SocialMarker.com is a great site that let’s your bookmark blog posts on the top social bookmarking websites from one screen. It really makes it easy to generate lots of free traffic to a blog.
How To Build A Squidoo Page
Squidoo is a new social site with a twist. The benefit of creating a Squidoo lens is monetary in nature as they share the advertising revenue with you based on the traffic that your page and site generates. This is an added bonus to anyone who knows how to get some real traffic to their Squidoo Lens.
Before you can begin to build your Squidoo lens you will have to have an account with Squidoo. You can easily sign up for a free membership with a username and password associated with an email account. You are allowed to have 10 lens/pages per email account. You will receive a confirmation email and once confirmed your account will be activated and you will be able to create your own lens.
Before you start creating your own lens it would be a good idea to do some research on the topic that you would like to create. There are many different niches out there that you can target but not all niches are created equal. Some have much higher values for Pay Per Click and some have better values for affiliate programs or digital products. You will have to identify the niche that you would like to create your lens prior to its creation. This will help optimize the process as well as give you the maximum results.
Now that you have signed up for Squidoo you will want to log-in and go to make a lens. You will want to optimize it to your niche. You will have to find some of the top keyword search terms that are searched for by using a keyword tool. Use those terms in your lens title for example if you have chosen dog training as your niche you will want to include the phrase dog-training as the name of your lens.
Once you have created your URL you will need to select the category that best suits your niche. Next you will have to select the rating for your lens. Unless you have something that is x-rated or very adult you will most likely have G rated content. Next you will have to add your keywords to the lens. This will help the search engines identify what your page is about and possibly help you get ranked for that term. That is not a give in but it is a possibility. You should pick your best 3 terms and input them at this stage.
You should now be given the option to edit your Squidoo lens. Take a look at the content that you want to add. A good idea would be to take a look at other sites that are related to your niche to get some ideas as to the layout and the content. Another smart idea would be to add links to other related sites as well as to your sites as well. Make sure that they are related links though. Do not add a sports link to a dog training site. It would not be related and most likely you will not receive any good traffic from it.
Change the lens to reflect your own personality. After all this should reflect you and give it that personal touch. Don’t expect to become a millionaire off of one lens but if you create enough lens’s you can expect to receive a decent residual return over time.
How much money are you leaving on the table?
I just returned from a fantastic 10 day vacation in Arizona. After a bit of car trouble (expensive transmission problems – OUCH) in Central California, we made it to our first stop, beautiful Barstow, California (near Hinkley, the toxic town featured in the movie Erin Brockovich). We didn’t get to bed until 2 AM the first night and had to be back on the road at 6 AM to get to the Grand Canyon in time to complete our 8 mile hike into the canyon before it got dark. We finished our 3 hour hike down into the canyon just as the sun was setting. Our destination was the Havasupai Indian Reservation deep in the Grand Canyon. Check out the beautiful pictures at www.havasupaitribe.com
After two longs days of travel and a beautiful but exhausting hike into the canyon, we literally stumbled into the village on the Havasupai Reservation. The Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful places on earth but the Havasupai Reservation is a very depressing place. The homes are very run down, the locals dump their garbage in their yards, horses leave their fragrant trail everywhere, packs of wild dogs scavenge for food and water, and the locals are very lazy and unmotivated.
Everything is brought in via horses and pack mules so there’s very little fresh food. We watched them unload the packages of Cup of
Noodles, Rice A Roni, tons of soda and Gatorade, and coolers full of pre-packed food straight from your local 7 Eleven. Everything they eat in the valley is microwaveable food with tons of preservatives and sodium. The result is that every local is obese and extremely lazy.
There’s one cafe in town that’s supposed to be open from 8 AM until 6 PM which was our only place to eat. Other than that there was a grocery store and a convenience store that sold the wonderful microwave meals. The locals open and close their businesses at will. Sometimes they’re open all day other days they close when they feel like it. If you ask anyone for directions or help, they look at you and say "I don’t know". They grow peaches but no fresh vegetables or other fruits. They don’t make any jewelry or souvenirs to sell to the thousands of tourists that visit every year. They make no effort at all to earn money to improve their life and living conditions. It’s really sad to see a tribe of people lose their traditions and their desire. They’re content to receive their government stipend and just barely survive.
If they were motivated, they could clean up their village and provide more services to the tourists. The tourists would love to spend money on authentic Indian jewelry and souvenirs. They would love to eat authentic Indian food instead of the microwave meals now
served at the cafe. The locals could make a fortune from the tourists by providing basic services and goods that the tourists are expecting. Look at the Indian tribes that have gaming on their reservations. They’re improving their lives and providing opportunity for
their children. The Havasupai have no interest in improving their situation and helping their children thrive instead of just surviving.
They’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
How much money are you leaving on the table in your business? What other goods and services could you provide to your customers so you can earn more money? Have you asked your customers what else you could provide that they would like to buy from you? What are you waiting for?
Until next time,
Ted
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10 Steps to Finding Good Blogs
You’ve found a list of blogs in your niche and you’re ready to start commenting to build a relationship with their readers. How do you know if this is a good blog to comment on? There are a number of factors that determine if this is the right blog for you to comment on.