Squidoo Lenses

I’m actively researching Squidoo as a way to earn more affiliate commissions, and to that end I’ve been creating various types of squidoo lenses so that I can monitor their progress and report back, so far I have created 27 different types of lens – (click any of the links to see how easy Squidoo Lens Creation can be:).

I’m in the process of putting together a really in depth ebook and videos on how to use Squidoo effectively, and the ebook will be offered free over at my new marketing website where visitors will be able to download it for free.

Here are all my Squidoo lenses, and it’s worth your while to visit a couple just to see how easy it is to go about creating a website for free. Squidoo takes care of everything for you – it helps you set up your affiliate links correctly, inserts Google Adsense adds specific to your topic (you get a monthly share of all the adsense revenue generated by every Squidoo lens)

Content Professor – A Squidoo lens about Content Professor the free article spinner for mac and pc – This is a classic way of earning affiliate payments by putting up an affiliate lens. My ebook will show you how to do this easily and effectiv

Accessories after the Fact - a book about the JFK assassination – look at how Squidoo incorporates Google Adsense automatically here.

How to cure a Mac that won’t boot up or start as normal. Here you can see how easy it is to add Amazon affiliate links to a Squidoo lens.

Falling Birds Of America – A lens explaining the strange deaths of thousands of birds in Arkansas and Texas.

Crossfire – a great book by Jim Marrs – again on the Kennedy assassination

How to Market Your Books – John Kremer – A Squidlit Squidoo lens reviewing  A must have for Freelancers, Self Publishers and Kindle promoters.

8 free browsers for the Mac Speaks for itself really – this lens shows how to use screenshots effectively in Squidoo Lens SEO. Gets big traffic week in week out.

Was Darwin Right? A Lens that asks some questions about ‘evolution’. It might sound ‘dry’ but it still has adsense and affiliate links built in.

A book review of Dan Poynters self publishing manual – Shows how to incorporate Amazon links.

Two forgotten missing flyers from the 1930′s An article about two flyers who disappeared without trace in the Iraqi desert leaving their plane intact.

Ralphy  – If you visit any lens, make it this one – it’s quirky, wildly successful and it shows just how good Squidoo can be  – it donates all its profits to a Squidoo charity – and it earns a lot for them! If you are in any pet niche you are leaving money on the table not using Squidoo.

The falling birds of Europe – Sister article to the USA one above, cataloguing the mirrored strange loss of birds across different parts of Europe.

Blood Meridian – a book review of the classic western by Cormac McCarthy – it took about 45 minutes to create (including the links)

Eight great email clients for the mac An info Squid lens for the mac community on Squidoo – (the mac lenses I have put together are page one on google for their respective keywords, and regularly get outside traffic from mac users with problems.)

The strange deaths of millions of fish worldwide – A sister lens to both bird lenses above, designed to appeal to the ‘strange phenomena’ niche.

Mac Disk Won’t Mount?  How to fix things if your Mac disk doesn’t boot up as normal – A hints and tips lens for Mac users – gets lots of outside traffic as it ranks well.

A book review of The Books Of Charles Fort – The guy who first documented strange happenings long before radio and television.

Aiming at Amazon – a review of a book for self publishers-and Kindle publishers too

Winged Victory – a superb book written by a WW1 fighter pilot on the Western Front.

What happened to Flying Officer Holding? – Another ‘Strange Events’ lens with affiliate links embedded.

Disk Stuck in Your Macs Superdrive? 7 ways to eject a stuck cd from a Mac Superdrive – Self explanatory, but worth a look to see how the links are embedded – this gets great search engine traffic from ‘passers by’ with this Mac problem.

What makes me tick – Every lensmaster needs a bio lens to back up their credibility. You can’t get to a higher level without one – always handy to know.

The Middle Parts Of Fortune – A book review of one of my favourite books about WW1 ever.

The Renegade Writer – Book review of a must have book for all freelance writers, embedded with ebay and Amazon affiliate links.

Steve Webers Plug Your Book – A review of another must have book for freelance writers. Squidoo loves book reviews.

The Non-Designers Design Book – How I used a Squidoo template to allow you to look at Robin Williams’ gorgeous book on design in print.

John Thornhills One Month Mentor Course – An unadulterated affiliate lens designed to get clicks towards Johns website, and this type of lens is encouraged by Squidoo!

Well, there you have a list of everything I’ve created so far on Squidoo, click on a few, get to see how Squidoo works, and start building your own first lens!

So there you are…all 27 of my Squidoo Lenses….well worth a visit to each one to just see how I’ve put things together.

It’s time to Squidoo.

Why have I changed to iPage webhosting?

Before I found iPage Webhosting I have had four different web hosts. All used cpanel, I had to use FTP file transfer apps to put my blogs and sites up on the web, and I have to admit it was difficult and time consuming. I needed to find a host that took all that weight off me, and allowed me to concentrate on my writing.

After a mornings research I found iPage Webhosting, and a quick visit to their site convinced me that they had a real edge over the competition. Once you are into the members area you can register your iPage Website, your iPage Domain or your iPage WordPress blog.

I signed up with iPage Webhosting, and whenever I want to put together a new site, all I do now is input my URL, click into my iPage Control Panel, and their unique setup wizards do the rest, without me having to touch a thing. I save hours each day, and no fiddling with uploads and the right files going into the wrong directories; iPage Webhosting looks after everything for me.

If I need to check anything out they have 24/7 live chat with a techperson who sorts your problem out on the spot. Fantastic service.

What do I get for my money with iPage Webhosting?

For less than $3 a month, iPage webhosting gives me unlimited domains, mailboxes and domain registrations plus a full security suite to ensure my blogs are unhackable, a marketing suite with Adwords and Bing credits thrown in, $50 worth of Facebook credits, a support suite just voted the best in the industry, and finally, a Design suite that can put together anything from a blog to an online store – and all ‘drag and drop.’

Here’s what I mean about all the things iPage Webhosting gives you for your money….

All of this for less than $3 a month? Believe it!

Have a look at the iPage Webhosting site and see how much time and money you could save by switching hosts over to iPage Webhosting. They’re new, they’re innovative, and their service is ridiculously good. Click on the banner to see the benefits iPage Webhosting give you when you choose them as your webhost.

The banner is down there on the right, and clicking on it takes you straight to the site.

All this for less than $3 a month? – you can see I’m more than happy with iPage Webhosting!

Is Mark James associated with Blogging To The Bank?

Once again, an email appears this morning from Mark James asking me to ‘look at a link’.

I’m always leery of offers to check out a link to something without first telling me what it is, but , as I’ve been on Marks list for some time now, I decided to look at what he was offering, but before I did so, out of curiosity, I went to the website associated to his email address, and lo and behold,

I was taken to the Blogging To The Bank website, via a cloaked link.

For those of you who are new to Internet Marketing, Blogging to the bank has been around a while now, and promises to set up a blog for you and have it up and running and make money blogging within 24hrs. Yes, quite.

What concerns me a little is that I know Blogging to the bank was written by Rob Benwell, a young Brit marketer who seems to have slipped off the  horizon for some reason (see below), not by Mark James.

And now Blogging to the bank appears to have been resurrected as blogging to the bank 2011.

Trouble is, if you do any checking around the internet about the product, you come up against a wall of negative reviews and complaints…how about these from IMREPORTCARD, a site dedicated to reviewing IM products fairly, and giving actual buyers and users a chance to comment on their purchase…… Here is some of the feedback for blogging to the bank:

‘DO NOT BUY – IT’S NOT WORTH THE VERY LIMITED USEFUL INFORMATION YOU GAIN’ posted in April 2010 – or these headings of posts on the same  forum…

‘Scam Scam Scam’ – ‘No support Rip Off’ – ‘Absolutely no delivery or communication’……and it goes on like this for 18 different users. Not one positive comment from anyone.

Which has got me thinking – with Rob Benwell now off the scene (he last tweeted 247 days ago), and Mark James link taking me straight to the Blogging to the bank website – is there more than a tenuous link here, or is something a little strange going on?

So…as usual, I’ve signed up for the Blogging to the bank process, and I’ll keep you informed of whats happening. If I were you, I’d keep your money in your mattress until I have a look at it for you.

I’m not saying the this is a Blogging To The Bank Scam, I’m just very interested in why the dominoes seem to be stacked as they are. Is Rob Benwell now Mark James?

If you know anything about Blogging to the Bank, I’d love to hear from you…

Till then, keep your powder dry, and I’ll  keep researching Blogging to the bank!

As an update to my earlier post about unsubcribing from emails. I cut away over forty internet marketers and left comments why I had done so via aweber explaining that I was unsubscribing so that I could concentrate on one thing at a time.

Only one person out of all those people got back to me, Mark Mason, who complimented me on my approach, asked me to keep in touch if I ever needed any help in the future, and wished me well.

Guess who has just sent him an email asking to be put back on his list. Right first time…me.

In the world of scams, smoke and mirrors that is the internet marketing community, some good guys are still out there operating.

To see how an ethical marketer works….

Check out Marks blog

Like everyone else, I subscribe to email marketing lists for various reasons – mainly to get access to products and services, and other times simply because I want to see how I am treated.

I expect that ethical email marketing IM’rs would want to build some sort of trust based relationship with me, where they share their knowledge, I appreciate that and make comments to them personally or on their blog. A classic case of this ethical approach is that of the American writer and publisher Mike McMillan, who sends me the odd email, once a month or so, normally containing advice or hints and tips to make my work a little better.

But Mike McMillan and his approach to email marketing is the exception rather than the rule  and makes him one of the good guys, because in every Internet Marketing course or book you read., you will come across the same mantra “the money is in the list”.

Which is code for ‘email marketing (aka making money),is a numbers game.’

Every day, I get at least a hundred emails bombarding me with product offers. If I buy one, they get a cut of the money – so they hit their lists on almost a daily basis trying to convince us to buy. Most days, when a new ‘big ticket’ product comes out that might me major profits for them, I might find 12 or 13 emails from different marketers all touting the same thing.

The Email Marketing Numbers Game

What do I mean by numbers game? If those marketers have a list of 10k subscribers, they confidently expect at least 2% to buy the product – and if they throw in ‘bonuses to buy’ (usually outdated ebooks) they might make that conversion rate creep up to 4 or 5%. The big boys claim over 10% of their list will buy into anything they send to them (sometimes very, very cynically). The onus is on them to keep hitting our mailboxes on a daily basis to continue to ‘convert’ emails into sales.

And that’s where it starts to annoy me, because I’m busy, and I need all the time I can muster from my day to get on with my work, and I can’t help but be distracted from what I’m trying to do by going through these emails to see if any of them actually are offering advice or just the normal ‘hard sell.’ 100 emails that take 30 seconds each to check and delete means I’ve already lost 50 minutes out of my day.

So I’ve taken the advice of a New Zealand marketer, Kerry Bullmore, who advocates devoting a couple of hours once only, to go through your inboxes and take note of the persistant product hawkers (the ones who offer no advice, just daily sales hits), and unsubscribe from their list.

That way you free yourself up, and feel better about being more ‘in control’. So I’m off to do that now.

Oh, and by the way, whilst I was writing this – another 18 emails have dropped through my electronic letterbox.

And to all you IM’rs – the money might be in email marketing lists only if you can provide good enough content for us all to stay on it and not unsubscribe!

I’m acutely aware that I haven’t been here on my blog for a few weeks now, but that’s because I decided to close shop, put on my trail shoes, and go for a long walking holiday on the Internet. Just as a tourist, I’ve been visiting hundreds of different sites and taking in the information on offer. I plan to rejig the look and feel of this blog as it stands, and make it more of a stopping off place for readers to find the latest info on products and people, but without the hype and sales pitches found elsewhere.

I’m off for another walk around the blogosphere, and I’ll be back tomorrow with an update.

For an absolutely refreshing take on Unconventional living, Internet Marketing and blogging for profit, I really urge you to visit Chris Guillebeau‘s blog.

I’ve finally seen a blog layout that I really like, and on it Chris gives you the chance to download his ebook – 279 days to overnight success. It is definitely going into my favourite products category.

Chris Guillbeau, a published author and traveller, serves up no cheese, no rubbish, just great advice and great writing. And it’s a beautifully crafted blog theme too. What Chris Guillebeau has put together is well worth a look, honestly.

Affiliate Blogger Pro – A Great Way To Learn To Build Your Own Internet Business

Rosalind Gardner is known around the world as the “Queen of Affiliate Marketing” earning up to (and over) one million dollars per year selling other people’s stuff online as a blogger.

As author of the best-selling book on the subject, she has taught tens of thousands of people how to do what she does — build online businesses that are profitable and sustainable, get traffic to a website and keep it,  and how to use WordPress blogging to build successful affiliate programs – even during these tough times.

Her book was FANTASTIC, but her recently released
multi-media training program goes SO much farther to help you make money online!

It’s called Affiliate Blogger Pro and…

It includes:

* Step-by-step written tutorials
* Video training to SHOW you how everything works
* A super helpful and friendly communit forum
* and much MUCH more…

And unlike so many experts (gurus) – Rosalind actually responds to members’ questions herself. She also has a team of experts who specialize in site building and design, copywriting and marketing.

What I appreciate most about Rosalind’s methods, is that she actually does what she teaches and
you get to watch as she works her magic online…using blogging and the internet… and learn how to do the same!

Also, she’s not into ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ methods and training. Ros stands by her products &
students for YEARS… so you can count on her over the long term.

I HIGHLY recommend that you invest in your
future and join Affiliate Blogger Pro
today.

With her guarantee, you have nothing to lose!

 Become A Professional Blogger Today!

Join Affiliate Blogger Pro – I have and can honestly say it’s fantastic value for money.

I’ve just come across a really well put together review site and I’ll be reporting back on it in more depth tomorrow

Well, I went into my Squidoo dashboard a couple of minutes ago to find 8 lenses downgraded to ‘work in progress lenses’, meaning that in the eyes of Squidoo, they still need more work before they will index them.
What’s all that about? Those lenses are purely book review pages that are totally finished products, and have been indexed for months previously.
I’d best get up on Google and see if anyone else has the same problem.
Why build good lenses when Squidoo can choose to take them down at a whim?