SquidooCool.com - The blog to be an expert lensmaster!

Don’t you hate it when you’re trying to figure out how to do something on Squidoo, but you have trouble finding answers to all of your questions? Squidoo has created The Answer Deck to come to your rescue.

The Answer Deck is designed to help the people who need answers meet up with the people giving the answers. With the answer deck, all of the help lenses that have been built on Squidoo are compiled in one convenient place for you. At last!

The Answer Deck doesn’t contain help lenses from just anyone though.  Only Giant Squids, who have the experience and performance under their belts, are allowed to list their lenses for the world to see.  This is good because it means you’re not getting misinformation.

http://www.squidoo.com/theanswerdeck/hq
What else can you find in The Answer Deck?  Well, there are two free e-books there to help you master lens crafting.  These two free e-books were written by the Squidoo staff including its founder, Seth Godin.

The first e-book is called Calamari: the Official Squidoo How-To.  It walks you through lens making from conception to publication and beyond. The second e-book is called The Joy of Squidoo: the Official Recipe Guide.  This e-book deals more with what your target audience is looking for.
It would be wise for you to make a visit to The Answer Deck today, tomorrow, and in the future - to stay in tune with what other lensmasters are doing and learn some clever tricks of the trade!

Now I just have to figure out how to subscribe to all new lenses added to the Answer Deck. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

Lewis

Filed under: Quick Tips | 1 Comment »

The super-genius thefluffanutta, creator of SquidUtils.com, has just created something else.

The things he makes are always easy to understand, simple to use, and really really cool.

And one of his latest creations is a nice little image you can put on your blog/lens/website that will display how many people are in your Squidoo fan club.

Here is mine:

If I get one more fan today… the image will automatically update!

To get your own little squidlet image just head to squidutils.com/export.php

And don’t forget to check out thefluffanutta’s blog at squidutils.com/blog.

Lewis

Filed under: Bio, Images, Quick Tips | 6 Comments »

Hey guys!

If you have been reading this blog for a while you will know of my past few posts about the power of blogging.

And I had a whole bunch of people email me asking for help setting up their blogs. So, I did something about it!

I have just launched a new blog service, with an absolute TON piled in.

Your blog posts will bookmark themselves, post themselves to twitter, ping themselves, and even TRANSLATE themselves. Plus a ton more stuff.

To read more, check out www.YourNicheBlog.com

Lewis

Filed under: Blogging, MONEY | 1 Comment »

The time has come!

Your Squidoo account is getting more integrated with other social networking sites!

Now, on your profile is a space to enter your Twitter.com username and password. And you save it in Squidoo just like you save your name and bio. Then, the next time you publish a lens you will see a little link in the green flashing box that pops up (the one that tells you that your lens has been published), and if you click the link  Squidoo will automatically post an update about your lens for you onyour Twitter profile!

This is good, but could turn bad if you OVER-use it.

Being a user is different to being an abuser.

I would like it if there was more of this kind of cross-promotion  between Squidoo and other social networking sites. Isn’t it about time Squidoo made an Official Squidoo Facebook App? Why not, Squidoo? Hire someone full time to do all this stuff. We dare you!

So how do you set your Twitter thingy up?

Step 1.  Go to your Profile here: http://www.squidoo.com/member/profile

Step 2.  Scroll to the bottom and look for ‘Social Application Settings’.

Step 3.  Fill in your Twitter info.

Step 4.  You’re good to go! Now just publish your latest lens, or update an older one, and look for the link in the normal flashing green box at the top of the page.

Do you think this kind of thing is good for Squidoo? It should bring in more visitors as your twitter friends check out the links, but do you think it could be harmful at all?

Lewis

Filed under: Blogging, Increase Visitors, Lens Promotion | 15 Comments »

Hello dear reader. You look lovely today.

Question: Are you a member of HubPages?

You will surely by now have heard of HubPages.

Surely.

If not, get on over to JoinHubPages.com and sign up! HubPages is a site very much like Squidoo. But with enough differences to be able to tell they are not trying to be or copy Squidoo. There are as many differences as there are similarities, and this will be a short guide of what you need to know to get your first hub off the ground.

If you are a Squidoo fanatic, you may not like HubPages. Like a football team. You support Squidoo, and HubPages is a rival. BUT. You are on Squidoo to get visitors, fans, and money. And HubPages can help with each of those things. The big orange Squido doesn’t mind if you play in another playground, so don’t feel bad..

So…

Lenses and Hubs…

So. A page on Squidoo is called a lens. And a page on HubPages is called a hub. Simple.

Modules and Capsules…

A module on Squidoo…. is called a capsule on HubPages.

There aren’t as many capsules on HubPages as there modules on Squidoo, but enough to make a good page. They could REALLY do with making more, but I guess they will at some point.

AdSense…

The Google Ads on Squidoo lenses belong to Squidoo. And then that money is divided up a few different ways. They first cover expenses, then split the money between almost all lenses, based on lensrank.

The Google Ads on HubPages belong to you 60% of the time, and HubPages HQ 40% of the time. Basically. It then gets a bit more complex with referring people to hubs, etc. But I’m coming onto that…

Referrals…

If you refer someone to Squidoo (meaning they sign up because of you) you will get $5 when that person earns their first $15. As an bonus, that person will also receive an extra $5 just like you. This is ok, but HubPages offers a WAY more lucrative option!

If you refer someone to HubPages, you will get 10% of all the Google ads displayed on all their hubs… until the end of time! Amazing! The 10% that you get is taken out of the HubPages 40% ad share (so your referral is not worse off because of this 10%). So let’s say you put your link on your blog or website or lens or hub, someone joined because of you and made 100 hubs. And let’s say those 100 hubs were visited 10 times each a week. (I’m just making up numbers here.) That would be 1000 page loads. And YOUR Google Ads would be displayed in front of 100 of those visitors. So if you sign up a few people, it could turn into something very significant indeed. There is slightly more to it than that, such as how you can refer a visitor to ANY hub and get 10% of the ads there too, but nothing to worry about if you’re just getting started.

That’s all for now. I’m going to go and eat a yummy cookie.

If you haven’t joined HubPages yet, head to www.JoinHubPages.com and get your first hub off the ground!

Lewis

P.S. Make a GOOD hub. Contribute. Don’t just go there to sell stuff. If your hubs are TOO promotional, they will get disabled.

Filed under: Cool Ideas, Google Rankings, HubPages, Increase Visitors | 5 Comments »

You know when you build a lens and you scoot around the web finding links, flickr pictures, youtube videos, amazon products, etc etc etc….?

Well I found a site recently called FoxyTunes.com.  It’s basically a search engine all about music. So you’re at FoxyTunes, you type in a band name or a song or album or whatever, and it creates a page for you pulling in the song videos from youtube, pictures of the band from flickr, lyrics of the songs from yahoo, their official site and myspace page, an intro from Wikipedia, and the band’s albums from Amazon. And some other useful stuff too.

It’s really pretty cool.

Here is an example:  http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/paris_hilton

You could easily create a lens about your favourite bands or artists, and use this FoxyTunes tool to fill in the rest of the modules. Because you’re able to see everything at a glance. Your lens will be mostly useless though unless you write some of your own thoughts on it too. What YOU think of the band, and why you like their music.

Havesome fun and

Lewis

Filed under: Cool Ideas | 5 Comments »

I’ve had a couple of emails and comments from people asking what the difference is between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org, and where they should start their blog.

So here we go….

Wordpress For Dummies

Wordpress is a platform. A big whole pile of code that, when all put together, forms a blog. Wordpress is NOT a website. It is a platform. So if you want to start a wordpress blog you have 2 choices.

#1. Go to wordpress.com, and they will host that big pile of code for you.

#2. Go to wordpress.org and download that big pile of code, install it on your own web host, and run the blog yourself.

So what’s the advantage of #1? 

You don’t need to be paying for a web host each month.
You don’t need to worry about any wordpress updates (updates to that big pile of code).

And what’s the advantage of #2?

You don’t have to abide by the wordpress.com Terms of Service, which prohibits ‘commercial’ blogs.
You can add javascript to the sidebars (including google adsense), and have the ability to customise the look and feel of each theme.
You can install any theme that has been made for the wordpress platform, whereas wordpress.com has a limited number of themes (although enough to get started).
You can install plugins, which make your blog to different things - from post to twitter automatically, to optimising the blog for search engines.

If you have never had a blog before and you don’t have your own web hosting package (to host your own website, etc), I would recommend going with Wordpress.com for now.

But don’t forget to do regular ‘exports’ of your blog. This creates a complete backup, posts, comments, tags, categories, the lot, for you to upload to another wordpress blog. So if at a later date you decide to move to a wordpress.org self-hosted blog, it will be fairly pain-free and seamless.

Hope this helps!

Lewis

Filed under: Blogging, Lens Promotion | 3 Comments »

This is now closed! Sorry everyone who didn’t get in. It filled very quickly indeed.

If you didn’t get in but wanted to you can stay updated by subscribing to this blog or just keeping one eye on the updates here You’ll find out when/if it’s open again for more testers.

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

Hello All You Fine And Lovely People!

I am working on something right now with Tiffany Dow that should get you lots more links to your lenses, more visitors, more reach, more fans, and ultimately more money…

SO. Who wants to test it out?

I need 25 people who will get in on this for free.

It’s not ready QUITE yet… so it won’t be an instant ‘here ya go’ thing. I want to get everything perfectly in place first. Kind of like tidying up before friends come round.

So if you want in post a comment! Comments will be easier to keep track of, but emails welcome too.

Have fun!

Lewis

Filed under: Competitions, Quick Tips | 33 Comments »

Hello hello hello..! Fun post today. Blog your socks off.

“Blogging and lenses go together like Winnie The Pooh and Tigger Too…

So do YOU have a blog for your lenses?”

******************************
FIRSTLY, WHY WOULD YOU WANT A BLOG?
******************************

Blogs are fun. Blogs are free. Blogs are fabulous. And blogs are FINDABLE!

It is extremely difficult now to do a search at Google and NOT find a blog in the first 30 results. Go ahead. Try. Even a lot of websites that don’t LOOK like blogs are blogs.

Your updates on your blog can be subscribed to, your updates can be fed onto your lenses in the RSS module, your updates can get automatically sent to Google and other search engines (telling them they have to come and take a look at your new content), and your updates are easy to do. FAR easier than updating a standard website, and probably quicker to post new stuff to than a lens.

So now that I’ve made my case for blogs….

******************************
HOW DO YOU GET YOUR OWN BLOG?
******************************

You could pay for a service like typepad(.com), you could get a free blog from blogspot(.com), or a free blog from wordpress(.com), or pay for a blog/site through squarespace(.com), or install a version of wordpress on your own server/hosting with your own domain name. If you are looking to start a blog there are literally thousands upon thousands of websites who will fight to get you to sign up with them - free or otherwise.
******************************
SO WHO SHOULD YOU GO WITH?
******************************
Without making decisions for you - I’ll tell you a story.

When I went to Sri Lanka for a few months (2 years ago to the day!) I had a blog I created at blogspot.com. It works well, and is now owned by Google. Then the next blog I created was this one - squidoocool.com - and I hosted it at wordpress.com. It is free to start a blog at wordpress.com, and the blog started ranking quite high in Google search results.

But because I wanted to use squidoocool.com instead of squidoocool.wordpress.com, and because I wanted to be able to further customise the layout and theme and plugins etc I decided to host the wordpress blog on my own hosting I have at HostGator (which I use for hosting my other websites).

HostGator comes with a nifty tool called Fantastico which installs certain scripts for you, including the wordpress software! So you can have your own version of the wordpress software running on your server (instead of wordpress.com) to run your blog. Unlike with wordpress.com, you are hosting all the files and posts and backups yourself. It comes with PLENTY of advantages.

So SquidooCool.com is now hosted on my own webhosting, nothing to do with wordpress.com (apart from the fact that the software in the background running the blog is the same).

I am VERY pleased with SquidooCool.com running on my own webhosting, and most of the time when I do a new post here… Google has found it and ranked it in search results within 2 hours. Hosting the blog myself allows me to add and edit themes, add plugins, add javascript and ads, etc. All stuff you can’t do with regular wordpress.com.

So here’s what I would recommend:

1. Get setup with wordpress.com to learn how everything works and to get blogging as soon as possible. You don’t need to pay them for any of the extras. Just get setup with a blog there. You can even have www.YOURSquidooUsername.wordpress.com

2. Start blogging about your lenses!

3. Put links in the ’sidebar widgets’ (under ‘Design’ or ‘Presentation’) to your websites, lensmaster profile, and to your best lenses.

4. Every time you create a new lens, write a blog post about it. Google will find the blog post, and find the lens, quicker. Because you now have two tools working for you - Lenses and Blog Posts!

So here are some useful links for you:

www.blogspot.com
www.wordpress.com
www.hostgator.com (if you want to host your blog yourself)
www.namecheap.com (if you want your own .com domain name for about $9 a year)

Happy Blogging!

I will post more about setting up your own hosting and domain name soon.

Lewis

Filed under: Backlinks, Cool Ideas, Google Rankings, Lens Promotion | 21 Comments »

What is my all-time favourite module on Squidoo?

Well, it’s got to be the text module But second? The extremely well-hidden Featured Lens module.

You can see it in action on almost all of my lenses (here for example: www.squidoo.com/squidtail). Featuring my other lenses, cross-promoting, and linking to other cool lenses on the same topic.

But if you are new to Squidoo… You may NEVER have come across it!

That’s because it is, for some reason, hidden rather well!

This blog post serves 2 purposes.

1. To help you find and use the module if you don’t know what/where it is.

2. To get enough people to fall in love with the module like me to get Squidoo HQ to move it into the default section for ALL to see!

Squidoo is doing lots of work to get visitors to look at more lenses during their visit to squidoo.com (with the new lens layout and the new Explore More feature right under the intro), so why not make the Featured Lens module easier to find and add to our lenses? That would really really help Lensmasters cross-promote.

So having said that, how do you currently find the module?

Click ‘Add Modules’ when you’re editing your lens, click the A-Z tab, then click F. And you’ll see it there.

And add it to, say, all your lenses about cats… And showcase all your other lenses about cats! And then when someone visits one of your lenses they will be FAR more likely to visit your other lenses.

Job done!

Lewis

Filed under: Cool Ideas, Lens Promotion, Quick Tips, Requested Features | 6 Comments »

Just a quick note about a quick and easy new module.

TWITTER!

I posted about Twitter here not long ago, about how to set up an automatic Twitter blog that auto-posts when you update your lenses.

Well now you can feed any twitter account onto any lens with the new Twitter Module. Click Add Modules, then A-Z, the T.

It WAS possible to get tweets onto a lens before, using the RSS module, but this is a lot neater when you look at the module output.

Really quite a nice little module.

So go add one to your About Me lens, and take a look at it!

Lewis

P.S. Nice work Squidoo HQ!  Keep the new modules coming!

Filed under: News | 3 Comments »

I stumbled upon a great idea yesterday.

Lensmaster Extraordinaire and Giant Squid AND Squid Angel bdkz wrote a post at Squidu a couple of days ago about a new lens of hers.

She used SquidWho.com to make a family tree lens.

And how does it look? Fantastic! It’s one of the best uses for SquidWho I’ve seen.

Bdkz is making a series of lenses about the family of the founder of her former school.

She says:

Who is Margaret Marsh St. John
http://www.squidoo.com/margaretmarshstjohn

It’s a neat way to preserve and share history!

Can you make one for your family?

What a great way to preserve your family history indeed!

Lewis

Here are some more I found. Joint credit goes to Lensmaster XP for these great Family Tree SquidWho lenses. Would you ever make some for your family?

http://www.squidoo.com/coats-elihu-b
http://www.squidoo.com/coats-john-j
http://www.squidoo.com/coats-justice-h
http://www.squidoo.com/xpfamily
http://www.squidoo.com/familytwigs

Filed under: Cool Ideas | 4 Comments »

Hey,

Have you been to Twitter.com lately?

There really is a ton happening over there. And Google is paying lots of attention too.

So with that in mind, here is an easy way for you to take advantage of the traffic Twitter is getting, and maybe send some of those people to your lens or blog. And once you’ve set it up, it continues to do it’s thing day after day automatically.

OK. You ready?

Good.

So… quick! What does this post show you how to do?

Once you’ve followed these instructions, you’ll know how to create a twitter account that will automatically create a new post (or ‘tweet’ as they call them) every time you update or republish your lens. And the post will say something like ‘I just updated my lens! Check it out’. And then there will be a link to your lens.

So, follow these instructions, and get yours working within 10 minutes:

1. Go to twitter.com and create a new account. When you choose a username, see if you can get the same username as your Squidoo lens URL. So if your lens is squidoo.com/ilovesquidoo, then you might want to register your twitter username to be twitter.com/ilovesquidoo.

2. Once you’re logged in to twitter, go to http://twitter.com/account/settings and add your URL (link to your lens) and Bio. Then click Save.
3. Next, click Picture at the top of the white box. And upload a cool looking image that relates to your lens. You could even use the one from your lens intro. Save that.

4. Now, click Design at the top of the white box. From there you can add a background image if you want. Or customise the colours of your twitter page. (if you want to find how to do those code colours things, search google for Hex Colors).

5. Now head to TwitterFeed.com and sign up there too. Or you can log in with your yahoo ID. But however you do it, get an account there and log in.

6. Once you’re logged in, go to twitterfeed.com/feed

7. Click Create New Twitterfeed

8. Put your twitter username and password in the first 2 boxes, and your Lens RSS Feed into the next box (see below if you’re stuck here)

9. Fill in the rest of the boxes, click Create, and you’re done!

What is your Lens RSS Feed?

Your lens RSS feed is this:

http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/URL

But you must replace URL with your lens URL.

So if your lens is squidoo.com/ilovesquidoo, then your lens RSS feed would be this:

http://www.squidoo.com/xml/syndicate_lens/ilovesquidoo

And that’s all there is to it

You can add as many of your lenses as you like to feed into your twitter account, or you can create as many twitter accounts as you like.

You can see this in action here: www.twitter.com/squidoocool

Enjoy!

Lewis

P.S. you can then go and start ‘following’ a bunch of people, to get some extra exposure to your twitter page.

Filed under: Backlinks, Increase Visitors, Lens Promotion | 10 Comments »

Tiffany Dow, Lensmaster Extraordinaire, is hosting another contest on her blog!

And you can win a custom-built lens from BuildMyLens.com if you come first!

So what do you have to do to win? Make a MonkeyBrain lens, and post a comment at Tiff’s blog to enter!

So here are the links you need to know:

To create your MonkeyBrain lens: www.HeyMonkeyBrain.com

To post a comment at Tiff’s blog to enter: www.socialmarketing101.com/blog

And here is my entry www.squidoo.com/dancing-dogs-and-tickling-monkeys

Good luck!

Lewis

P.S. if you’re new to this blog, subscribe in the sidebar!

Filed under: BuildMyLens, Competitions | 3 Comments »

Before I set up a lens just for this (and start a campaign for more money-maker modules), cast your votes!

What money-maker module do YOU want Squidoo HQ to develop next?

An eBay UK module?

How about converting the Indeed Jobs module into a pay per click module (just like the indeed jobs affiliate program would allow!)

How about an Amazon FR module?

I vote for an AUDIBLE.com module! We sell books from our lenses, audiobooks sell very very well, and audiobooks pay very very well. AND, audible has customisable RSS feeds available, which can be used to fill our lenses with the right stuff. So why not?? (It’s through commission junction too - just like our ebay modules.)

So… what do YOU vote for? What money maker module would you love to see created?

Lewis

Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, MONEY | 8 Comments »

I just finished a lens about how to set up the Google RSS Reader.

Google reader revolutionised my online life. It lets me subscribe to loads of great blogs without having to manually check back every day for update. An RSS Reader is like an inbox for the web. Pulling in the content you want from your favourite blogs.

I talk about RSS quite a bit here, so if you don’t know what it is, check here:

www.squidoo.com/rss-explained

If you don’t really know what RSS is, and if you still visit your favourite blogs every day to see if there are updates, then this lens is for you.

I put big pictures there, as well as text explanations to help. It is a step by step guide to help you set up your own RSS reader on your Google homepage.

Hope someone finds it useful!

Lewis

P.S. I got lens of the day today (for the third time!), AND got to lensrank 1 with another lens. What should I do to celebrate? Anything? For my last lens of the day I ran streaking down my street.

Just kidding. I didn’t run. I walked.

Filed under: Quick Tips | 3 Comments »

Here is the short of it:

1. There is a site called Bumpzee.com

2. It is a directory for RSS feeds

3. Your lens has an RSS feed

4. So you can add your lens to Bumpzee

5. Bumpzee ranks high in Google!

And it ranks very quickly. So head to Bumpzee (I’m there as mrlewissmile if you want to add me as a friend or whatever) and stick your favourite lenses on there. And watch Google for your bumpzee page showing up. And in most cases it will. Rather quickly too.

You don’t need to write any extra content, no extra work, just submitting your link and filling in tags for the link.

Check it out.

Got good results with bumpzee? Post a comment with your superhero-success story!

Lewis

Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

If you haven’t seen them already - check them out!

Squidoo lenses still have 2 basic layouts - maxed and unmaxed - but the maxed version just had a MAJOR overhaul. Remember how it was the 3 columns? Well check it out now!

Here is my Tagging Tricks lens maxed, and here is my ‘how to unmax’ lens unmaxed.

Which layout do you prefer?

I think the new layout is much more professional, really promotes US, the adverts in the sidebar are clearly separated from our content, and the column for our content is wider than ever.

I love it!

Lewis

Filed under: News | 10 Comments »

Because they are constantly improving!

Improving everything!

The Squidoo HQ team is small, but you probably wouldn’t guess that.
It’s like 4 or 5 full time staff.

There is a great new feature for Giants Squids that I just posted about because I thought it was a feature everyone got (but I took the post down when I realised), they are currently working on some really cool looking new lens templates, and even the little things get attention…

If you go to your dashboard, hover your mouse over one of the green ticks next to one of your lenses. One of the green ticks or those grey circles instead.

And what do you see pop up?  

Yep. A new little explanation box.

I don’t know if this is actually new or not, but I hadn’t noticed it before.

So. The big questions is…  what improvements would you love to see come from Squidoo HQ?

Lewis

P.S. if you’re new to this blog, you can subscribe to future updates in the sidebar!

P.P.S. if you’re a Giant Squid check under ‘Tools’ on the right of your dashboard.

Filed under: News, Requested Features | 1 Comment »

HeyMonkeyBrain.com is a new site launched by Squidoo.

It’s a place to create a lens DEBATING a topic. A place to be the ringleader.

So if you want to tell the world that you think that a BlackBerry is better than an iPhone, this would be a good place to start.

And if you add a guestbook to the lens instead of a duel module*, Google will see all the rants and raves your visitors post as fresh, new, unique content. And you can’t get too much of that!

So head to HeyMonkeyBrain.com and make a debate lens about anything you want people to talk about!

Lewis
*the duel module is loaded using javascript, which google doesn’t read.

P.S. got a good monkeybrain lens? Share it here and we can rate it and join the fight!

Filed under: Lens Promotion, News | 7 Comments »