Sharing What I've Learned

Wow it is late my time, hence calling myself a night Hubber...probably not when I do my best work, but definitely when I get the most peace and quiet to get the work done.  Where do I even begin?

Okay, so if you haven't pinned your hubs; do it!  If you are an ex-Squid, used to be a member of Squidoo, and have pinned your articles, go through and fix all the links.  It should automatically redirect you to HubPages, but I noticed some of mine weren't and eventually when Squidoo is completely gone there could be a problem redirecting.  The other thing is that you can earn money by referring people who sign up on HubPages - you get 10% of what they earn from HubPages earnings (not from the writer).  How do you do it?  This is my referral link: http://hubpages.com/_3tb4psx2h1v0v/user/new/  -  once you are signed up, go to My Account > Earnings > Referral Trackers.  There you will find your referral code.  Replace my code, shown in bold in the link above, with yours and you are set!  Pin your referral link as well!  When you are creating or updating your hubs you will wonder why it is so important to add a summary to your hubs even though it doesn't even show up after you publish.  Well, when you pin a hub, as long as you pic the first picture after your summary; the summary will show with the pin.   (You can follow me on Pinterest here: http://www.pinterest.com/rymom28s/ and if you leave me your link in a comment I will follow you.)  Which brings me to my next subject...

I found some great stuff on the forums of HubPages.  Spend some time there and click on profiles to follow those that you feel you learn from or whose writings interest you.  I personally am also trying to find as many ex-Squids as I can.  Following will not only increase your traffic, but hopefully well seasoned Hubbers can send you some pointers as well.  Pin their articles as well to help each other out and save valuable info.  Here is a great hub for those transition from Squid to Hubber: http://relache.hubpages.com/hub/hubpages-squidoo

(BEWARE: mass following can hurt your hub score and cause other issues, so only do a few follows at a time.)


LINKING SITES IS KEY!  Link any and all sites that you are on to each other; Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus blogs, if you have a Facebook page you feel comfortable linking...link it all, so you can get a lot of exposure.  Also, make sure to use those sites to circulate your writing.  There may be a more efficient way of doing this, but after pinning my hub, I post an article (usually my most recent writing) on twitter.  Then, I share it on any pages that I can find on Facebook where the subject is relevant.  Finally, I post it on my blog here.  My newest hub is "Stuffed Animal Must-Haves"; how to keep stuffed animals looking great.  Make sure to edit your profile, and add all of your pages to the links section of your HubPages profile.  You can discover a lot by seeing who is pinning your articles or viewing them on Twitter, it will help you get a feel for what type of writing is working for you.

As for editing my articles: it has been a little crazy, but I think I finally have a system down.  I mainly have been focusing on pages that I see are being viewed frequently and subjects that are popular or relevant; such as holiday articles, and go from there.  First, I have been trying to go through and fix or update any links.  Next, I have been updating my topics, so they are easier to find.  Squidoo seemed to have limited topics, so I have been happy to find a lot more tops and subtopics on HubPages.  Then, I change and delete some of the products I have featured.  I also go through all the pictures and edit the picture source details, as that seems to have gotten all mixed up in the transfer. Finally, I try to go through and edit my content by making it clean and clear.  HubPages is more about content than featuring products, which is great, but makes it difficult to change some of the articles because on Squidoo you earned more money if you were getting sales from your pages and thus tend to have more of your articles focused on that.  I have deleted a couple of articles due to that.

I found out that you can't share the exact details of your earnings from HubPages, so I am guessing I will have some pocket change at the end of the month. lol  I don't really do it for the money though, a little helps, but I really enjoy writing online.  I hope that this has helped someone out there going through the same transition that I am.  Please feel free to share your hubs or profile here and I'd also appreciate it if you encouraged others to follow.

Here is my next goal, figuring out how to add a sitemap to HubPages: http://noveltreasure.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Add-a-Sitemap-to-Hubpages


Happy Writing!!! :)

Getting the Hang of HubPages

Alright, this one goes out to my ex-Squids and new Hubbers.  First, the differences from Squidoo to HubPages.  Let's start with the good; I like that there is a key on HubPages that shows you all of the notices for the articles (hubs).  They are good and bad notices, but even when they are negative notices that means you can fix them.  There seems to be more opportunities for earnings, as there are several programs.  I also like how easy it is to follow fellow Hubbers and there is an even a tab to keep track of articles and comments you are following.  If you decide to delete an article you have 24hrs to undelete it.  Now for the bad, or at least inconvenient; I liked the earnings charts that Squidoo had which itemized which article was earning and how much a lot better than the earnings reports they have on HubPages.  It was nice to be able to use that as a guide to which articles are better for earnings.  I have yet to find out exactly when Hubs start to earn based on their tier system.  I preferred the liberty to change the design and look of the Squidoo lenses that I wrote and I feel like all the ones on HubPages pretty much look the same.  HubPages also doesn't seems to have a lot of avenues to share your writing, such as the internet Magazines Squidoo had put together.  Now, it did take me a while to figure things out with Squidoo, so maybe I just need to do a little more digging to figure out some new things.

Here is the good stuff; tips on what to do when you have switched from Squidoo to Hubpages.  It helps to search other articles and follow other Hubbers, so you can learn what a good article looks like using the new format as well as getting your name out for people to check out your writing.  If I learned anything starting out on Squidoo it was that networking is key if you want to make money writing online.  Also it is good to start going through your articles to edit, correct, update, etc.  I unpublished all my articles that contained "violations" and am going through one by one correcting them.  I also am fixing any broken links or deleting them all together.  After I started this process I reapplied for the Google AdSense program and was accepted!  I am making money again!

Here are the articles that I have edited and updated, if you are seasoned Hubber please let me know if you have any ideas as to how I can improve my writing: Calming Products for Babies, Top Toddler Toys for Playrooms, Betty Crocker Holiday Cookie Mix.

Just to be clear, in case you are just getting started on this journey, writing online does not usually make you a ton of money.  Those that have made a good amount of money from it treat it like a full time job, network like crazy, and usually write on multiple sites.

The way to push yourself to success though is to focus on why you write, not on the money, and to make goals.  My goals are to have all of my current articles updated by the new year and to write and publish 10 articles within the next 6 months, bringing my total count up to 40.  Wish me luck and good luck to all my fellow writers!

Sorry I've Been Absent!

http://marketingdigest.com/squidoo-acquired-by-hubpages-content-migration-begins-in-a-few-weeks/

Hi there,

Not sure who is reading this blog anymore, as I have been out of the picture for so long.  I had several family events that kept me really busy the last almost two years, one of which being that I had another child.  There is a lot to update you on!  First and foremost, as you can see I am no longer a Squid, since Squidoo merged with HubPages I am now a Hubber.  (To find out more you can visit this blog: http://www.mywritingblog.com/2014/08/the-squidoo-merger-with-hubpages-and.html)  I feel like I am back at square one.  All of my articles (lenses are now called hubs) have been switched over, but there are different criteria that you must follow on HubPages than that of Squidoo.  If you are in the same boat some of the fellow hubbers shared this link that can help you: http://hubpages.com/learningcenter/contents.  At this point, I just want to be able to jump in where I left off, but there are several of my articles that have violations now due to having too many products or links.  It took me a year or two to really get the hang of Squidoo and I want to have a faster learning curve with HubPages, but thus far the process is going slow.  Fellow Squids, myself included, are finding that it is difficult to get accepted for Google Adsense right now.  You must have an account with them in order to earn on Hubpages, which means I haven't been earning anything since the merger - wish someone would have shared that little tid bit when this all took place, especially as many of my articles are centered towards the holidays.  I don't feel like the community is as close and helpful as Squidoo either and I miss getting those little goal messages from the monster, as it often helped me write more.   Anywho, I am trying to embrace this turn of events by changing the name and look of my blog, as well as a few other things.  I'll try to get back on track and keep you all posted.   My goal is to have all my articles published and violation free by the end of the month, here is hoping!

Sales are the Key!

I have a lot of catching up to do!  My family went on vacation at the end of October and it seems I've been trying to catch up with each holiday since.  Well, I only made $2 in November from Sept. and I was really discouraged.  I started to get more involved with church things, play groups with my little boy, working out, holiday stuff, etc. and put Squidoo on the back burner.  Then, I got paid for this month and remembered the sales I had made in Oct.

I realized that you can make money from anything someone buys on Amazon or ebay, as long they started purchasing from a link that you had on your article.  Thus, it is important to have interesting and great products that people want to at least check out because they may not buy that item, but they could buy others that also bring in money for you.

October 2012 royalties (paid out 12/11/2012)

• Total royalty-earning lenses on date: 7 lenses
• Total donated to charity: $0.00

Lens Payments	Paid	Charity AdPool  TLAds  Sales	Total
Halloween Holograms	$3.51	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $2.86	$3.51
Spooky Zombie Theme Party Food	$2.32	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $1.66	$2.31
How to Save on Major Appliances at Sears	$0.81	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $0.15	$0.80
Instant Costumes with Hats and Ski Masks	$0.66	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $0.00	$0.65
Horrifying Rats	$0.66	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $0.00	$0.65
Scrumptious Italian Chicken Sandwich	$0.66	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $0.00	$0.65
Skip-It Toy: Childhood Memories	$0.66	$0.00   $0.52      $0.13     $0.00	$0.65
Subtotal	$9.25	$0.00   $3.64      $0.91     $4.67	$9.22

Reserve Hopper & Other Account Payments	Total
Subtotal	$0.00

Less PayPal Cash Adjustment
Transaction fee	$-0.18 (This has gone up a lot, maybe because of sales?)

Cash total paid via PayPal: $9.06

(9.25-.18 ~ 9.07 still wrong)                                   Total that should have been paid: $9.04

Not quite sure how they are doing their math, I'm guessing there are some additional decimals being evaluated into the equation?

This is why it is important to go through EVERY pay out!  I did not go through last month's and I really should have.  I don't think it is a big deal here, but what if the payment is really off? Anyway, as you can see, sales made up over half of what I made made for October!!!!  This is the most I've made so far since starting with Squidoo! I wanted to get my butt going for December and had all these ideas for Christmas, but lost my gusto and so much came up that I just didn't pull it together.  I am happy to say I made my second charity lens: Carved Christmas Gourds.  I haven't written any other articles, but  I did make some sales this month though!  I am going to push forward for Valentine's and see where it leads me.  It is a good idea to make lenses that are not Valentine's specific, but rather revolve around love or couples, so the lens won't be seasonal.   Here are some other updates and activity from my profile:  Have you checked out Squidoo's Cozy Magazine yet? http://cozy.squidoo.com/   Another purple star!!!!! I have also had some lenses featured on the Celebrate Magazine the last couple months, but haven't been keeping up on them.  If you still need gift ideas, it is the perfect site!

HOPING YOU HAVE A...

See You Later Halloween, Hello Christmas!

Hello All,

My family went on vacation for two weeks and I tried to make sure to keep up with my lenses while we were gone, but it can be tough!  Halloween brought good success, as I made more sales from those articles - not much, but I am still excited about it!  Not sure how long the high ranking will last from those, but it sure would be nice if it could stay that way throughout most of the month.   My Haunted Hayride Madness did really well, although I'm still kind of kicking myself that I waited so long to write it.  Hopefully it will be just as popular next  year.  It was featured with other lenses on the Squiddo front page through Halloween and, as seen, was mentioned on the Happy Halloween Magazine facebook page.  I was kind of sad to see Halloween go, but am getting excited about Christmas!

"Aren't you missing Thanksgiving?" you might ask.  Well, I have four articles I have already written geared towards November that I hope do well this month: How to Save on Major Appliances at Sears has already started getting some good traffic, as Thanksgiving is the next big large appliance sale - I also updated and pinged this article.  Carved Gourds - The Perfect Fall Decoration, which I wrote a while ago, but didn't really pick up and I feel that these creations are so amazing, so I'm hoping people will get to enjoy them this month.  Delightfully Easy Fall Casserole, this is a recipe people can be used for Thanksgiving leftovers and I may need to edit it a bit to get more of an audience for that.  My latest lens that I wrote right before leaving on vacation is A Great Gift for Black Friday, which features Black Friday hats that are just perfect for that day and as gifts for those joining in the shopping fun!  As it is already November, it is too late to write an article if I want to make money on it this month, so I am moving straight on to Christmas, hoping that these three articles do well while crossing my fingers.

Celebrate, the new Squidoo online magazine, is now up and running!  There are tons of gift ideas on there and right now it is geared towards Christmas.  I have already added some lenses to the magazine, which include: Take Along Toys - The Best Gift for Babies, these are very popular toys and a huge life saver for parents and I am really hoping this one will pick up soon, Stuffed Animal Storage Bag, which I need to update and am thinking about changing the title,  Top Toddler Toys for Playrooms, I originally titled this "top ten..." and then realized I was going down the wrong patch with the article, so I had redo the entire lens,  George Foreman Grill, a gift for him, and A Great Gift for Black Friday.  I also would like to add Must Have Helpful Kitchen Gadgets to the magazine, which also needs to be updated.

In more exciting news, I applied for the Giant Squid Club and was accepted!  After being accepted I also received a purple star for my Tricks to Quick Cleaning article!  I AM OFFICIALLY A SUPER SQUID!!!  I am so excited!  Here is to future lenses and helping fellow Squids!!! :)

Some Things To Keep in Mind

Sometimes when you're writing on the internet you have to give yourself a good slap in the face!  I realized, once again, that lenses I created this month won't start earning any money until next month, which means the Haunted Hayride lens I wrote won't earn anything until next year.  DANG!  Here is a realization I also had then and possible tip.  If you want to write great articles for a holiday or special event, start writing or updating them the month before!  Also, I think I might have mentioned this before, but PING YOUR LENSES!  You can do it free at Squidutils and should do it every time you update or change something on your lens (article on Squidoo).  Also keep in mind that these will no longer be popular after the actual day has passed, until the next year, so it is a good idea probably to write a few great holiday lenses for holidays throughout the year, so something you have written is always rising in lens ranking.

Also, be careful of the RSS feeds you decide to put on your blogs and lenses.  Many a time I've seen horrible things starting to pop up on articles or blogs that don't match the topic and may be offensive.  I am thinking about writing a lens about it because I don't think people are really aware of it, as I see it happen often.

Anyway, happy writing and may your Squid goals be met!  Don't forget to keep these tips I mentioned in mind ;)

Another Pay Day!

August 2012 royalties (paid out 10/12/2012)

• Total royalty-earning lenses on date: 5 lenses
• Total donated to charity: $0.00

                                                                                                  (BREAKDOWN)     

Lens Payments	Paid	Charity Ad Pool Text Link Ads	Total
Skip-It Toy: Childhood Memories	$0.51	$0.00      $0.39          $0.12	$0.51
How to Save on Major Appliances at Sears	$0.51	$0.00      $0.39          $0.12	$0.51
Dragons: Just a Myth or Real Creatures?	$0.51	$0.00      $0.39          $0.12	$0.51
My Top Three Baby Calming Products	$0.51	$0.00      $0.39          $0.12	$0.51
Top Ten Heroine Suspense Movies	$0.12	$0.00      $0.00          $0.12	$0.12
Subtotal	$2.17	$0.00      $1.56          $0.60	$2.17

Reserve Hopper & Other Account Payments	Total
Subtotal	$0.00

Less PayPal Cash Adjustment
Transaction fee	$-0.04

Grand total paid: $2.12

 

(Hmmm, Grand total matches, but the Subtotal should be $2.16)

 

 

I've Been A Busy Squid-Bee and I Became an Angel

First, I'll give an update on my new lenses. I realized that I am a little behind on posting about these, so here is a list:
Stuffed Animal Storage Bag - 09/18
Halloween Holograms - 09/20
Delightfully Easy Fall Casserole - 09/22
Scary Halloween Rats - 09/26
Instant Costumes With Hats and Ski Masks - 09/29
Carved Gourds-The Perfect Fall Decoration - 10/02
Take Along Toys for Babies - 10/05
Haunted Hayride Madness - 10/12

Holy cow, I didn't even realize how much I have done in the last month until I listed it all out like that!!! I've been writing a lens about every three days, with the exception of the last one.

Now, for the story behind them...better get some popcorn, this is going to be a long blog entry!




Stuffed Animal Storage Bag: I created this article to complete a quest to write about an Amazon product.  I absolutely love this product!  My son loves it too and everyone that comes over asks us where we purchased it.  I am so glad that we bought this, as there are no longer a pile of stuffed animals all over the house.  I thought those that completed the quest would be spotlighted or featured somewhere, but I haven't seen anything.

Halloween Holograms:  I LOVE holograms!  I can't get enough of them.  When I was little my dad worked at a mall or something where they had this really neat studio (a different store from where he worked, not that where my dad worked wasn't neat or anything) that featured all holographic art.  The pictures looked like they were moving and could jump out at you and I was just mesmerized by them and I have fond memories of going there.  What better time to feature these awesome creations than Halloween?

Delightfully Easy Fall Casserole:  I also was completing a quest when I shared this recipe.  It was something I was waiting to make until it was officially fall.  It is great resolution for Thanksgiving left overs too!  My grandmother made it the best, but couldn't remember how when I asked her, which I talk about in the article.  It is a comfort meal for sure!

Scary Halloween Rats:  A Halloween quest had gone out to write about a Halloween creature.  Some examples were listed, but I didn't want to write about what everyone else was writing about.  I bounced a few ideas off my husband, who really didn't add much input.  I had almost settled on crows, but that night I was sitting watching my son's favorite movie with him, which is Disney/Pixar Ratatouille.  That was it!!!!  After that I just started searching for the scariest rat items I could find on Amazon.  I also discovered Zazzle, while I don't sell anything on that site directly, there are some great images you can use and the HTML code is already provided and your readers have another product option that they might love.

Instant Costumes With Hats and Ski Masks:  I felt like I hit the jackpot with this one and it has been viewed a lot, but not the most.  I think it is a great idea; put on a hat or ski mask that is a character and you've got your costume!  No hassle, inexpensive, and simple.  It was featured on the Happy Happy Halloween Squidoo Online Magazine and on their Facebook page.

Carved Gourds-The Perfect Fall Decoration:  I literally got goose-bumps from writing this article!  I wrote this to complete my final RocketSquids challenge, which was to use the new autumn theme.  I was looking at the fall decor we have and realized my all time favorite piece is the carved gourd we have.  Growing up, my family always loved to go into art and gift shops and thankfully my husband still likes to do this.  We were is a tourist town that we visited often in the fall and we picked out this great decoration there and also bought an owl gourd tree decoration for my mother-in-law, as she loves owls and these were just so beautiful.  The lamps I found for this lens are AMAZING, I can't say enough about them and can not do them justice.  Thank goodness the creature puts pictures of his latest projects on his site and includes the RSS feed - I used the RSS module for the first time for this lens and it was great because I didn't have to site the pictures or include links, it is already done and when that page gets updated, so does my article!  I was just a little sad to realize I would no longer be part of this group, so I immediately applied to be a Squid Angel.

Take Along Toys for Babies: I completed yet another quest when I created this article.  It was for a Gift Guide topic and there is going to be a new Squidoo online magazine called Celebrate that will be coming out soon.  I thought this might be featured on there, but it doesn't look like they have it up and running yet.  I'm guessing it won't come out until after Halloween.  Here is a thought though, to keep sales lenses and fresh and up to date I'm guessing that you could keep the Gift Guide topic and change the subtopic to the holiday or event that is most popular at the time, especially if it is a gift for any occasion.  I might play with this theory and get back to you on my findings. ;)  Also, check out this great lens that I found to get great tips about writing sales lenses: Why I Write Sales Lenses on Squidoo.

Haunted Hayride Madness: This was a big quest sent out from the Happy Halloween Magazine, the first 250, I think it is, will be featured on Halloween!  I sure hope I made it, I completed it two days after the challenge went out I believe.  I shared a true story about the hayride I will never, ever, forget.  I had been saving this story for the perfect moment and I hope I did it at the right time.  It has been very popular already (already 60 visits and counting) and it just got featured on the Squidoo main page, not lens of the day, but still awesome!  The child that was on this ride was actually rushed off by the adults that brought him as soon as the mishap occurred, as they thought it was part of the scare as well.  When we were walking back to the parking lot in the dark one of the actors was guiding us and an actor was just sitting out in the field and scared the living day lights out of me!!!  It was also so dark that I stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle.  My mom has this sixth sense kind of gift when it comes to her kids that she just knows deep down when something will go wrong and we took my sister who was older because she could make the decision on her own at that age, but we really tried to convince my mother to let us bring our brother.  For whatever reason she said she felt he shouldn't go.  Boy, was I glad he didn't go on that ride with us, it was too scary and his leg had already been injured from sports or something, so the walk back would have made him hurt even worse!

 ^ Haunted Hayride

I also reached some major mile stones this last month that I'd like to share:

~ First Sale! ~

My goals now are to update all my lenses at this point and write a lens about my RocketSquid experience and then I will be applying to be a Giant Squid, hoping to join soon!  I am so excited this experience is going well and hope I am giving people added motivation to join or stick with it!  I love this community!  Many blessings to everyone!

For more Squid Images like the animated SquidAngel visit: http://www.squidoo.com/animatedsquids.

More Ways to Follow

You can now follow me on Twitter and Pinterest, check it out!


Follow @rymom28



By the way, if you want to add these buttons to your blog, visit http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/ and https://twitter.com/about/resources/buttons to get the codes. Add a links widget or box to your blog, then copy and paste in the codes using HTML.  Now you too can add followers!

Scrumptious Food = Purple Star!

I received my first purple start on Squidoo!!!!  Before we get to all that though I wanted to talk more about my Spooky Zombie Party Food (Going to make you wait in suspense for a little while.)

I created this lens to complete the "S" RocketSquid Challenge, see more here: Letter S Challenge Lenses.  It was my first Halloween article and I might have over done it!  I found some of the neatest and horrifying zombie food out there!  Unfortunately, it has continued to be a little too gross for some, but when you are having a party theme that is the undead, what can be too icky for that?!?  It is not like I included real brains....okay, maybe I did, but they aren't human brains people!!!  I personally loved making it and know that if anyone tries some of the recipes, candies, food molds, that their party will be a complete hit at Halloween!

Back to the PURPLE STAR AWARD!!!

The purple star is a coveted award that lensmasters (authors on Squidoo) receive for out of this world awesome articles!  I received one for my Scumptious Italian Chicken Sandwich!


This was the first time that I had created a food article (lens) where I actually make the food.  I thought it would be hard, but it was actually really easy because I just took pictures as I made one of my favorite recipes, original recipe courtesy of my amazing sister, and then wrote it all down when I was done.  I had received a quest at the time to write a recipe article that featured chicken.  At the same time I had a RocketSquids challenge to create a super-niche lens.  What is a super-niche?  It is a very specific idea or subject that has been whittled down from a very a very broad subject.  Take the subject photos for example, then from that you could get landscape photos, then trees, then birch trees, Alaskan birch trees, and finally you could have photos of Alaskan birch trees in the fall - it is so specific it is hard for anyone else to cover the topic and it makes it easier for you to STAY on topic.  Anyway, I decided to submit the article for both the quest and the challenge; best decision I ever made!  It received double the amount of views and because it turned out so great it also was mentioned and noticed by some of the top volunteers at Squidoo - you really want them to notice you for good stuff that you do because that is when you will get mentioned and featured!  I actually submitted this later in the week for the RocketSquids challenge and was still number two on the list - kind of blew my timing theory out the window, but I was excited none the less!  My lens was also number two out of six of the "Eat More Chicken" featured from the quest recipes submitted!

 

Once that started happening I received the following email:

Boy, I was elated!!!   I couldn't believe it!  I thought it would take a lot longer to get one, but it just goes to show you that any article can do great.  I am so appreciative of it and very honored!  Part of the honor of getting this star is nominating someone else for it.

People are still saying good things about the sandwich recipe and I really owe a lot to my sister!  She was trying to find something to make for dinner one night and basically just started pulling stuff out of the pantry and fridge, only had enough cash on hand to buy bread and mozzarella cheese, and presto - started something amazing!  When she texted the recipe to me I took it, cut down the time & changed some ingredients to fit my family's tastes and now it is a family favorite!!!  I have included the original EXCLUSIVELY for those that read my blog, no where else will you find this!  If you want the new recipe though, you'll have to visit my lens:
Scumptious Italian Chicken Sandwich.  If you add changes to this recipe when you make it that you love, then let me know what they were and you may get some credit on my article!  There are already some variations listed there, including vegetarian and gluten-free.

 


Doesn't it make your mouth water?!?  It is so good and smells amazing when you make it!  Give it a try!

(For more chicken recipes visit: Eat More Chicken)






To find out more about the purple star award visit: Purplestar - Why You Might Want One

First Pay Day!!!

WOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!

It isn't much, but my first pay day has finally come!  My charity lens hasn't made any money yet, the Discover My Mother Had Cancer article, so you won't see that for a while but I hope it will soon.  I also would like to create more lenses (articles) for charity down the road.  My pay out is at a dollar right now, so I will increase that as I make more.  I have been waiting for this milestone!  Feeling good today and got some good motivation from it all!!!

 

  ~ Cash Paid Via PayPal ~

July 2012 royalties (paid out 09/08/2012)

 

• Total royalty-earning lenses on date: 4 lenses
• Total donated to charity: $0.00

                                                                                                                            (BREAK DOWN)

Lens Payments	Paid	Chrty	TxtLnk AdPool Total
Family Vacation – Driving to Your Summer Destination	$0.47	$0.00	$0.11   $0.36      $0.47
Dragons: Just a Myth or Real Creatures?	$0.47	$0.00	$0.11   $0.36      $0.47
My Top Three Baby Calming Products	$0.47	$0.00	$0.11   $0.36      $0.47
Best Ways to Save Big on Large Appliances at Sears	$0.47	$0.00	$0.11   $0.36      $0.47
Subtotal	$1.88	$0.00	$0.44   $1.44      $1.88

Reserve Hopper & Other Account Payments	Total
Subtotal	$0.00

Less PayPal Cash Adjustment
Transaction fee	$-0.04				GRAND TOTAL: $1.84 PAID

Tags and Bookmarks

It amazing to me that I am always learning something new about Squidoo.  I look back and my journey has a cycle; it has been up, then down, then a lot of helpful finds and updating/recreating, and back up again.  I have mainly been focusing on updating all my lenses this week.  I finally went to Squidutils and checked the health of all my articles.  When you do this you can also take a look at the the effectiveness of your tag words.  Tag words are words that are used frequently in your article that people will use to search and find your article.  I found out that even though the default is the put your title as your primary tag, it is best to put a two to three word phrase that has to do with your title, but is frequently searched.  It is good to keep the first letters of each word capitalized to keep it separated from the others and formatted nicely.  You also do not want tags that only you are using because people will not be able to use those to find your article.  You also want to use words and phrases already indexed on Squidoo.  When you type in part of the word, give Squidoo a minute to show you a list of phrases using or different versions of the word.  This great way to find out how your tags are doing and what you might need to change.  You also want to be sure to include SEO or tag words in the titles of your photos.  Don't use the exact same words; vary it, but keep them on topic with your article.

I am really glad I went through to update all my lenses, I was able to change photos, I added movie quotes to Feel-Good Movie Favorites, I completely revamped my very first article Discovering My Mother Had Cancer While I Was Pregnant, and found out that somehow all the tags were gone on my article about how to Save on Large Appliances at Sears (no wonder I wasn't getting hardly any traffic on that lens).  That is an important point, always SAVE!  In every section of the workshop on Squidoo there is a save button, hit that every time you make a change, then make sure to click on the Publish button otherwise your changes will be lost.  Anyway, take a look through my articles, as there have been some great changes and new additions: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/Rymom28.

I got my Halloween groove on as well with Spooky Zombie Theme Party Food and entered it to complete the "S" Rocketsquids challenge.  Some people found it too spooky and even though it was the second lens listed from completing the challenge it didn't get as many views, but I just completed a Halloween Party quest with it, so hopefully that will bring some more traffic.  Soon after publishing it I had a shock though.  It was marked for duplicate content and what had happened was that I had put long quotes in the description of two recipes.  However, I had cited my sources with links, so I followed the process it listed on the email notice to contact Squidoo when you believe your lens was improperly locked.  I also emailed one of the top people at Squidoo because I was worried my article I had worked so hard on was going to be deleted.  I am not going to list the person's name, as I'm sure they don't want everyone writing them when they have a locked article.  I was emailed by this person in the past, when joining one of the clubs, if I ever had any questions or problems to let them know, so that is why I felt I could contact them.  (You know who you are and thank you so much!!!!)  They unlocked my lens and confirmed that I had links to my information.  I deleted the quotes and wrote my own description of the recipes and included even more links, linking the pictures and the recipe.  There is a talk bubble module that already has quotation marks that I now have used for my Feel-Good Movie Favorites article and I haven't had a problem with using that to quote things now, but I think you do have a limit on the characters though, so you have to choose your quotes wisely.  That was the first time that had ever happened to me and my heart sank because I get so excited about every lens I create and I NEVER have duplicated content.  In fact, some say that you should not use the first person when writing, but I feel it connects the reader to me as the author and allows me to include my feelings, thoughts, and experiences to make it unique content.  Here are some rules and helpful hints in regards to original content: Squid Don'ts.

This article was an eye opener for me this past week: Social Bookmarking Sites - it talks about promoting your articles, the right way, using social bookmarking and sites that are Squidoo friendly.  This not only was super helpful for promoting my own article, but others as well, and now I have  a place to always have all the articles that have helped me on Squidoo.  First I went to Google Bookmarks, since I already have a profile for my blog, but found out that in the future iGoogle will be discontinued.  I read some user comments and someone had suggested www.allmyfaves.com.  What an awesome site!  You can create tabs for your bookmarks, categorizing them, and you can add their button to your Internet bookmarks bar and when you find a site you love you can just click on that button and it allows you to add the site directly to your allmyfaves list.  If you have an account or will be creating an account, make sure to add my blog and/or Squid Lenmasters Page!

So there you have it, more tips and helpful info for Squids like me!  Coming soon: chicken recipe article, you won't want to miss it!

If you love food, then you will find a lot of great recipes and easy cooking on my Squidoo profile!

Needing Motivation and Ideas ~ Getting on the Early Halloween Bandwagon

Well, I haven't been good about keeping up with challenges or quests the last little bit.  Our little family went on a mini vacation and while we were on it I found out my sister had gotten engaged.  I also am planning a party at our new house - life is good and we are so blessed!  It has been hard to get excited about writing though with all this amazing stuff going on, but I am trying to get back into it.  My two latest articles are: Sack Lunch Ideas, great stuff for parents that make their kids lunches or even make lunches for work, and Easy Indoor Grill, all about the George Foreman grill - my kitchen tool I never want to be without and has saved me many times while preparing meals.  The first was actually a Rocketsquids challenge that I turned in late, hence not getting a lot of views, and the other was a quest that I missed the deadline for, but at least I finished them - woo, hoo!  It was really hard to just pick one kitchen tool that I love and I wish I could have just submitted my Must Have Helpful Kitchen Gadgets lens, but it had to be one tool and when completing a challenge or quest they ask that you create a new lens.  How was I doing so great and now am down to feeling like I am completely lost on what I should be writing about?!?!  Uhhhhhhg!!!  Side note:  I haven't gone back to Squidutils - I need to do that and maybe I can get my low ranking lenses back to a good spot.

Anywho, they are celebrating Halloween like it is October already on Squidoo and I'm really excited about it, even joined the Squidoo Halloween Club, you can find out more here: Halloween on Squidoo.  Hopefully it will get me motivated to kick out some great lenses.  I feel like I'm kind of running out of creative ideas, especially in my lens design.  Really hoping the money starts coming in next month, even if it is a few cents - that will help get me more motivated for sure!  Until next time - keep creating!

* Surprise!  I guess it has been 6 months since I joined Squidoo, I really had hoped I'd be further, but I feel good things are around the corner and that it will just keep getting better. *

Food, Kitchen, Cooking and Featured Articles!

Wow, these were a couple of BIG weeks for me and it has taught me that I need to be patient and just keep the creative juices flowing.  I have a feeling this journey on Squidoo will continue to be a roller coaster of feelings, doubts, success, emotions, and more, but in the end I really enjoy it.  Writing has pulled me through some tough times or just helped me get thoughts out into the world that I didn't know how to share.

Video not for viewing - screen shot only.

Well, for me it seemed to be a food, kitchen, and cooking focus these last couple weeks.  I may have even found my niche, but I am not going to single out an account for it and all things pertained to those subjects are very broad...I feel I found that things have helped me when it comes to being in the kitchen or foods I really enjoy and it seems this is what people are looking for and that is exactly what I've been looking for.  First, I finished the Letter "A" Lens Challenge from RocketSquids with the article Anytime Foods. It was number two on the list and after having some time to play with it I can safely say that submitting your lens (article) sooner will put you higher on the list. They may change that in the future, but it has worked for me so far, so it is worth giving a try if you are a member and take part in the challenges. I actually had the idea for this article a long time ago and jot my ideas down somewhere when I have them. When the challenge was presented I suddenly thought to merge the words any and time to make one word to include in the title; the original title I wrote down was Foods You Can Eat Any Time of Day....pretty long, huh? The idea came to me after eating a breakfast burrito for lunch and it suddenly hit me that there were foods I liked to eat any time of day, then I started checking the internet and seems I wasn't the only one that didn't care what time it was to enjoy this delicious foods, which so far includes pizza, chicken sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, and burritos, but I will probably add more as time goes on.


Then I received a Monday Squidoo quest that said to create a lens that talked about something you did the day before.  Well, I was thinking about how we go to church, then relax, sometimes watch a movie, but then it came to me that Sunday has been deemed our easy dinner night.  Suddenly my Easy Dinner Sunday lens was born!  I usually outline my articles, but the deadline was 24hrs, so I created the entire thing on Squidoo and published it all in a matter of hours.  I didn't think anything would really come of it, to be honest, as it was just a fun quest and I threw it together so quickly that I wasn't sure if it was really had good quality stuff.  I fiddled with it for a few days and then yesterday saw it featured on the the front page of Squidoo!!!  I was sooooooo excited!  I certain amount of lenses that they choose, I'm not sure how many, get rotated in 15 spots on the front page and about every third time I clicked on the page it was one of the 15 and I think they run the same ones for a week!

*Side note:  we are about to potty train my first born and this lens was also one of the 15 that day, this article had some great books for kids on potty training: Top Toilet Training Books for Children.

When Monday rolled around it was time for another RocketSquids challenge.  Go figure, it was a food or cooking challenge!  It was a sign for me that I needed to keep going on this route.  This time I wrote about Must-Have Kitchen Gadgets.  There a some items in my kitchen I just can't imagine being without, so I went through my kitchen and picked out all the gadgets that I believed would help if everyone had them in their kitchen.  Once again it was listed as the second lens to complete this challenge, as I completed it early.  To keep up with all the RocketSquids lenses visit: The Rocketsquids Lensography.

My article is highlighted in yellow.

Well, if this wasn't all great enough, in between all these great happenings, I finally got my points for the Favorite Toy Quest, which I was already really excited about, but then I found out that my lens about the Skip-It Toy was featured as one of the top 30 favorites.  I also found out this quest was sent to the "top lensmasters in the Hobbies, Games & Toys category," which I apparently was because of my spoon collection lenses.  This is all so awesome and I very happy and excited to be receiving all this great exposure!  I so appreciate it and am really happy people are enjoying my writing.

I haven't made any money yet, but we will see what next month turns out, as I have said before pay outs lag by two months, so I won't see the profit from this month until November I believe.  I really hope it turns out well.  A quick update on my little boy; he is doing better, saw an allergist two times, and he may not need ear tubes.  Hoping his ears start to drain properly soon.


Good luck to anyone else that is also going on a Squidoo journey and may you have a great week!

Have I Got Some Tips for You!!!

Okay, I don't even know where to start.....first, I'll just say to manage your widgets!  What are widgets?  They are kind of like modules available for the right sidebar of your lens.  You can find them to the right of your workshop tools when editing your lens.  There are three available right now - RSS feed, Featured Lenses, and Amazon Spotlight Personal Review.  The RSS feed is great!  I now have my three latest blogs showing on each of my lenses.  The featured lenses rotate 3 lenses, even though I think you can put as many as you want to.  Right now, and I might change my mind down the road, but I like to only put three of my lenses that I think people will be interested in that are reading that lens.  Hopefully that will domino effect, as they click on the next lens which will have other featured lenses.  The Amazon spotlight can help you feature any product you want, as it works more like an ad; it can be some related to your lens or a product that you personally just love and want to promote.  I can't believe I wasn't using these before!  Find more about widgets and tips using them in these lenses: Sidebar Widgets and Spotlight An Amazon Product Using the Sidebar Widget.

More about RSS feed....so I could have sworn that I saw an option like this on blogger.  I did a little searching and found this link: How to Add an RSS Feed on Blogger.  Well, then I realized that I didn't know what the RSS feed URL would be in order to show my Squidoo articles, so I did a search on Squidoo - just typed in RSS.  Which led me to this lens: RSS Feeds Submission Directory, (loving this lensmaster for writing this lens) clicked on one of the links and it sent me to Squidutils.  A lot of people have actually mentioned this site and I don't know if it was because I was so new or what, but I was confused about it and just kind of went past it - BIG MISTAKE!  Once I logged in I found my RSS Feed URL, followed the directions from the "how to" link and BOOM - I've got my Squidoo lens feed showing on my blog!  How cool is that?!?!

Squidu: The Lensmaster's Lounge...this is a forum for Squidoo members that I first checked out when I discovered more about linkage and increasing your lens ranking.  It has good and bad points, but I think an important thing to do is to restrain yourself from saying some things that might not make you look good.  There have been some amazing members I have met on there that are super helpers and so supportive, a few that just want to bring everyone down, and some that think they need to be the "Squid police."  It is my belief that this world would not be as interesting as it is without so many different characters, but I have really had to bite my tongue on some things. Anywho, someone was posting a question about needing help on their lens or something along those lines - I can't quite remember.  Well, you have a signature that you can have show up at the bottom of your posts and this person had two different lensmaster profiles!  I knew this was a ligit thing to do, but a light bulb finally switched on when I checked out both of his profiles.  This lensmaster had different niches that he had and every lens or anything having to do with that profile was about that niche.  For example, if you live vacuums you could have a profile named Vacuummaster and then write on nothing but vacuums.  This is is how people are really making the big bucks on Squidoo.  To be honest, from a personally point of view I am still on the fence on what or how I feel about doing this.  One of the things I HATED about being in the business world was that everyone was a shark, take out the competition kind of mentality and I feel like this kind of is the same concept.  Once you have written so many lenses on the subject and do it really well, then no one can really compete.  Is it smart and make sense, for sure, is it a good thing to do the other writers, not sure how I feel about that.  What do you think?  Leave a comment for me.
UPDATE:  This forum has been transferred to SquidooHQ at the following link: http://hq.squidoo.com/forums/forum/chatterbox/

Back to Squidutils...there are sooooo many useful tools on this site!  Basically it is the all time lens manager.  You can check your links, Amazon stuff, content...you name it!  My next goal is to go through each of my lenses using this site and find out what is lacking and then fix it.  Little tid bit I've already found out - make sure when you take the allowed pictures you can use for your lenses and save them that you put similar words in the document name that you have in your lens title or tags.

Are you liking, bookmarking, or taking notes?!?  Well, these are mine and I wanted to share them because there some key tips in this blog entry, not only for those on Squidoo, but bloggers as well.  Hope I helped someone out and if I did maybe you could send me a little credit? lol  Keep writing and reading!!!

Once you join or if you are thinking about joining Squidoo, check out this lens (article): What's Your Story?

I joined to do exactly that, to "write about what I know and love".