Take Advantage of the Flickr Module's Demise

As you're probably all well aware Squidoo's Flickr module has bit the dust.   Now if you have been using a lot of Flickr modules on your lenses then I'm sure you've been following some of the suggestions on Squidu about the changes and ideas for dealing with it.

I have only had the module on three of my lenses, although earlier this year I had looked at putting it on a lot more of them.   Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be the images that came up in the Flickr module just weren't right for the lenses I wanted to use them on.   I was after clickouts and the Flickr module was great for that.

What do I mean by taking advantage of Flickr's demise?   Well there are a lot of people with well ranked lenses who suddenly find themselves possibly losing alot of clickouts which means there's opportunity for you to gain some lensranking juice.

Let me tell you a story which I'm sure is familiar to a few of you, I'll call it The Tale of Two Lenses.   I have a couple of lenses that don't make sales (that's not their intent), one of them got 282 visits in the last week the other got 796 visits in the last week.   One of them is in tier one and the other is in tier three (actually this morning he's visiting tier two, but his visits are usually very brief ones).   Can you guess which is which?   If you guessed that the lower visited lens was in the top tier you would be correct.

The Reason - clickouts!   Yes the one with nearly 800 visits has only a 1% click-through rate which is something that I need to work on.

If you have some lenses that aren't performing as well as you think they should have a look in the traffic stats and see what the click-through rate is.   You'll see the rate under the traffic stats of your lens -

As you can see this lens doesn't get a lot of traffic, but it does have a good click-through rate of 30% which sees it perform better than some lenses with double or triple the traffic.   

Personally I want to get all of my lenses to have a click-through rate of over 20 (although the higher the better).   Now is the time to start looking at your lenses and seeing how you can improve your click-through rates while some other lensmasters are scrambling to fix up their Flickr modules - it should pay great dividends for you.

How to improve your click-through rate - that is the question and it's really hard to know how to do it with some lenses, but here's a few ideas.

Make sure all of your images are linking out to somewhere - depending on where I've gotten the images from some people are happy to simply have the photo linked to their website other's want a text link, but even if I've given them a text link I'll also link the photo as well because it's amazing how many people will click on that which equals a clickout.

I use a number of posters to illustrate my lenses and these all link back to allposters or amazon (with my referral link of course) and whereas I don't expect to sell these posters they do give me clickout juice as well as nice images.   On one of my lenses - Lady Gaga's Tattoos - I found a poster showing Lady Gaga's unicorn tattoo, but you could also see her bottom so I put a black box over her bottom uploaded the image (linking back to the amazon poster) and put in the text that you could see the poster without the 'blackbox' by clicking on the image.   I think this is the biggest click out I get across all of my lenses!

What if you use your own images?   Well one idea that I've just started for one of my niches is a photo blog on posterous.   I started writing some wedding lenses this year and one of the fun things about them was making my own inspiration boards - I started the photo blog this week and it's called Wedding Bells - it's basically so that I can link all of my inspiration boards back to it and hopefully get some clickout juice.

It's not just images that get clicked on!   Last year I made some Google docs with printable recipes of some of my cocktails/mocktails and even a party planner - checking through stats on one of my lenses this week I've found that this is responsible for quite a few clickouts which tells me I must definitely work on getting the other recipes onto Google docs as well!

Videos also count as clickouts, although directing traffic to other lenses does not.   If you write on other sites then I think it's time to write complimentary articles that you can link out to as these also work well with the added bonus that you're not just sending people to a different site away from your work.

Of course the best thing for people to clickout of your lens on is a product because not only is that a clickout, but it could also result in a sale which is a win/win scenario.

How are you going to try and increase your click-through rate on your lenses?

Welcome Back - Let's Get Busy!

Well it's been nearly a year (well 11 months) since I had to take what I envisaged as being a short break from this blog.   I've had a lot happening in my offline life as well as online and things have been falling through the cracks, my offline dramas still continue, but hopefully I can still manage to keep this blog updated again.

One thing that I've noticed on Squidoo is how important it is to keep a lens updated.   People have been saying this for absolutely ages, however it's only really been the last 12 months that I've noticed it really making a big difference to my lenses.   I'm not sure if it's a change in the algorithm or if it's because so many people are refreshing their content, either way I think it's a great idea to set up an updating system for your lenses.

You don't have to do a major update every single time, just a few little things count as an update like these -

• Check that you've filled in all 6 spaces in your related pages spaces.
• Update tags.
• Check for spelling mistakes.
• Credit images.
• Change a theme.
• Make sure you're using your sidebar widgets.
• Add a bookmark widget.
• Change your featured lenses to do-follow - I use this tool
• Check that your links all work especially sales links.
• Change modules/products/images around - think of it as a shop, shops change window displays and shop displays regularly.

I also make notes as to major changes that I can do at a later date and plan time to go back and do them.

Don't stress if you haven't updated your lenses in a while I have a number that were last updated in January 2011 and only one of these exceedingly 'old' lenses have gone into wip.   However I will be working a lot harder on updating every single one of my lenses after noticing some huge jumps in lenses I have been updating over the last couple of weeks.

I'm continuing to also use Wizzley, both to produce content in it's own right as well as to provide backlinks to my lenses.   Interlinking of your relevant work is always a great idea.   I'm finding Wizzley to be really good and thoroughly recommend it.

It's the sixth month already so you should be working on updating your Halloween and Christmas lenses as well as making any new ones that you want to add to your collection.

I will be endeavoring to update this blog once a week from now on to include tips (as usual) and I might also be adding some lenses of mine that I'm needing to do some serious work on so that you can see how I try to 'rescue' some of my lenses when they're not paying their own way.

Twitter and Squidoo

Do you use Twitter to promote your lenses?   I must admit I'm a little hit and miss when it comes to Twitter, I'll use it a little bit and then I won't get on it for a few weeks!   A lot of people have disregarded the value of tweeting, but I've recently taken the time to look at some stats as to my twitter clicks and I'm going to make an effort to use Twitter on a much more regular basis.

My Squidoo links get an average of 23 clicks per link which may not be hundreds or thousands, but considering how easy it is to tweet something I think it's pretty cool.

My Zazzle links don't seem to do as well only attracting average of 14 clicks per link and my combined blogs average is doing about as well as Zazzle.

Different links do better than others and I can see that my 80s blog alone gets an average of 27 clicks per link.   This isn't surprising as a poll in Australia a couple of months ago showed that Generation X were actually embracing Twitter almost as much as the Generation Ys.

I'm convinced that if I can get these clicks with my rather hit and miss approach to Twitter then if I make a concerted effort to use it I should be able to do even better.   Last year I used Amazon's tweet button once to try it out - the result?   I sold a kindle!   I really don't know why I didn't continue to use it - in the words of Homer (the Simpson, not the Greek) - Doh!

The only problem with Twitter is that I don't want to be on it all day as I can waste an awful amount of time.   I do belong to places such as Amplify where it will automatically send a tweet for me, but the other way around this problem is by using a program to schedule my tweets.

I use Social Oomph to do a few things.   I have started scheduling tweets through them (there's two versions a free one and a professional one - I only use the free version), this is very handy.

I have been using the shorten url link on Social Oomph - in fact this was the main reason I joined the site initially as it was bad enough keeping my tweets short enough let alone also adding a full url!

I also have it set to autofollow everyone who follows me - not something everyone would want, but I find it easier to unfollow people who send me too much spam than to keep up with everyone who becomes my follower.

You can set up a DM to be sent to all new followers, but I don't do this as I don't like to receive generic messages myself.

When tweeting there are things to think about - if all you do is send links I'm pretty sure you'll get unfollowed at worse or at best no clicks on the links.

I do get onto Twitter once or twice a day (when I'm using it which will be from now onwards!) and read through a couple of pages retweeting some things that I like or answering questions that people have asked.

I love some of the quotes that are around - yes I'm one of those people that used to like the quote a day desk calendar that we had when I worked in a major bank - I'll often tweet a couple of different quotes that I think are funny, inspirational, thought provoking etc.

I check if there have been any mentions of myself although lately social oomph have been sending me emails when someone replies to one of my tweets or mentions me (I don't know why this has started happening, but it's very handy).   I then make sure I reply if appropriate.

I have found that I can send tweets on my phone so I'll often send a quick tweet if I'm waiting on my daughter to get out of school etc.

I have read that there is a 30/30/30 rule - I'm not sure that you have to be exact, but it does seem that this would make sense - 30% tweeting your links, 30% re-tweeting, 30% personal comments or quotes - no links.

The other thing that I've done is used a second twitter a/c and you can log several with Social Oomph and they'll manage them all really well.   Unfortunately because I'm slack when it comes to tweeting this niche a/c while I'm sure was a sound idea, did not work for me :(

Making Sales With Amazon Part Two

In my last post I talked about finding your voice in order to make sales with Amazon, but another important part of converting your visitors into buyers is by knowing your audience.   Now I don't know about you but I have a wide variety of different interests and my friends range in ages from 20 years younger than me to about 20 years older than me.   Why am I telling you this?   Well I have totally different conversations with my different groups of friends and acquaintances and this is the same with my lenses.

I always remember a fellow lensmaster called kab commenting on Squidu about writing on different things versus having niche a/c's and she said that is you looked at all of the different things that she wrote about you'd think she was like a monkey on crack.    That vision just cracked me up, but the same could be said of my lenses.   How do you sell Agatha Christie books alongside Katy Perry Nail Polish?   Obviously you present them differently.

If you've read a number of my lenses you may have noticed that both my layouts and language changes with the different types of subjects the same as the way you talk to different groups of people change - you speak to your child differently to how you'd speak to your best friend and you speak to your child's teacher in a different way again.

Identifying your audience and then knowing how to talk to them will definitely help your sales.

I  think that there are a couple of different types of buyers, those that want lots of quality information and then you just have to hope that you swing them over while they're in the buying process and not 'find them' while they're still in the research phase.

Another type of buyer are the ones that know they want say a Big Bang Theory t-shirt, but they're not sure which one - these buyers actually just want to see what's available and don't need a lot of information on the product, they'll click on what they like and buy from there.

The main thing, which is worth repeating again, is to know your audience and know which type of buyer you're writing for and then (hopefully) you'll start to make regular sales.

Making Sales With Amazon

How do you make sales?   This is a question that I get asked quite often and in particular I've had a spate of queries about it recently.   It's actually not an easy question to answer because it's not a straight forward formula, but I'll try and give you a few ideas.

The most important thing you have to do is find your voice.   This is really important, even though it may not seem it.   I worked in sales for quite a while and I remember going to a seminar that the company paid for and I took lots of notes and decided to try and sell the way the speaker had told us.    The manager asked to speak to me on the Friday...............she wasn't very happy (although I didn't realize it at the time).

So we have a chat and she's asking how things are going with me and what I thought of the seminar etc and then came the zinger - what's been going on with your sales this week?   I explained I was following what the speaker had said, but I obviously needed to work on it because the results weren't showing.   Then she asked me the simple question well what did you do before?   It turns out that I had been converting the most sales of anyone (even the guy who used to make out he was the best - I loved that feeling!) and she wanted me to go back to that.

I couldn't actually give her an exact answer as to what I did before for the same reason that years later I had problems role-playing how to handle complaints, despite handling them really well in a work environment.   I don't use a stock standard method.   Everyone is different so how I would handle sales would depend on the person, it's called active listening when you're face to face combined with body language.   This is a lot harder to do online, but it boils down to this -

You need to know your audience.

My way of selling is totally different depending on who my audience is, if you're not sure who your audience is then you will have problems selling anything.

Finding your own voice is all about how you communicate with your writing so the first thing you should do is look around at something that you use at home and would recommend to your best friend.   Check it's available on Amazon and then sit down and talk about it as though your best friend was sitting opposite you - what do you like about it, why it would be ideal for her/him.   If you haven't figured it out yet - your best friend is your audience!

Now you've talked it out sit down and write a lens on that one product (but finish reading this post first) - use an Amazon spotlight review module or your own associate link and only promote that one product unless you've told your friend in your imaginary conversation that you find it even better when combined with something else.

Depending on what it is you may feel you need to add some product details and that's okay, if you're not feeling qualified to talk about the technical side of things just (staying in your own voice) say something like for those of you who want the technical mumbo jumbo here's what the website has to say about it, but for me it's all about ...................

Now, how are you going to get the traffic if no one can find your product?   Obviously most of the time we hear keyword research should be done first and that's true once you've found your voice.   It's no good doing all of the keyword research if you can't write a good review that will sell.

Now hopefully you haven't actually written the lens yet, because you're still reading this post - I would suggest writing it all into word first so you just have to cut and paste it into Squidoo when we're ready.   Now  do some keyword research and make sure that you use keywords in your url and in your titles and/or subtitles.    Now read it through - sometimes you'll find you've added the keywords naturally without thinking which is awesome.   If you haven't that's okay too.

Have you used the word the when talking about the product?   If so add your keyword in it's place and read it back - does it still sound like you or does it sound weird/stilted/not quite right?   If it sounds okay leave it in otherwise out it goes.   The word the is the one I most often convert to a keyword in the final edit as it can often be naturally converted without sounding forced.

Now, how did you start your introduction?   You want to make sure that you use the keyword in the first couple of sentences so let's say you've been talking about a blender, start with something like this - Are you looking for the best ever blender?   I wouldn't be without my xxx blender and use it constantly in the kitchen for things such as xxx and xxx.   Read on to find out why this blender is the one I would recommend to my best friend.

Another type of lens that will convert well is a how to lens, many people want to learn how to make something ie how to make the best xxxx costume for Halloween.   They'll feel quite good learning how to make their own outfit, but then they realize that either time is running out or it seems harder to make than they realize or it's not such a big monetary saving after all.   What do they do?   Buy the product already made!    It's true, honestly, so if you're making a how to lens remember to have a module after the instructions with a ............or you could just buy it here type of comment.

There are other tips that I'll talk about in the future, but I really believe that finding your voice is one of the best things you can do if you want to convert your readers to buyers.

Halloween and Christmas Lenses

Well I'm a little late with this post as I've been feeling a little Squidooed out to be perfectly honest.   I haven't updated all of my page break lenses let alone checked for my custom bios!   I do have a few things to talk about however.

The first thing is for you to look to your left - I have some lenses for sell for only $10.   I made a new lens with an idea about flipping it a couple of weeks ago and listed it along with some old lenses that are in need of some tlc or I developed them meaning them to become part of a group of lenses and stopped at one!   I've already sold a few of them, but keep an eye on what's on offer in case you see any that you 'must' have!

If anyone is interested in getting a lens custom built for them then just contact me and I'll be only too happy to talk to you about it - the price will depend on what you're after.

Now you're probably thinking this post says Halloween and Christmas lenses when are we going to talk about them?   This time, last year, I started building Halloween lenses as I really didn't have much in the way of Halloween lenses before that - last October I received 4 figures from those lenses.   It is definitely the time to make a start if you haven't already.   I found I was more productive when I actually planned out exactly what type of lenses I wanted to make (there were only 2 that weren't made, so I was very happy).

I also started brushing up and increasing my Christmas lenses in July last year and Christmas is always very profitable for me.

I look at it by thinking when do the shops start showing displays and getting people thinking about the holiday season - then I figure that they've probably placed their orders a month beforehand.   I know the internet is a little different to shops, but the planning side is definitely one that I think can be emulated well.

I want people to start seeing Halloween decorations or costumes around and then search online to land on my sites!   The same with Christmas.   October, November and December aka the last quarter of the year is traditionally the one that sees the most online sales of any other time of the year and I want us all to cash in on that.

Amazon Update & New Opportunities To Explore

First I have to give you an update - the 'sneeky' way of using out own Amazon associate code in the spotlight feature no longer works!   It appears that with the recent changes HQ have also managed to close that loophole so I'm sorry if anyone else wasted the hours I did in changing them over.

On a brighter note I have gone through nearly 100 of my 470+ lenses and updated the majority of the amazon modules to my own links using text modules and I'm pleased to say that it looks like I'll be getting an Amazon check each month from next month (I missed out on one this month by just over $2 - so close!).   It really is worth switching over to your own links once you start making regular sales through Squidoo and I should probably have done this a lot sooner.

Now in the past week I've heard about two new opportunities which I thought I would mention - one I have trialled the other I haven't yet!   They are called Wizzley and Loveblinks.

Let's talk about Wizzley first - now this is a very fledgling company started by some old timer Lensmasters (and I use that term in a good way - it means they know what they're doing!).   When I first looked there I was concerned by a clause in their TOC which they had copied (with permission) from another site - as soon as I queried it they looked into it and amended it.   I was impressed!

I was reading the forum before I published my first page and people were making suggestions and getting them acted upon very quickly.   Now is obviously the time to get in on this opportunity as the founders are just as hands on at communicating with us as they are at getting the site up and running to it's best potential.

This is my first page on Wizzley - How to Make Money on Zazzle - if you look at it you can see the layout looks fantastic.   It's like the birth child of Hubpages and Squidoo in that it has taken elements from both sites which are fantastic.   Wizzley doesn't pay you, all of your income comes from your own links - Google, Amazon, AllPosters and Zazzle.

You can set your pages to have the standard Google ads or a more discrete amount of Google ads or even switch them off all together.   There are modules for Amazon, Allposters and Zazzle where you input your own code.   I think this could be the birth of something really good.

I know this blog is all about Squidoo and I'm waffling on about another site, but there are two reasons for this - one is don't put all your eggs in one basket (always great advice as my grandmother passed this on to me!) and the other is backlinks.

After you've written five pages on Wizzley your links become dofollow so these should be good backlinks to get.

There is also the traffic factor - my first article got 80 visits in the first 24 hours which I thought was amazing......I wish all of my lenses got that!   If you can get people to your page and then clicking through to your lenses as well then you have double the chance to make a sale.

If you like the idea of Wizzley then I'm going to drop in my referral link for you here - Wizzley.com.

The next new opportunity is a site called LoveBlinks which has been set up by another lensmaster.   Now I joined this site yesterday, but I haven't had a chance to 'play around' with it yet and see how it goes.   It was basically set up as a way of getting backlinks to our lenses which sounds good doesn't it?

It's also an adsense sharing site which means another opportunity to add a further income stream which is always good.   If you want to check out more about it then here is the link - LoveBlinks which also contains my referral so that I can see if you've signed up and give you a little twitter love :D

As I've said I haven't had a chance to explore this site much yet, but I think the concept is a great idea and hopefully we'll all do well there.

Well this has been a long post today!   If you've already come across one or both of these sites before please share your experiences and any tips in the comments, thank you.