Featured Post #1

The Best Squidoo Advice Ever

Want to be a successful lensmaster?
Be unique.
Want to earn money on Squidoo?
Be honest.
Want to rank well in Google?
Genuinely help your readers.
Want to be a Giant Squid?
Don’t give up.
Want to be in the Top 100 Lists?
Learn from the best.
Want a lens that earns $hundreds per month?
Make a LOT of lenses.
Want your lenses [...]

MrLewisSmile | May 24th, 2009 | Continued

Featured Post #2

The $7,500 lens

Do you treat your lensmaking as a hobby or a business?
I would guess that more than 99.9% of lensmasters treat their lensmaking time as a hobby. It pays rather nicely if you hit upon a great niche idea and write up some great content, but most of the time people are making lenses it’s probably [...]

MrLewisSmile | January 28th, 2009 | Continued

Featured Post #3

Earning more money with a list…

Are you building a mailing list from your lenses?
When someone lands on your lens, how many chances of a sale do you get?
Mostly the answer will be… one.
If you get the person to look at a couple of your lenses then your chance of a sale doubles and triples.
But what if your lens visitors said [...]

MrLewisSmile | January 20th, 2009 | Continued

Featured Post #4

Rule Number 1: Get Blogging!

I’ve written about the importance of blogging before, and like in any good friendship I feel like I can talk about the same topics again and again.
So here it is.
Blog About Your Topic and Your Lenses!
If you are making Lenses on Squidoo to earn yourself any kind of money, you need a blog too. If [...]

MrLewisSmile | December 10th, 2008 | Continued

Featured Post #5

AT LAST! Opt In Forms On Your Lenses!

If I had a dollar every time an internet marketer asked me if they can put an opt in form on their lens… I would have, well, a lot of dollars.
It is probably the most requested Squidoo feature from internet marketers. They want to use their lenses to build mailing lists.
Ever since Squidoo blocked the [...]

MrLewisSmile | November 8th, 2008 | Continued

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Could you run an Offline Squidoo Business?


Here’s an interesting idea. Do a google search right now for driving lessons + your city 

For example, for me it’s Driving Lessons Cardiff.

Stick yours into Google and see what comes up. Knowing what you know about how Squidoo lenses rank in google, do you think you could rank in the top 5?

Try something else. Maybe Personal Trainer CITY, or Car Cleaning CITY, or Plumber CITY. Try anything!

Can you use your skills to outrank what is top right now for these local searches? I bet you could.

You can create a whole new income stream from even the simplest of lenses. 

Let’s say you had a lens ranking at or near the top for Driving Lessons CITY. To you that lens may just be worth a few pennies a month, but to an actual driving instructor those extra clients could mean the difference between profit and loss! Offline businesses are looking for new ways to get more customers, and they are increasingly turning to the internet. But none of them know as much about ranking in google as you do.

You could put a nice little package together, and have a chat with some local businesses. 

You could:

  • Build them a couple of lenses, for their most-desired key phrases
  • Register them a free blog (or build them something more fancy like what I build at yournicheblog.com)
  • Bookmark their lenses and blog posts on social bookmarking websites
  • Write a couple of articles and submit them to EzineArticles
  • Add their business address and site links and pics to Google Local [THIS IS BIG!]
  • Make a video promoting their business using Animoto.com and put it on youtube, and on the lenses with a YouTube module (I’ve done this for some, and they turn out really great)
And you will blow their minds! To us this is simple stuff. The stuff you do just for fun even. But to them, well, they will think you are an Internet God. When they see their business name showing on page 1 of google they will want to kiss you! 

Seriously. I have had many friends and family members who run offline businesses think I have magical internet powers when I get them up into google.

You could charge a one off fee, or even a monthly ‘maintenance fee’ to keep things ticking over nicely. Maybe you could write one article a month, or make a lens or blog post every now and again to maintain things. And show them how to blog with their business news, too.

And once you’ve helped out 1 person, even if they are a relative, you can get a written testimonial from them and show other business owners the results you got for them. 

You could even do a check on Google before you speak to someone to see if it would be an easy job for you or not.

Your Offline Squidoo Business Awaits!

TELL ME: have you helped out any offline businesses for people you know, using Squidoo? Share in the comments!

Lewis :)

P.S. you look nice today

June 3rd, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 18 comments | Continued
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The Best Squidoo Advice Ever


Want to be a successful lensmaster?
Be unique.

Want to earn money on Squidoo?
Be honest.

Want to rank well in Google?
 Genuinely help your readers.

Want to be a Giant Squid?
 Don’t give up.

Want to be in the Top 100 Lists?
 Learn from the best.

Want a lens that earns $hundreds per month?
 Make a LOT of lenses.

Want your lenses to look beautiful?
 Use lots of pictures.

Want more visitors to your lenses?
 Make something worthy.

Want to have some fun?
 Write about your passions.

Want to make a profit?
 Write about what sells.

Don’t know what you want?
 Just get started anyway.

May 24th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 17 comments | Continued
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Getting More Star Ratings With The Magic Of Tim


Tim ‘thefluffanutta‘, has made many great Squidoo tools. Every one of his creations has a dear place in all our hearts…

And they just keep getting better!

His latest creation is the Lens Love Module.

How many times have you visited a lens, got to the bottom of it, and forgotten to rate it? If you’re like me, probably lots.

Tim’s Lens Love module will put a nice row of stars at the BOTTOM of your lens as well as the existing ones at the top, which means your lens visitors can get to the bottom and still rate your lens without forgetting.

You can click here to add the Lens Love Module to your lenses

And you can click here to see a live example and read Tim’s explanation of it

Oh beautiful wonderful Tim, what’s next!

Lewis :)

P.S. have you added this module to your lenses? Have you noticed more ratings than normal? Do you put it at the bottom, or somewhere in the middle? What are your thoughts?

May 15th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 9 comments | Continued
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Are you making the most of your lenses?


Are you doing everything you can to earn money from your lenses?

Are you using every opportunity to earn money from your lenses and make every sale you can? Don’t beat yourself up about it. I wrote this lost as a guide for me to begin with.

Here are some things to consider:

  • Are you adding affiliate links [to trusted products] within the text, linking keywords and phrases?
  • Do you have a module on each lens with links to the top products for that topic?
  • Have you added a relevant link to your Bio for each lens?
  • Have you added the Featured Lens module to each lens to refer people between all your lenses?
  • Have you added a poll? Have you made any of the answers into links?
  • Do you look through the stats for your lenses and see what the most popular keywords are that people are using to find your lenses? This is a treasure trove of attainable keywords that you can make more lenses targeting!
  • Do you feature your existing lenses in the sidebar of your new lenses using the Lensroll feature?
  • Do you use your lenses to build mailing lists, for follow up compaigns on your profitable lenses? [if not check out www.squidootricks.com]
  • Do you make more your lenses in clusters, making multiple lenses about a certain topic, looking at it from different angles and targeting different keywords?
  • What else could you be doing to get each visitor to be worth more to you?

It’s about PROFIT!!

Lewis :)

February 16th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 14 comments | Continued
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The $7,500 lens


Do you treat your lensmaking as a hobby or a business?

I would guess that more than 99.9% of lensmasters treat their lensmaking time as a hobby. It pays rather nicely if you hit upon a great niche idea and write up some great content, but most of the time people are making lenses it’s probably more fun than work.

If it felt like work they probably wouldn’t do it as much, in their free time no less!

For the casual Squidoo Lensmaster making lenses as a hobby, the hope of earning some extra pocket money and getting some friendly guestbook comments is enough of an extra incentive to keep them going.

But what would happen if you took a pen and paper and wrote down some goals for your Squidoo Income?

If you began to treat it more like a mission than a hobby then some really magical things would start to happen. You would be motivated to make more lenses and make more profits, write more useful information, learn more money-making ideas, and really start to devote enough time to your lensmaking to do some REAL damage.

Let’s say you set yourself a task of building 5 new lenses a week to earn an extra $500 a month from Squidoo.

You could start by:

Making a lens about anything you buy online
Making a lens about anything you search google for but find no useful results
Making a lens about different places to visit in your home town or country
Making a lens about each book you read
Making a lens about each film you see
Making a lens about different affiliate products which inspire you
Making a lens about a celebrity
Making a lens about a favourite charity
Making a lens about your friend’s business
Making a lens about a question that’s been bugging you
Making a lens about the best software to do XYZ
Making a lens about making lenses!
Making a lens about your favourite recipe
Making a lens about anything you think will sell!

And before you know it a year has gone by and your 5 lenses a week have turned into an impressive roster of 260 lenses.

Out of all those lenses you will have made some absolute winners, and also some absolute duds. But it’s the only way to learn what will and won’t succeed.

Also, it won’t take you long making lenses about things you know to realise that some topics are more profitable than others, and you will naturally be drawn to them.

I have a lens that I wrote one day just for fun that has earned me over $7500 in the past 2 years (from affiliate sales). And I only struck upon the topic by making a load of dud lenses first and just thinking it would be cool to make a lens about so-and-so.

When you start to focus on reaching income goals with your lenses you can start to see the whole process in a whole new light. That lens really opened my eyes to what is possible. That one lens has earned an average $300+ a month for the last 2 years.

Do you see yourself as a real Internet Niche Marketer and are you treating your online money-making as a real business? Or is making money on Squidoo just an extra-pocket-money hobby?

Lewis :)

P.S. don’t get me wrong. Both are fine. Hobby or business. But if you are looking for the big bucks online… treat it as a goal-worthy business. That’s the only way you will make it to 100, 200, or 500+ lenses.

January 28th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 24 comments | Continued
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Squidoo and Facebook Get Married


Go, Squidoo, Go!

Squidoo has added some cool Facebook Connect connections.

Here is how the wonderful and beautiful and talented Megan Casey explains SquidooConnect: “SquidooConnect is like a bridge between Squidoo and Facebook. It helps your friends cross over to see your lenses, and helps you cross over to talk to people about your lenses on Facebook. It’s up to you how often you use it!”

She has made a lens answering questions at http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo-facebook-connect

If you have not yet hooked your facebook profile up with your Squidoo account just head to http://www.squidoo.com/member/profile and scroll right to the bottom.

Are you going to use this Squidoo/Facebook connection? Do you keep your real life friends and your Squidoo lenses separate? And… what other Squidoo/Facebook integration would you like to see?

Lewis :)

January 27th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 2 comments | Continued
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Earning more money with a list…


Squidoo niche marketingAre you building a mailing list from your lenses?

When someone lands on your lens, how many chances of a sale do you get?

Mostly the answer will be… one.

If you get the person to look at a couple of your lenses then your chance of a sale doubles and triples.

But what if your lens visitors said to you ‘Hey! I like your style! Here, take my email address and send me cool stuff!’

If you could get your lens visitors to opt in to your newsletter or niche list then you would really start to turn yourself into a savvy niche marketer.

You can see this in action on many of my lenses.

I actually have one single lens that I have used to build a mailing list of over 4000 (FOUR THOUSAND!!) people, all interested in the same thing.

Now when I make a lens about that same topic… I just send them all a quick email letting them know. And voila. Instant audience. Instant income from any sales.

Are you wasting the chance to build an email list asset from your lenses?

I use an autoresponder company called Aweber. I highly recommend them, and they are the best at what they do.

And I’ve also put together a step by step guide on how to get live opt in forms onto your lenses which you can get from www.SquidooTricks.com.

If you are missing out on extra visitors and extra income from having your own fanbase, this week can be the time you change all that.

Lewis :)

P.S. there are companies like aweber which offer a free service, but it is most often a case of ‘You get what you pay for’. But for someone just starting out the free option at getresponse.com might be enough.

January 20th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 5 comments | Continued
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Backlinks #2: Don’t forget the Google-smashing Groups


The #2 source of backlinks for your lenses are Squidoo Groups.

Squidoo groups have really begun to prove themselves in Google. In almost all cases they outrank lenses, get a higher PageRank, and get more backlinks naturally than lenses.

That’s right. Groups are outranking lenses in Google.

This means is would be incredibly wise for you to add Squidoo groups to your list of Google Ranking Weapons.

For Example: If you just made a lens about The Little Shop of Horrors, make a group for it too. You can target a slightly different keyword/phrase, add your lens to the group and feature it on the group homepage, and your lens sidebar will automatically link to the group.

Squidoo Groups have been partially hidden by Squidoo HQ because they haven’t had the time to devote to making them better as they have with lenses.

This means your groups don’t show on your lensmaster page, and the Workshop Edit mode tools are still very old compared to the fancy new workshop mode we have for making lenses. 

But they are still extremely powerful in Google. I have been looking lately at which Squidoo pages are ranking well in Google, and Groups always come up top. Above lenses with more content, even.

So start making companion groups to go with the lenses you want to get traffic to!

This is something I have not done enough of and am really going to start putting a lot of energy into.

Have you had good results with groups yet?

Lewis :)

January 18th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 9 comments | Continued
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How I’m going to use TwitterStorm


Yesterday Squidoo launched their newest clever creation. It’s called TwitterStorm and is a clever merge between a lens and Twitter.

You make a question lens, kind of like Yahoo Answers meets Squidoo, and people can write and vote answers via Twitter.

When they participate by answering your question a link to your lens appears on their Twitter profile page to all their Twitter followers. And if those followers participate then their followers see the link too. And on it goes…

It’s a viral creation. And it’s really rather slick. The Squidoo HQ people are quite a clever bunch.

You can see a nice example of a Twitter Storm lens here, and you can make your own here.

The whole Twitter Storm concept has given me some really cool ideas.

Yahoo answers gets a ton of visitors from google when people search for the same question, not just the keywords. For example instead of searching for ‘Best BlackBerry App’ they might search for ‘What are the best blackberry apps?’.

So I’m thinking.. I make a bunch of lenses to test this out and turn Squidoo TwitterStorm lenses into yahoo answer-type google traffic magnets. Phew! That’s something of a mouthful.

Handy use of guestbook modules, polls, and the Twitter storm tool itself could result in a really interactive, useful and viral page.
It’s definitely worth testing.

I have made a list of about 50 questions I am going to turn into lenses.

And if it turns out that a guestbook would have worked better than the new TwitterStorm tool then that’s something we will have to investigate…

How are you going to use Twitter Storm?

Lewis :)

P.S. you can follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/mrlewissmile


January 16th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 10 comments | Continued
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Backlinks 1: The obvious #1!


*********************
This blog post is part 1 in the
Google Jetpack: Backlinks
series of posts.
*********************

This is the easiest source of backlinks for your lenses.

Your other lenses!

If you get 1 person looking at 1 of your lenses, you have just had 1 chance of a sale.

If you manage to get that person to look at another one of your (related) lenses then you have just doubled your chances of a sale.

If you can turn 1 visitor into 2, or 3, or 4, then we’re talking about gaining fans and customers, not just visitor numbers on your dashboard!

Here is a short list to tick off to make sure you’re doing everything you can to get more people into your Squidoo net:

1. Do you use the Featured Lens module on all your lenses? You can use the Featured Lens module throughout the content and at the bottom to direct people to your related lenses. The Featured Lenses module is probably my favourite module.

2. Do you Lensroll your related lenses together? This makes a list of lens links appear in the sidebar of each lens to the other lenses. It is really easy to forget to do this because you need to visit each lens in order to lensroll it (it can’t be done from the sidebar in edit mode yet), so make sure you don’t forget this one!

3. Do you link keywords in the text to your other lenses? You can use a linkmaker tool I created to do this step if you don’t yet know how to write a html link into your lens: www.buildmylens.com/linkmaker The tool spits out code for you to put into a Text module on your lens.

4. Are you feeding your lenses into an rss module? This won’t count as backlinks in Google’s eyes, but it will work to get people to explore more of your lenses. You can put an RSS module as the last module on your lenses, and use it to list your other lenses. Just use your own version of the following link as the RSS Feed URL, but replace mrlewissmile with your own Squidoo username: http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lensmaster/mrlewissmile

Before you start thinking about what you can do to get backlinks from other sites and blogs first take a look at your growing list of lenses and see if you can do more to link them all together to create a huge network of links and lenses that a visitor could easily spend a few hours exploring :)

Lewis

 

January 11th, 2009 | MrLewisSmile | 5 comments | Continued
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