Making my name in the Squidoo Chain

OK I am trying this again. I was so proud of myself when I finally finished my new lens: http://www.squidoo.com/collegevisitsurvivalchecklist that I thought I had posted it but it is not showing up in the next posting. I am trying again. If it finally shows up, chalk it up to enthusiasm! Please visit and leave comments. I think this is a lens that can really help make college visits worthwhile so I am hoping the word gets out!

Well I had to put myself right in the middle of my lens-http://www.squidoo.com/dormroomdecorating. Last Sunday was packing day. Monday we went down to the school and spent the night to help with the stress of move in day. Tuesday was move in at school. Everything fit and having a plan made it much easier. I did learn and add to the lens that we still needed to buy a few things when we were there. And in the end, I took a picture of the finished space!

I also got a nice letter from Bonnie at Squidoo saying that she likes my lenses and introduced me to some Giant Squid links. It was great validation for a newbie. I would LOVE to have 50 lenses by September 30, but unless I get much faster, that isn’t going to happen. I do have 11 lenses under construction in various stages.

My question for you is, how many lenses to you have under construction at one time? Are you a one at a time person, or do you start them when you have that flash of inspiration? And, do you think one way is better than another?

I am learning a lot more lessons from making my lens: http://www.squidoo.com/30minuteslens  than I expected.

• In terms of what people are interested in, I have had 3 times the visitors to this lens than my first two lenses.
• In terms of what it takes to make a great lens, I learned that quality is related to time.
• I learned that a lot of people feel the same way I did, wondering why they couldn’t make a lens in such a short time.
• I learned that posting in Critique me at SquidU has had a huge number of views vs. my first two critique me postings.
• I learned that getting people to try the experiment is harder than it seems.
• I learned that getting people to leave a comment, especially in answer to the questions I posed is even harder.

So how can I take the lessons I learned to make better lenses and more popular lenses?

My new question is this: Do you make lenses for the purpose of informing or do you make a lens because you know it will be popular?  Or, have you found a happy medium?

OK- Today I decided to try my hand at a 30 minute lens. Frankly I didn’t think it was possible for me, but somehow I managed! I found that I was holding my breath a lot and probably wasted a lot of time looking at the clock as I really wanted to be at exactly 30 minutes. Drum roll please…….http://www.squidoo.com/30minuteslens

I posted at Squid U and said that I learned it is possible, but I feel a lot of content is missing. I posted the question, “What lenses do you feel are absolutely necessary in a 30 minute lens?” So I ask you as well….

Also, I will create a lens link for any other 30 minute lenses! Come on by and say hi!

First of all, thanks for the advice not to unmax my lens! I think it has a lot to do with the fact that as of this morning, http://www.squidoo.com/collegevisitsurvival is #38 in Family and #800 overall! Wow!  My second lens is now at #434 overall but only #11732 overall.

So what it shows me, is that the lenses about making better lenses really do help. I have spent a lot of time at SquidU, I have made it a point to visit at least 20 new lenses a day as well. I still have to work on the backlinking. Both lenses were accepted at Isle of Squid, but when I try to add the coding to my lenses, the whole text is underlined which looks lousy. I want to backlink this blog as well.

Any helpful hints how to do linking well and where to add backlinks within the lens?

Happy Saturday Y’all!

My first lens:  http://www.squidoo.com/collegevisitsurvival  has left its formerly great rank and is rapidly slipping backward. Just in time for me to announce my newest lens: http://www.squidoo.com/dormroomdecorating.

Any help, input, additional ideas for promoting this would be great since it will be current only for the next month as kids get ready to leave for college.

Time to get busy on my next lens: College Visit Survival!

I was just visiting SquidU and found a topic about changing the look of your lens. I found out how to UnMax a lens so I have done it. If anyone would be so kind as to take a look and let me know if they like the look, it would be most appreciated!

http://www.squidoo.com/collegevisitsurvival

Well, I just signed up at a site called Qassia as a way to get some backlinks…I hope. It was recommended on another lens. I linke that it is a free and easy way to get some more traffic to my lenses. They ask you to add a small bit of “intel” to get Qdollars which work towards backlinking. If you add original content, you can get more Q$, but you can use portions of your lenses as well. I know this will be a trial and error process but it looks like a nice fit to me. Go to my user page:http://annetteghallowell.qassia.com/  and you can see how you can try this out for yourself.

If you do use Qassia already, I would love to know how it has worked for you.

Oh- I am now ranked #157/#3650 for http://www.squidoo.com/collegevisitsurvival!

Today’s stats: #164 in parenting and 3924 overall. I added more tag words yesterday and joined a few groups. I still haven’t figured out how to add or what exactly link backs are. I have information overload. I want to figure it out right now! Next on my to do list is figuring out how to make some money!

My first lens http://www.squidoo.com/collegevisitsurvival is now ranked #288 in Family and #7586 overall. I am thrilled and still trying to figure out the whole marketing aspect of Squidooing. I also have started a 3rd lens about dorm room decorating. It seems I need to start more than one lens at a time.

Does anyone out there have any opinions about working on one lens at a time versus multiple lenses at one time?