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!