Posts tagged lakeerieartists
Welcome Our Newest Mentor
May 29th
Giant Squid Lensmaster and author of the Howling Squid Review, Lakeerieartists is our newest Squid Citizen Mentor in charge of making your first lens.
She’s asking the Giants to help her – help new lensmasters – by leaving a blurb about your experiences while making your first few lenses – at her mentoring lens “Making Your First Lens” Mentor .
While you’re there be sure to congratulate her on her new Squid Citizenship position!
“Making Your First Lens” Mentor
Meet the whole team of Squid Citizen Mentors here: The Squid Citizen Mentors
Spotlight On Lakeerieartists
Apr 6th
Today we have a Squid-load of tips for you from Giant lensmaster Lakeerieartists who very kindly answered every question on my Spotlight interview request. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this!
1. What is your best Squidoo lens making tip?
Make lenses about topics that you love. The ideas will flow much better, and you will have fun with it. Also, you will understand those topics much better and show your enthusiasm.
2. What is the very first thing you do AFTER you’ve published a new lens? What is the second thing you do? And why?
Look at it in its published form. Are there typos? What about the way the modules flow together, do I like that? Did I leave something out? Is it set up in a way that draws the person into the next section? The second thing is to fix it. Then I start promoting the lens. Creating backlinks to establish paths for traffic to come to it.
3. List 5 things you faithfully do before publishing every new lens.
1-Check for spelling errors. Very unprofessional. 2-Add tags 3-Add an interactive module—a poll, guestbook, duel 4—Really polish the introduction, turn on the table of contents, and the discovery feature. 5—Publish it, look at it in the published form, then fix errors I see there. Then I do a final publish.
4. What do you think makes a great lens really great? Is it the design style? The amount of pictures? The writing style? Or is it something else?
Yes to all those questions, but no as well. They are all important, but it is the mix of all those features with the care and passion a person puts into the topic of the lens that really makes it great. You could have all of the above and only have a mediocre lens if it is not put together with care.
5. When starting a new lens, how much research do you do? Do you follow any type of plan? Or do you just wing it?
This is a bad question for me. I do a lot of planning in my head, but I decide what topic I want to write on, then plan out how I want to approach it in my head. Then I look into keywords to see if I can approach it in a way that people will search for it on the internet. I also look to see what lenses are already written on the topic on Squidoo. Then I write the lens. Once I get to actually “putting it on paper” I just write, then go back and amend.
6. What is your best advice for SEO?
Learn about SEO as you learn about Squidoo. Everyone can always learn more about SEO—the rules change constantly. It also takes time to learn how to write a good lens. So learn them together. There is lots of advice out there about SEO—I find that a combination of good keywords, good tags, and self promotion will get you traffic.
7. What is your best tip for monetizing a lens?
Monetize your lens in such a way that it flows as part of the lens. Either sell stuff that resonates with your topic or write about what you want to sell.
Please share the link, and the story behind one of your NEWEST and one of your most favorite lenses?
I would love to share with you a brand new project that I literally just started yesterday, which is a blog about one of my groups, Living the Green Organic Lifestyle. This group is very special and full of terrific eco-friendly ideas of all sorts. I hope that people will visit both the group and the new Living the Green Organic Lifestyle Blog which will feature the lenses in this group.
My lensography is definitely a milestone lens for me. I can see where I have come from, and really look at where I want to go with Squidoo in the future. In 2009, my goal is to go back to all of my older lenses and really bring them up to speed. Also, to get to a total of 300 lenses. I am going to really focus on improving my keyword skills in order to get my lenses to rank faster and higher in Google and other search engines.
It’s That Time Of Year
Jan 5th
Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year again when all of our thoughts turn to this year’s resolutions and last year’s taxes.
Luckily your friendly Squidoo Giants have you covered on both ends.
Before getting started with either, be sure to take a look at Healthy New Year Resolutions by Comfortdoc and 2008 Tax Return for Self Employment by Lakeerieartists.
You’ll find good suggestions at both of these truly helpful lenses!
We’ve Got New Giants to Feature
Oct 7th
Congratulations to all of the new Giants and 100Club members! With much stiffer guidelines set in place and so many great lensmasters applying, this was by far our most difficult round.
I recently ran a challenge at Squidu that was designed to inspire interested lensmasters who were striving to become Giant lensmasters by asking them to record and keep track of (you needed to post more than just once to qualify) their progress in my Potential Giants Challenge thread at Squidu. Over the course of the next couple weeks, I will be spotlighting the new Giants who took my challenge and succeeded.
To get the ball rolling, take a look at Unusual, Unique, and One of a Kind Holiday Gifts by new Giant lakeerieartists. This fabulous lens is a great example of what a Giant lens should look like according to our new stricter guidelines. The lens makes good use of many different types of modules. It’s interesting to read. The design flows nicely from beginning to end and although it is a shopping lens, it provides personal shopping help, and tips, without screaming “buy me! buy me!”
In addition to all of that, lakeerieartists provides some really cool gift ideas that you shouldn’t miss!
Take a look!
