Archive for July, 2009
One Week Left To Join A Team To Be A Giant Squid!
July 25th, 2009
There is still one week left to join a Greeter Team to be a Giant Squid! I am so excited about this project, it’s a great way to share and show off your lenses AND get the motivation you need to get you 50 quality lenses.
Soooooooooooooooooooo…
Join a Team
Your Giant Squid Greeters will be cheering you on toward Giant Squid
status in September 2009. Not sure which team to join, just go ahead
and pick one. Every single one of our Greeters is a stellar lensmaster
and a generous member of the Squidoo community.
- Team One
- Welcome
to the lens for Team One. We are one of five teams competing in the
Giant Squid Challenge September 2009 — organized by our Giant Squid
Community Organizers and the Giant Squid Greeters. It’s a friendly
competition geared to inspire and motive you to be your best. - Rajays Rocking Squids
- If
you are looking to become a Giant Squid or Giant 100 Club member this
October 2009, then I WANT YOU to join The Rajays Rocking Squids Team.
The Squidoo Giant Greeters and Organizers have a competition setup to
recruit potential Giants and Giant 100′s to join our individual teams. - Kab’s Fab Squid Squad
- Hey
there, fellow lensmaster. So, you’re trying to become a Giant Squid,
eh? Or, what’s that, you’re shooting for Giant Squid 100 Club? Well,
welcome to Kab’s Fab Squid Squad, a team of lensmasters just like you
in a race for their lives (and when I say lives I badges). - Jolly Judicious Jetsetters
- The
Squidoo Greeters present the Giant Squid Challenge for September 2009!
This is soooooooooo exciting. We all had a great time with the
challenge in May and June. We produced over 400 lenses and found lots
of great Squidoo friends!
Would you like to be a Jolly Judicious Jetsetter this session? - Willow’s Wonder Squids
- And
you’re
invited to jump right in and join this challenge!
A little elaboration for all of you who came to this lens: Giant Squid
Organizers and Greeters are throwing a great and fun challenge called
Giant Squid Challenge September 2009 for all lensmasters who want to
meet deadline September 30, 2009 with at least 50 outstanding lenses!
Posted in 
Purple Stars Awarded Week Ending July 24, 2009
July 24th, 2009
The following lenses have been awarded with Purple Stars during the past week.
They appear here in no particular order. Be sure to visit them all!
The Best-Ever Hawaiian Punch Recipe
How to Create a Faux Marble Countertop
Recycling Sweaters into New Accessories
How is Your Home’s Property Value Determined
Fallen Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan
A Tale of SwallowTails May 2009
How to Start a Face Painting Business
How to Make Crusty French Bread
Beginners Guide to Playing the Harmonica
Seasonings- An Imaginary Restaurant
Seafood Watch- What are the Best Fish to Eat?
How To Pick Your Primary Tags
July 24th, 2009
Originally posted on SquidU Forum as The Importance of Primary Tags.
This post was published on April 21st, 2008 and updated on July 23rd, 2009.
The Primary Tag is the first tag you are asked to define when creating your new lens, and it is an often misunderstood and poorly utilised by many Lensmasters. Admittedly, it doesn’t seem do a whole lot, but there are some important points you should know.
Over half of the lenses on Squidoo have poorly chosen Primary Tags!
It is important for Lensmasters to choose good keywords for their Primary Tag, as it can have a significant effect on the ranking of the lens. Every appearance of the Primary Tag on your lens adds weight to that key phrase on your lens, as well as creating a relevant link from the tag page.
More importantly (and relatively recently), the tag page gives priority to lenses that use that tag as their Primary Tag, listing them before all of the other lenses. This means that for one well chosen tag, your lens will get the prime spot on the tag page.
There is also the lens directory here at SquidUtils, which automatically collates lenses by Primary Tag. Only those tags that have 3 or more good lenses under them will be featured, so there’s another reason to pick yours carefully.
Here are some tips to help you pick the right keywords:
1. Your Primary Tag wants to be the most important key phrase that you can think of. For example, if your lens is about a person or a product, stick to just their name.
2. Keep your tag to just 2 or 3 words, where possible. One word is not always specific enough (unless the subject is a strong brand like Pepsi), and more than 3 words can sometimes be too specific. Of course, it does depend on your subject matter.
3. Don’t simply repeat your Lens title again (even though this is the default when building a lens). Your title should include as many keywords as you can sensibly fit (no keyword stuffing!), while your Primary Tag is about your key phrase.
4. Format your Primary Tag nicely – keep it Capitalised, spelt correctly (!) and don’t include any special characters or quotes (”). Use spaces between words, and not dashes or underscores.
5. Pick a Primary Tag which is popular, i.e. people will be likely to be searching for it and other lenses are might also have the same Primary Tag (but not too popular).
If you have Firefox then the Lens Workshop Addon will highlight the tags in the workshop based on their popularity. Avoid any tags that are highlighted in red, as no other lenses use them.
6. Group related lenses under the same Primary Tag – this creates strong links between them, and helps them all to rank well for the target key phrase.
Here are some (random) examples of good Primary Tags:
» Harry Potter
» Xbox 360
» Dog Training
» Digital Photography
Bad examples:
» The Whole Lens Title Again
» Kee Frase Speled Wong
» lowercasewithnospaces
» “Phrase in Quotes”
Once you’ve got your Primary Tag picked out, you will then need to think of some good keywords for the other, ordinary tags. Start with the Primary Tag, and then think of variations from there. The regular tags can be shorter or longer, but you should keep them as relevant to the lens content as possible. Single word tags tend to have poor relevance, but good PageRank. Avoid tags that are runtogetherwords, unless they are commonly used, e.g. videogames.
Happy tagging…
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Seeing Glitchy Groups?
July 24th, 2009
We’re currently looking into some goofs that prevent modules from appearing properly on groups, and may prevent some groupmasters from editing. Thanks for your patience while we figure it out!
Congrats Marine Parents!
July 24th, 2009
Voting is closed and ballots are tallied, congrats to Marine Parents for winning our $3,000 charity giveaway!
As you know, this contest was different from past contests. In order to be eligible, charities first had to pay an entry fee if you will. They had to build ten great lenses in just seven days! Over thirty charities showed interest in the challenge, and eight finalists met it, with the help of dedicated volunteers and lensmasters.
With nearly 75% of the votes, Marine Parents took a strong lead in our contest, and won the prize. Here’s what they had to say about how they’d spend $3,000: “We could certainly use the $3,000 to help with the renovations of our new corporate office and/or for the shipping costs to send care packages to our Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan in August.”
While we had a great time putting together this contest, our savviest charities know that contests aren’t the end all of generating donations through Squidoo. For this contest alone, in less than two days, nearly 7500 people stopped by the contest page to vote. Wow! 7500! That’s 7500 registered users who care enough about the future of our partner charities to stop what they’re doing and take action.
The real question is, what are these 7500 people going to do to continue supporting charities above and beyond this one contest?
Let me share a story about charity lenses. A few years ago, I had a problem. My dog was munching through tennis balls like crazy, and it was getting expensive. I built a lens with links to used, bulk tennis balls, figuring it was kind of a goofy thing, and I’d be the only one to use it. I set the royalties to go to charity, and totally forgot about it. But a few months later I realized it was really taking off. People were commenting on the guestbook and buying tennis balls. I was getting referrals from eBay and Amazon sales, and traffic from search engines.
In two years, that lens has generated over $250 for the Humane Society, and I put maybe 30 minutes worth of work into it. That’s $10 a month of easy money that is helping put puppies in loving homes. Even if the lens only made $1 per month, it was 30 minutes well spent.
This means if you could get just TEN volunteers to spend 30 minutes a week to build a lens to support your cause, and each lens made just $1 a month, in two years you could generate over $11,900 to fulfill your mission. Um…wow! It costs your volunteers nothing, and we bet they’ll have a heck of a lot of fun doing it. How does that compare to your current fundraisers’ ROI? Could you find ten volunteers who love you enough to do that?
Over 30 partner charities told us what they would do with $3,000 and we were amazed. The needs of these charities are so real, so immediate, and so worthy. They’re all right here on Squidoo, ready to show you how to help them make our communities better. Visit these charities, learn more about them, and consider sending a donation or making a lens to support them.
WWCD: What Would Charities Do with $3,000?
We want to see that happen, and we want to show you how to use the tools Squidoo offers to accomplish that goal and others. That’s why we’re ramping up the charity resources on Squidoo to provide more training, more partnership opportunities, and more one-on-one answers to your questions.
Keep an eye on the Charity Network Newsletter for more details coming soon. (subscribe here)
I’m looking forward to working with you!
~Kimberly Dawn Wells
YOUR Community & Charity Organizer
Giant Squid Buddy-Up Project
July 24th, 2009
Hey Giants, have you got 5 family members or friends that are interested in Squidoo?
Why not join the Giant Buddy-Up challenge?
To enter the BuddyUp Challenge, all you have to do is create a simple lens that lists all 5 people you are going to teach how to make lenses. Put their names on the lens and say something nice about why you chose them. Put a Link List Plexo on your lens for each person (so, 5 Plexos) so that they can add and show off the lenses they each make during the month of August.
Send your lens to bonnie(at)squidoo.com by August 1st 2009 to participate!
Learn more here:
The Giant Squid Buddy-Up Project
This challenge will run from August 1st through August 31st 2009.
Photo appears courtesy of Creative Commons and Kreative Capture.
Learn Learn Learn
July 23rd, 2009
I think the most important part of any endeavor is always learning from your mistakes.
I’ve got hundreds of lenses (Hundreds!) that are total failures.
Except for what I’ve learned from them.
You can learn a little by finding good information from smart people in the forums or on blogs etc.
But you can learn so much more by doing.
Instead of reacting, or stopping before you start, go Do.
If you need help with the ‘Do’ then this is the place to be. I’ll do my best to help show some things that can make ‘doing’ easier, faster, or more efficient.
But if you don’t start out by doing SOMETHING, there’s not a lot of advice I have to give.
RocketMoms for Charity!
July 22nd, 2009
Have you voted to give away $3,000?
July 21st, 2009
If you haven’t already voted, do it quick! Then go tell a friend.
At 9 pm EST voting will close and one of eight partner charities will win $3,000.
Visit Who Deserves $3,000? to learn more and vote.
Bug Squashing Day
July 21st, 2009
If you’re seeing a nasty bug, such as:
– favorites that won’t come up
– a lens getting stuck in the spam filter
– click out stats not showing
– missing guestbook buttons
…we’re on it!
And if your bug isn’t listed above, please file a bug report.
But the good news is we have found and fixed the front door bug, so now you can make all your favorite SquidWho and SquidLit and Ever.com lenses!
Thanks for your patience!
