Heads UP!!! A Warning From Squidoo Headquarters

Here we see something VERY IMPORTANT from Megan Casey:

"Squidoo does not endorse or recommend ratings swaps. Not only because it’s not in the spirit of the site, but also because it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t earn you loyal readers or customers, it doesn’t help people find you in search engines, and it doesn’t increase the quality of your content. That, and it’s risky. A star rating is only a tiny factor in our LensRank algorithm right now. You’re not going to win with even 500 fake ratings. And, in fact, if you spam people asking for them, you’ll assuredly lose.

Finally, remember: Squidoo reserves the right to change our LensRank algorithm at any time. We’re currently working on (unannounced) changes that will end up impacting swappers without warning. Building a so-called business on massive rating swaps or traffic exchanges could mean you did a whole lot of work for a whole lot of nothing."

Genuine rankings according to content and quality, and whether you'd send your best friend over to visit a page, is critical to how Squidoo operates.

Be warned!

MP: Woodturning Projects by Sewjr

One of the finest commerce Squidoo lenses you'll find has long been one of my favorites. It has been a member of the Mall on Squidoo group almost since the beginning. It has made the Most Profitable (MP) list, #1 position.

Woodturning Projects by Sewjr is one of many really high quality lenses. This page is an especially fine example of what a small business, artisan or craftsman can do to get traffic and build a relationship with visitors. He gives his best information, advice and inspiration and then creates opportunities for interested people to participate.

Stan has two woodworking groups, the Woodworking Headquarters and the 'As the Wood Turns' Headquarters. These are very attractive to new and to experienced woodcrafters.

Because of his great lenscrafting skills, Stan is one of the founding jurists of the By Invitation Only juried lens contest, helping jury the best Squidoo lenses for the People's Choice Lensmasters & Awards.

Stan is a real winner, a Titan on Squidoo, and a person to get to know and watch!

MP List: At Home Source- Mall Member

AtHomeSource has many lenses, and not all of them are in the Mall group. She has shared with us little baby Molly as her 'trademark'- a baby so cute that the planet should crack in half, and makes it a worthwhile visit just to get a look at Molly!

Many of AtHomeSource's lenses have managed to make LR and MP and so this lensmaster is onto something in her Squidoo commerce lensbuilding techniques and her marketing.

Platform Beds with Storage has been a regular on the LR. Most of the modules in this lens are for affiliate sales, which have beautiful pictures and LOADS of information for anyone who is seriously interested in platform beds. Her MP status is gained by having related ebay modules which clearly make sufficient sales to put her on MP on a regular basis.

I'm sure she would tell you that VOLUME of traffic is much less important than QUALITY TARGETED TRAFFIC, the kind of traffic that is seriously shopping this niche, and is very interested in a good selection of quality at a good price.

She also provides a series of really good links for addiitonal information, resources and ideas for the shopper that could use a few.

Currently on MP is her lens Nitro RC Trucks | Gas Powered Monster Trucks for Sale, which makes great use of ebay auctions for this very specific niche. It isn't a long lens, but it has a very tight selection of exactly the items that the title offers. Customers get no surprises here by diversionary tactics, she gives them EXACTLY what they came for.

New Lensmaster: JonitasKalimpo

As a Citizen Squid and as a committed lensmaster, I spend a LOT of time at SquidU. When an up and coming lensmaster shows up and immediately begins helping and making themselves useful, I notice.

One such is JonitasKalimpo, who came onto the scene in June of this year, and has been an incredibly committed and talented lensmaster.

Joao has created a lens Samsung Blackjack i607 Smartphone Guide, and it really does epitomize what I hope to see as a 'personal shopping assistant' commerce lens at the Mall.

This lens has a very logical layout, with loads of useful information, all with the eye to helping the visitor know whether this particular type of phone is the one for them or not. Joao offers technical details, instructions, and all the accessories, enabling anyone interested to take a good look and make a good choice.

There are beautiful and detailed pictures, a table of contents (or menu) and surprisingly relevant videos!

Extremely well done and I will be proud to feature all of Joao's lenses!

New Lensmaster: Mariane

Mariane is one of our terrific commerce lensmasters, who has found a way to create and promote items of interest and importance to her, using Squidoo. Like the rest of us, Mariane has high hopes that all of her work will rate high in Google, and bring to visitors her unique and important perspective.

I really like her lens Spanx Shapewear With the Celebrities, and her knowledge about Spanx, and the celebrities that wear them, is impressive.

Using Squidoo as an economic development tool, for all of us, is a specific principle to be dedicated to and apply.

What this means is that lensmasters can increase the economic prosperity of all lensmasters, and all of Squidoo, if we purchase from one another FIRST.

Since I was present at the very beginning of the new studies and teaching of micro- economic development principles (think Grameen Bank), I want to point out that it is known that any community that purchases from within itself FIRST actually generates $7 of income for every $1 spent!

How is this possible? By spending within the community FIRST, as each member does the same, it enriches each member that gets a purchase BEFORE the money leaves the community. Squidoo is a community. We are, hopefully, all on the same team, all on the same page.

Had America stuck with this principle, purchasing locally before purchasing with international or even foreign corporations, we wouldn't have the debt and job losses we have now.

We can enrich ourselves and each other if we purchase something we need from each other's lenses before we look elsewhere to purchase.

So, if you need or want Spanx, my suggestion is that you help Squidoo, help Mariane, and help yourself by purchasing Spanx from her lens. She, and others, will do the same for you!

Be Smart: Enter the Lensmaster Contest

A GREAT beginning for a lens that has moved from 3 modules (wip) to 4, and wants to become eligible for the 'featured lens' list, is to add it to the By Invitation Only Lensmaster's Contest.

First, MAKE A GOOD LENS.

Second, decide whether the focus is on content (ala Michelangelo's David) or Commerce (ala Amish Quilt Racks) and enter your lens on the appropriate monthly plexo.

Look at, and vote for, all of the lenses in the contest.

Then, LEAVE A COMMENT!

Lensroll the contest lens to your own lens!

You will receive traffic from:

1. Other lensmasters who will also visit and vote on the lenses.
2. Jurists who look at the lenses to vote.
3. Visitors who are looking for good lenses.
4. Others who are seeking lenses for some reason or other (eg. LOTD)

You will also get a link to your page. With the comment, you will get a link to your lensmaster's roster. With the lensroll, you will have a reciprocal link.

If you are one of 6 winners, your lens and your lensmaster's page will be blogged and so you will have additional external links.

I am LOOKING FOR YOU THERE!

WIP: Exactly, what is the definition?

There is a LOT of debate in the lounge as to whether WIP lenses are 3 modules or less than three, not including the introduction or the guestbook. Headquarters, after their original posting, has not clarified this issue.

I don't think it needs more clarification, because the proof is in what shows up as wip and what doesn't.

Lenses with 3 modules or less have dropped off the list of the featured lenses, AND have dropped out of my visibility in any of my groups.

If all you have are the intro, three modules and the guestbook, then your lens is STILL undeveloped.

You will need to have a 4th module to be permitted to be featured, and without traffic of any kind your lens may still not be found in Squidoo search results.

The Mall groups have 5 modules as a requirement to be featured.

Once you have your 4 modules, and can become part of the featured lenses, then you will need to do some extra things to generate other links to your lens and hopefully some traffic.

I have several projects that will help you to do that. I will begin discussing those next.

Giddy Gabby: Squidoo's Friendly Soul

Giddy Gabby is another one who makes herself known around Squidoo, one of the friendliest and most open, warm human beings you could want to know. Along with me and a few others, Giddy Gabby has been a citizen squid since May.

She has joined our Mall on Squidoo group with My Quiche Pan Store, a page that will make a quiche lover out of you, even if you have never tried it!

Welcome to the Mall on Squidoo group, Giddy Gabby! You're a real pleasure to have around!

Small Business Ebay Seller at the Mall: A High Point!

Karendelac has been participating in Squidoo, by visiting and leaving a comment on many lenses. She has created a beautiful niche page: Thomas Kindade on Squidoo.

Her page is truly beautiful, not only because she shows so much artwork, but also because she gives important information about her business, her ebay page, her power seller status, her shipping policies, and even details about the art that you don't often find.

She has brought to our attention the symbolism used by Thomas Kinkade in each of his pieces, and because of this we feel we know the artist a little better.

Karen's page is rich and inviting, a terrific 'front door' to her small business and her ebay presence.

She understands how to use her Squidoo page and does it to great advantage.

We are delighted to have Karen in the Mall on Squidoo group!

Squidoo Featured Lens/WIP: What this Means

Squidoo has implemented the Featured lens function into its algorithm. All lenses at Squidoo are affected by this, including yours at the Mall.

This is not the same as the 'Featured Lens' on the Mall page or other group pages.

Group membership now cuts off at about 90,000 LR, automatically. Evidently no lens can apply to a group unless it has a higher lensrank than 90,000.

Lenses that WERE in the Mall group but are no longer were not booted by me, but by the new algorithm.

WIP lenses are 'works in progress' meaning that they have 3 modules or less, NOT including the intro and a guestbook.

If you have upgraded your lens so it has 4 modules or more, you still may not qualify to be in any group, until you have raised your lensranking to over 90,000.

How can your lens be upgraded to a LR high enough to be in a group?

There are several ways.

1. Traffic. If, by blogging or external linking, you can draw some traffic to your lens, it will do a LOT to increase its lensrank.
2. Email. Email your lens to as many people on your email list as possible.
3. SquidAngels. Ask the squid angels to visit, rate and bless your lens.
4. Sales. If you make a sale from your lens, it will help your lensrank.
5. Google ranking. A good google ranking automatically brings in traffic.
6. Visit lots of lenses and leave a nice comment and rating. Your lensmaster page is automatically linked when you do that, and all of your lenses benefit.
7. Get a reciprocal link by adding your new or upgraded lens to the plexo at Name the Squid. Lensroll the Name the Squid lens to your new lens, and your new lens will be lensrolled to Name the Squid.
8. Request that I blog or add your lens to upcoming featured Mall pages by adding it to the guestbook on the Mall on Squidoo headquarters guestbook. If I see you are participating in Squidoo by leaving comments on member's lenses, I will add you to the lists.

There are other means to improve your Squidoo lensranking to bring you into the 'featured lens' category. You might try writing an article that links. Build a hub page. Ask someone to blog your lens.

If you have been permanently featured on a Mall on Squidoo page, and your lens has dropped to wip status, you will still be featured on that Mall page.

Huge Pile of Lenses! Over 1500!!!

Despite what our black hatted friends are doing, our group now has over 1500 lenses!

I have stepped up the work on organizing and permanently featuring your lenses, and so you will see great progress over the next weeks.

Build MORE MORE MORE commerce lenses, and get them all linked up- the more of this you do, the better for Squidoo, the better for you, the better for your PR.

Whoa! Black Hats have YOU in their sights!

In the SquidU forum, one of our group members followed a link that showed up in his stats. He posted this link to a internetmarketingguru's forum.

Probably because of MP, this leading lensmaster was found. The group explored his lenses, dissected his techniques and content.

Conclusions?

1. Black Hat SEO people are using MP to find 'profitable' niches that don't take too much work, in order to duplicate content.

2. As our favorite SEO Expert said in his blog: "Black Hat SEOs know what they are doing is defined as BAD, and do it anyway for specific reasons (not usually including “get banned”). I like to think of Black Hat SEOs as opportunists. They see an opportunity to gain, and take it, managing the associated risk. Please don’t confuse ignorant SEOs with Black Hat SEOs… the ignorant ones are those who execute on Black Hat (evil) tactics without managing the risks (either out of ignorance or folly doesn’t matter to me here)."

3. The opportunists aren't particularly thrilled with the flood of like-minded individuals they have brought to Squidoo with them, so they have thousands of other lenses and lensmasters using their same tricks. Gil has done great things to diminish the motivations to spamdoo Squidoo. So many of their antics up to now won't work anymore. What's next?

Now they are looking at YOU and your work, and which are making money.

Lady Bird Johnson

A few weeks back I acquired a Texas Wildflower lens that the lensowner was no longer interested in keeping. It wasn't a well-visited lens, there wasn't much interest and as a commerce lens there simply isn't much to offer except seeds and guidebooks.

However, Texas Wildflowers have been a passion of one of our Former First Ladies, Lady Bird Johnson, for all of her life. So, I decided to add this information to the page, which enhances the understanding of our inheritance of incredible wildflowers. Connecting Lady Bird to the wildflower lens didn't increase its commerce value, but it certainly improved the value of the page in other so many other respects.

Lady Bird Johnson did so much for this country, beautifying the highways with medians, wildflower plantings, and limiting the hideous roadside clutter of too many billboards. She was a civil rights pioneer, one with INFLUENCE, and a formidable businesswoman. When her husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson was elected to Congress, but also served in the active duty military, Lady Bird manned his political office in his absence, helping him to serve our country in two critical ways at one time.

I didn't anticipate this right away, even though she had aged, I understood she was still very healthy; but Lady Bird passed away on July 11, 2007. Because of her importance, this page was selected as Lens of the Day.

I hope that, in honor of an incredible First Lady, who served America all of her life with passion, grace and loyalty, that you'll visit this page and leave your respects. I suspect that her family and those who love her will find this page at some point. Perhaps your comments will help console them in their (and our) great loss.

Dealing with Spamdoo: Guestbooks

Recently some internetmarketingguruwannabees have promoted signing guestbooks with your links as a very nice way to promote your lens. This guru was evidently totally unaware of the hideous problem such activities have caused the blogging community and the enormous uproar all over the web over such practices. When asked, one of the 'gurus' said: "well, I didn't tell anyone to spam!"

Yes, our guestbooks have been getting heavily spammed. Frequently I check my guestbooks for spam, and have been getting so much, from irrelevant comments to huge pictures left to suck up space.

We already have a lot to do to properly maintain our lenses, and this new task was another time consuming waste.

Gil has added some functions to the guestbook modules to help us, and I hope you will use them! This will eventually reduce the spamming we see, until these people find another way.

You will now see a 'ban' function, which means you can ban any lensmaster that leaves a spamdoo in your guestbook. In the group version of 'ban lensmaster' that person is banned from every group a groupmaster may have (I have 41). I don't know if you ban a lensmaster from leaving guestbook comments that they will also be banned from leaving comments on every one of your lenses or not.

Your guestbook still has the other options: you can have only signed in squidoo members to leave comments; or anyone can comment; you can disallow ANY html in your comments, or you can still allow links.

When you visit other lenses, which I strongly recommend that you do, don't be afraid to leave a comment and, if allowed, a link to a lens. However, I do recommend this:

1. READ THE PAGE! If you read the page you will be able to leave a relevant comment. Lensmasters LOVE that.

2. Find something (not a headline or title) that you liked and mention it in your comment. This proves you were actually interested in the page and aren't spamming.

3. If you can and do leave a link, try to leave one that is relevant in some way to the page you are on. Many of us have LOTS of lenses, and one of them may actually be relevant.

Remember that it isn't necessary to always link to a page of your own, because when you leave a comment, your entire lensmaster roster is automatically linked.

This isn't rocket science, and our lensmasters are terrific and gracious people. Let's set a high standard and example for others as we make our rounds and visit each other.

Iframes are OUT 7/12/07 D Day

Many of our merchants in all the Mall on Squidoo groups use iframes to bring their affiliate program offerings to visitors.

All that will be over with on Thursday this week.

Squidoo has been continually flooded with spamdoo lenses, and even a hideous number of spamdoo groups, and since our Google rankings and traffic are suffering, as well as our reputation all over the internet, something must be done.

This is one more thing we have to thank the spamdooers for. God bless them, each and every one.

For the Mall on Squidoo groups:

This slows down my own work renovating the Mall on Squidoo groups because of the many iframes that I use, and I really don't want my lenses to lose their visitors because of the dead space that will show up once iframes are stripped by headquarters. So I have to work on my own lenses.

You will need to prepare for this too, and work on your own pages. I won't be able to feature any lenses that have the iframes stripped from them that haven't been adjusted. I'll give you some time.

If you have any suggestions as to how other merchants can substitute for iframes in their lenses, feel free to leave that information in the comments, at the SquidU lounge, or email me and I'll post it here with a link to your page.

Featured Lenses/ Works in Progress

Wow the changes since I last blogged! They also will make a HUGE difference in how I see and promote YOUR lenses in the Mall on Squidoo GROUPS.

There is almost too much to write about for weeks on end.

The first change that is good to talk about is the Featured Lenses/Works in Progress lenses.

On your new dashboard you will see little green checks or a grey - sign. This will tell you if your lens is a Featured Lens or a Work In Progress lens.

We had seen the adsense revenues for even the top lenses dropping month by month, due to the increasing number of undeveloped lenses also sharing in adsense revenues.

Headquarters has rectified this and has established a tight tier system for lenses which awards the adsense pool based on quality, traffic and other factors. Unpublished or undeveloped lenses will no longer share in the adsense pool and dilute it for the performing lenses.

Now the top tier of lenses received $3.80 in adsense revenues alone, making such a page worth approximately $900 on the open market! This is without considering the value of additional revenues the page may be generating.

Squidoo has graduated from a purely fun site with lots of potential to a serious investment grade site.

As I continue to work on updating the Mall group, this new system restores the usefulness of lensrank when I consider how I will feature and promote the Mall on Squidoo and its member lenses.

NOW is a great time to work on your Works in Progress lenses and make something great out of them~