I attended a local musical event yesterday - it was one of those community events I felt obligated to be part of. Maybe I'm a workaholic because I honestly don't like taking time off.
Nevertheless I enjoyed seeing my friends and being part of the general excitement of the day.
Perhaps I should write about it... we could use some buzz, for next year.
Today... 7/22/118 for a total of 147 lenses in payout tiers, out of a total of 233 lenses; average lensrank, 65,114 - which is better than a few days ago when it was about 75,000. Today the lowest lenrank is 203,619 and the highest is 36.
I've decided to rename my main writing blog from "Compassion Awareness" to "Linda Jo Martin, Content Writer, Novelist." For now. I tend to change that often. I considered calling myself a Writeaholic but felt that was too close to "alcoholic," which I am not.
This posting is somewhat rambling, and I don't know exactly where I'm going with it. Sorry not to be making a point. I think taking a day off at a community event does that to me. Now I'm trying to reorient myself to my business mindset.
Yesterday I had a table to try to sell some of my books but like... nobody was in the mood to buy books! I wasn't surprised. Really, books are a hard-sell these days. People want easy entertainment. Music. Video games. Videos. All that. I need to learn to make videos better - but then always think that nobody really wants to watch videos done by a sixty year old writer lady.
One day at a time.
I've decided to focus on promotion and improvement of ten lenses this month - and made a dashboard label to segregate them for easy recall.
One of those lenses is Best Flash Fiction. It tells what flash fiction is, where to get it published, and how to write it. The lens also gives links to samples of good flash fiction.
This lens sat in my WIP collection for a long time. June 2008 to August 2010. In the meantime several other flash fiction lenses were created... but still mine rose in lensrank, enough to be the first one visible when someone searches for flash fiction on Squidoo. For that I am grateful.
It used to be near the top of the third tier. I spent some time promoting it and now it is at the top of the second tier. Naturally I'd like to see it go a bit higher.
Have you noticed the phenomena of disappearing backlinks? I look at the "backlink score" provided by SquidUtils, and see that many of my backlinks on blogs disappear over time. I am wondering if the search engines discount older content. This would mean that steady fresh links would help whereas older ones will not be as good. I am a bit freaked out over that. It means I have a lot to do, to keep promoting my lenses.
Never a dull moment.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
The Painful Process of Trying to Make Money at Squidoo
Making money at Squidoo is painful. At least, for me it is. I work hard on updating lenses only to see them edged out of the top tier by excellent lenses made by other lensmasters. I worry about my income being reduced because I'm dependent on this income; it is my only income. Well... I also earn from AdSense, but Squidoo is helping me get by in this world.
Since the money is that important to me I work hard to maintain it. Every day. And I was so disappointed today to see that I've got three fewer lenses in the top tier than I did yesterday. As of right now I've got five top tier lenses. Only five. There are twenty-three lenses in tier two and 119 in tier three. There are 79 lenses that fall below the three payout tiers. That's a lot of work I did for nothing. Bear in mind that all 226 are updated to August 1 (that was yesterday) and there's nothing more I can do with updates to make them perform better. This is as good as it gets.
I'm happy because today not one lens ranks less than 200,000 ... the lowest is at 183,830 - so I'm glad I took the time in July to update all low-ranking lenses three times, but OMG ... they are so totally worthless and I wonder if I should just delete them.
Okay, my lenses are updated, but are they unique and useful? Apparently not enough of them are. The ideal useful lens would be attracting buying consumers. Some of my lenses do and I'm grateful for steady sales although I wish they were more voluminous. I feel like I'm obsessing now. Really I must get more work done on creating more lenses and promoting them. I think that's where I need to go with this now.
Instead I've chosen to make my first Zujava leaf. Squidoo is so congested with lensmasters now, it is getting crazy in there. Occasionally a new lensmaster will figure out how to get lenses into the top tier, edging out old borderline lenses. I've seen lots of my lenses edged out over the last year or two. At the same time I've got two top-100 lenses right now. They've been up there for a while. For a long time I didn't think I'd even have one. I know that they edged out someone else's lenses. I can't even imagine why.
Back to work. So much to do today! This next update I'll be checking on backlink scores and labels. I predict that future success at Squidoo will be very dependent on lens promotion.
I'm happy because today not one lens ranks less than 200,000 ... the lowest is at 183,830 - so I'm glad I took the time in July to update all low-ranking lenses three times, but OMG ... they are so totally worthless and I wonder if I should just delete them.
Okay, my lenses are updated, but are they unique and useful? Apparently not enough of them are. The ideal useful lens would be attracting buying consumers. Some of my lenses do and I'm grateful for steady sales although I wish they were more voluminous. I feel like I'm obsessing now. Really I must get more work done on creating more lenses and promoting them. I think that's where I need to go with this now.
Instead I've chosen to make my first Zujava leaf. Squidoo is so congested with lensmasters now, it is getting crazy in there. Occasionally a new lensmaster will figure out how to get lenses into the top tier, edging out old borderline lenses. I've seen lots of my lenses edged out over the last year or two. At the same time I've got two top-100 lenses right now. They've been up there for a while. For a long time I didn't think I'd even have one. I know that they edged out someone else's lenses. I can't even imagine why.
Back to work. So much to do today! This next update I'll be checking on backlink scores and labels. I predict that future success at Squidoo will be very dependent on lens promotion.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Money-Earning Lenses With a Focus on Cat Collectibles
I've been working on making my lenses earn more.
Right now I've got 134 lenses in the first three tiers. Money-earners!
On the theory that third tier is easiest to get into, I've been updating low-ranking lenses. They're good for what?
About 48 cents each, minimum, at the last payout.
Okay, if I have 100 third tier lenses, that's 48 dollars that I didn't have before.
Yes, I'll scramble for money.
Plus, I hate having lenses with lensranks of 200,000 and above. They seem so useless!
Cat Collectibles
One of my lowest-ranking lenses is Cat Collectibles. Apparently I love cat collectibles more than others do, or my lens just doesn't rank well for that phrase.
I made the lens last December, and so far it has earned $2.63 - and at the last payout earned only 12 cents, from the text links.
Is there hope for this lens?
In the last month the lensrank has fluctuated from a low of 214K to a high of 48K. I'd like to keep it up there and collect my 48 cents at the end of the month!
According to Market Samaurai, the potential for a site ranking #1 for "cat collectibles" is about 182 clicks per week.
This lens has potential for tier two!
However, getting it into the #1 spot would be very difficult. It is currently in thirty-sixth place for that keyword.
This is not an impossible challenge, but since it isn't likely to become a first tier lens, should I bother?
The traffic stats show only eight clicks from search engines in the last thirty days. No wonder this lens isn't doing well.
Looks like lots of work to do, on page and off.
Back to work now...
Right now I've got 134 lenses in the first three tiers. Money-earners!
On the theory that third tier is easiest to get into, I've been updating low-ranking lenses. They're good for what?
About 48 cents each, minimum, at the last payout.
Okay, if I have 100 third tier lenses, that's 48 dollars that I didn't have before.
Yes, I'll scramble for money.
Plus, I hate having lenses with lensranks of 200,000 and above. They seem so useless!
One of my lowest-ranking lenses is Cat Collectibles. Apparently I love cat collectibles more than others do, or my lens just doesn't rank well for that phrase.
I made the lens last December, and so far it has earned $2.63 - and at the last payout earned only 12 cents, from the text links.
Is there hope for this lens?
In the last month the lensrank has fluctuated from a low of 214K to a high of 48K. I'd like to keep it up there and collect my 48 cents at the end of the month!
According to Market Samaurai, the potential for a site ranking #1 for "cat collectibles" is about 182 clicks per week.
This lens has potential for tier two!
However, getting it into the #1 spot would be very difficult. It is currently in thirty-sixth place for that keyword.
This is not an impossible challenge, but since it isn't likely to become a first tier lens, should I bother?
The traffic stats show only eight clicks from search engines in the last thirty days. No wonder this lens isn't doing well.
Looks like lots of work to do, on page and off.
Back to work now...
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