Squidoo Is Perfect For Bloggers
Ok, I know I am a little late on this one. I’ve found quite a few people making a Squidoo Lens everyday so I figured I would find out what all the fuss was about. Overall I am pretty impressed and think that it’s perfect for any blogger to use. Yesterday I created my first Squidoo Lens.
Why Squidoo?
Every time I go back to Squidoo I find something new. I probably can’t cover everything in this article.
Building a Squidoo lens is like making a mini blog that exists on one page. It’s basically a landing page for any niche you wish to write about. Basically it can be an extremely targeting web page about whatever you want it to be about. You can even create multiple lens’ to basically link them all together.
But why? Well for many bloggers building links to your blog can be difficult, but it is also very important. The more links that you have the better your website will rank in Google, and for the terms you want.
For example, I made a Squidoo Lens about free samples. In the lens I put links to my own blogs, as well as displayed their RSS feeds and put a bit extra ways for me to make money.
For every Google Adsense click, Amazon Sale, eBay sale, I get my own bit of commission for it. As well, I put my own affiliates on my lens to give me 100% of whatever I can get sign-ups for. If you haven’t taken advantage of Squidoo lens’ for affiliate marketing, you just might want to.
Squidoo is Easy!
I was surprised at how easy Squidoo is. Blogger took me a bit to master, but it is pretty easy as well. You can start a blog and publish an article in a few minutes at blogger. With Squidoo it’s even easier. You can have an entire lens finished in 5-10 minutes after a bit of navigating around.
There are different modules you can incorporate into your Squidoo Lens to make it interactive. One of my favorite Squidoo Lens’ is about online contests. There you can submit your own contest or even a contest blog if you want to. I’ve used this function on my own Squidoo Lens and allow visitors to add their own free samples.
Squidoo Referral Program
I didn’t even know Squidoo had an affiliate program until after I joined! It’s not much, but if you can refer people and they earn money, you can get money too. When your referral earns its first $15, you AND your referral will each get $5.
Basically it’s incentive enough for you to join as my referral so we can both earn $5!
Squidoo Wrap Up
While writing this article I got inspired to create a few more lens’. The possibilities and topics for Squidoo are endless. You can build links to your niche sites, as well as earn a bit of income doing it. I definitely plan on keeping updates posted about how am I doing with my Squidoo. If you are already on Squidoo make sure to comment on my free sample lens and point me to your lens’. We can exchange ratings as well as favorites and fans.
If I haven’t convinced you to join, maybe Janet can. She has the #1 lens on Squidoo. She writes about how shes made money with Squidoo. From June 4th to July 10th she’s made $483 on Squidoo alone, not including her affiliate commissions. Check out her lens, but make sure to come back and join as my referral!
Contest Roundup: August 31st
Summer is going to be over soon, but here at BAYB contest time will never end! Enter and win!
Cash and Advertising 1
First Contest at Rockstartemplate. Three lucky winners will get hard cash, Amazon Gift card and free advertising options. Gain your points: subscribe, technorati fave the blog and write a post about it.
Ends on September 25th.
Cash and Advertising 2
Win 25$ PayPal and free links on the site at Profitale. Many options to enter: comment, subscribe and blog about the competitions.
Ends on September 21st.
Cash and Amazon Gift Card
Easy blog contest from SuccessBiz4All: three cash prizes plus Amazon.com gift cards. Simply subscribe to his feed by email and get more entries by blogging about it on your blog.
Ends on September 15th.
If you’re looking for blog contests, if you want to promote your own competition, don’t forget to visit About Blog Contests!
Which Stat Tracker To Use
I’ve seen the question asked many times as to which stat/traffic counter is best for a blog. In my opinion counters are a pretty important blog tool to have installed. There are many different services to use. I would definitely recommend a free one. Unless you are doing some serious stuff, paying for a stat counter won’t make much sense.
Our Pick – StatCounter
One of the first things I do is add Statcounter to my blogs. It only takes a few minutes to install the code and you can manage your stats all in one place, with one account. I can view all 18 of my sites that are currently being ‘tracked’.
With Statcounter you can view what the last 500 visitors on your site was doing. You can view where they came from as well as keywords they found your blog on. Now 500 isn’t that much, but there is an alternative
Second Choice – Google Analytics
For my main sites I also like to add Google Analytics to the blog. With this you can get a better idea of the SEO of your blog by viewing which keywords are most popular. You can also better view your traffic stats and find your top referrers. This isn’t limited to any number, you can search by day, month, year or any custom period of time.
You can also view which posts are your most popular, perfect for round-up posts, or featuring your most popular posts on your sidebar as we do. This not only allows you to display your best work, but also keep them alive and fresh. It only took me a few seconds to find that our all-time most popular article is Stumbleupon Using Captcha (which went crazy with stumbles).
Other Traffic Counter Choices
Sitemeter
“Site Meter Basic offers a free, easy to install tool for sites looking to better understand who’s visiting their site, where customers are coming from, and where they are going within the site.”
I don’t actually use Site Meter, but it sounds like a good alternative to either Statcounter or Google Analytics. It’s all in preference and the ease of use for each service. They do offer a “premium” service that “starts at $6.95” which gives you more abilities.
Awstats
I’ve never been a big fan of Awstats, even though I do have it installed on BAYB for yet another traffic tracker. The one thing I do like about it is (again) the referral tracking. You can view how many people came from each URL.
Awstats never seems as accurate as Statcounter or Analytics. Those two stats are often fairly similar, but Awstats is always significantly higher or lower.
Which traffic counter do you use?
MomDot – It’s Where The Moms Go
I’ve always been partial to mommy bloggers. I can’t honestly say that I read too many of them, but I love networking and participating with the mommy’s in the blogosphere. I was pretty active in the PayPerPost forum, many of the bloggers there were mommys or women. Whether you need a vote, a link, or really anything they are there for you. Luckily I’ve found another place similar to that.
MomDot – For Moms and Me
I find myself joining “women only” or “mommy forums”. I originally found MomDot, because someone posted the Top 20 Contest Blogs list and I was getting traffic from it. I generally check out all of my traffic sources and make sure to say thank you etc, especially on a forum.
MomDot’s main thing is their blog, that is updated by the three owners. There are loads of contests, right now I just counted 11 open contests to win. There are also Mommy posts, contest round-ups, meme’s, and plugs to other sites. It’s really just directing traffic to everyone.
Right now one of the mom’s are going for hottest mommy, so vote and help her out.
Free Listings
A huge thing there are the free listings. None of their advertising is paid, it’s all given away. Their sidebar is filled with different blogs, boutiques and websites. All the contests are also sponsored, so it may be a great place to donate a prize and get some buzz from the mommy’s.
Networking
Conversing and just really getting to know the ladies on the MomDot forum has allowed me to really network, build contacts, more than I have been able to do in one place in a long time. One of my new friends even made me a button for Contest Live and put it on her blog. She runs a great contest blog, A Blog of Goodies.
Another one of my new friends/contacts made an entire post about Contest Live because I put her contest up for voting, and blogged about it on the Contest Live Blog.
I think there are two men on the forum including myself. I am the self proclaimed The Mom Dot Man, but after this post I may not be.
Perfect Business Update
I just wrote about the Perfect Business Competition. I am working on winning, the prize is $1,000.
Perfect Business Update
Well good news, the girl who went from 3-4th to 2,000+ votes has been disqualified. This means that now I’m only about 80 votes from first place.
This seems pretty attainable, at least to catch the women in first place.
The voting system has changed a little bit. Now you have to go to my profile, then click vote for me. Remember you can vote once per day!
Jamie Kennedy Contest Winners
Our Jamie Kennedy Contest went well, but it could of done better. On August 1st we launched our contest giving away Jamie Kennedy autographed items. It got around on a lot of the contest blogs, but many of them didn’t follow the “rules” to enter. Therefore we got the word out and a lot of links, but not very many entries.
Grand Prize Winners
There are three grand prize winners. Each person will receive a package of autographed Jamie Kennedy items.
The winners are:
Due to the fact as I mentioned that the entries were low, we chose 3 as key chain winners.
Congratulations to all of our winners, make sure to get in contact with me to claim your prizes.
Bloggers Buzzing About Yahoo Buzz
The latest buzz on the internet is Yahoo Buzz. Everyone from Entrecard to Problogger are buzzing. Both are different opinions, Entrecard has jumped on board, while Problogger isn’t buying the bait, neither am I. Regardless many people are excited over the possibilities of Yahoo Buzz. There is no web page more desired to be featured on than Yahoo!
Yahoo Buzz
Yahoo Buzz is another way to promote your content and articles. Some of the top stories that are buzzed, get featured on the front page of Yahoo. I’ve read reports that Yahoo.com still gets more visits than Google, so imagine the flood of traffic you’d receive from this.
Since Yahoo Buzz is allowing everyone to submit their content to it, I’ve seen many bloggers pushing Yahoo Buzz for votes. I have yet to see anyone report traffic, if any, for using Buzz. Until then I will be a little bit weary of it.
I’d have to imagine votes will be easy to get since nearly everyone at least has a Yahoo account. And thats all you need for a vote.
Perfect Business – Vote for Me
Perfect Business is a site where you can further network with entrepreneurs as well as try to learn and build about your own business. I’ve been on the site for about a day but so far I am pretty impressed with it.
Perfect Business Competition
Perfect Business is running a competition where you can vote for your favorite entrepreneur once per day. I’ve decided to try and throw my hat in the mix. The winner will receive $1000 in business seed money. I sure wouldn’t mind that! The top 10 will also receive prizes, which may be a little more realistic for me to get to.
You can vote for anyone, and you don’t have to be a member to join. You can vote for me here. Just visit my profile then click on vote for me.
As I mentioned Perfect Business allows you to network with other entrepreneurs and business owners. Worth a shot to set up a profile and get in contact with the other members.