest of Squidoo.

8. A chance at being featured on the
Giant Squid Community Showcase.

9. The power to nominate! When it's time for
the next round of new Giants to join the ranks
Giants can nominate the people they think
really deserve it.

10. No daily lens limits. Here's another big one!
You can start as many lenses a day as you want,
and you can have as many unimproved lenses
under construction as you need. We trust you.
We know you're going to build them out eventually.

11. Greenlighting. Have you heard of, or run up
against, our SquidDon't spam filter? It checks lenses
for language and topics that are not welcome on
Squidoo. But quite often, while we're playing it safe,
there are false positives. And that can be
frustrating. So we're greenlighting all our Giants,
so you never get stuck in the spam filter again.

12. Bonnie, Patti and Robin: your Giant Squid
Organizers. Heck yes they're a perk (to quote
Napoleon Dynamite). They're in your corner,
constantly representing and supporting and growing
the Giants program. That might be an intangible,
but it's an important one.

And there are new giant perks being
added all the time!
"

For example, 60 Giant Squids will get to have a
phone hook-up with Seth Godin shortly to discuss
questions and future directions for Squidoo.

There are lots of resources to help you become
a Giant Squid:
How to Become a Giant Squid
Giant Squid Mentor

If you want help to become a Giant Squid,
you can contact me through Squidoo (via one of
my lenses).

**********************************************
Ron Passfield 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, April 25, 2009

Twitter Traffic Machine: Build your profile and your followers

I've resisted buying any Twitter traffic program to date.

What convinced me to purchase Twitter Traffic Machine
was:

1. the very reasonable price
2. the ability to build targeted Twitter followers
(not random followers as with some other programs)
3. the capacity to leverage what I already do
(blogging, building and updating Squidoo lenses
and article marketing).

I think this last point was the real selling point for
me. One hour of time invested in setting the
system up paid immediate dividends with the
first wave of new Twitter followers...and this
recruiting will be ongoing without any
intervention on my part.

What I like is the ability to focus (and re-focus)
my follower recruitment.

I've had to change my original stance of limiting
the number of people I follow. However, this
has given me a richer store of tweets to view.
(I also discovered belatedly that I can view earlier
tweets by just pressing "more" - so I can access
the posts of my favorite people).

The Twitter Traffic Machine is certainly a way to build
your profile and Twitter following on auto-pilot.

You can check out the Twitter recruiting program here:
Twitter Traffic Machine

P.S. Twitter Traffic Machine has a great affiliate program
that is viral in nature and pays 50%.

**********************************************
Ron Passfield 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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