Giant Squid Open Mike

Giant Squid Open Mike Monday had its debut this past Monday, August 3. Originally,
we planned to have the show once a month. Judging from the flow of the show, which stimulated interest from our listeners, we now will have the show every week.

We started out discussing why in heck anyone would want to be a Giant Squid?

Secondly, do we want Squidoo to be a business or a hobby?

Jaguar Julie weighed in by saying that when she first started out on Squidoo, she
wasn't sure what she was doing, echoing what is true for most of us. Squidoo Mentors did not exist when Julie began her Squidoo journey, but she created several dozen lenses and did something else for a year.

Kimberly and Megan, who essentially run Squidoo, challenged Julie to be a Giant 100 in the summer of 2007, and that is what she did.

The next discussion evolved to the benefits of becoming a Giant Squid on Squidoo. Squidoo wants to help people who are dedicated to making 50-100 and more quality lenses. And as we have discussed before, there are responsibilities to becoming a Giant Squid. We help the newbies, we read lenses and recommend them to others.

As Giants, we are privy to new features and modules, are eligible to win the coveted purple star fora job well done, which in turn, increases the lens ranking of that lens.

Many of us went to Giant Summer school. and as I write these words, I finished my last assignment and submitted it. Giant squid summer school and Rocket Moms automatically gets your lenses out there for all to see. Plus, we have an opportunity to learn from the lenses created by other Giants.

A new program has just been introduced by Squidoo, and we briefly discussed it. It is called the Internship program, where we invite people to participate in the Squidoo community, and give them a helping hand, over a two month period.

How do we want to approach Squidoo? Jaguar Julie's lenses are showcases for interesting lenses that sell affiliate products. Jaguar Julie has made over 400 lenses. She humbly mentioned others who have made 800 or 1000 lenses. Funny how this works. The process of lens building takes on a creative force of its own, and as per Julie, 400 lenses seems inconsequential.

As we look at Jaguar Julie's lenses, we see that learning CSS and HTML are crucial to creating a lens that sells products.

Here I asked a question about several niches I am considering embracing: Heirloom Garlic, Stinging Nettle, and Holy Basil.

Julie and Chef Keem recommended making lenses that point back to a blog. They did not recommend a website.

We discussed making powerful text links. You make a hyperlink in the lens that points to the blog, and make the hyperlink keyword rich. Also, putting the keyword in the powerful domain of Squidoo automatically makes for a good Google ranking.

Google the "Google Keyword Tool" to start familiarizing yourself with keyword searches. Do your searches in quotation marks.

Once you've chosen your keywords, sprinkle them through the titles, subtitles and in the copy.

Don't forget to also use them in the Bio, which you can individualize to every one of your lenses.

Use famous people to make your point, providing for relevancy, of course. Chef Keem used Paris Hilton in a Squid Log post recently, which blew out the search engine.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Chef Keem aka Achim Thiemermann joined us once again for our second show: Giant
Squid Open Mike. The chat room was active with interesting sidelines going on. You'd think that keywords, tags and Google searches were the most stimulating topic in the Universe!

We differentiated between Google searches and the searches that take place in the
Squidoo community.

You can find out how people find your lens by looking under the stats section of your
Squidoo platform. Click on the traffic tab. This will tell you how your readers are finding you thus far. By focusing and fine tuning your keywords, your lens traffic will increase.

Now Squidoo allows all tags and keywords to be picked up by Google, whereas at one time, keywords and tags were accessed by Squidoo members only. This is a great change.

Now your lens may be exceedingly popular by Google and not so much by Squidoo. If you are selling items on your lens, you will want Google traffic, and lots of it.

The idea is to tweak a keyword or two and allow the results of that tweak take two weeks to materialize. Then go back and tweak some more, if needed.

Add key words in your module titles and to your content. Use the Google ad word keyword search tool to refine your idea.

When you are making your lens, you will notice green, red, and yellow tag boxes. If green, this means that other Squidoo lensmasters are using this tag. If red, this word or phrase is not as strong in Google. Google also looks at your primary tag, so make this one rich in keyword meaning.


Google Ad Word Tool

Put a quotation mark around every word you are searching for. Take a look at all the keywords for your topic and fit your copy to match keyword relevance. Don't just throw around a few keywords which have nothing to do with the message you are trying to convey.

My experience with all of this used to be: ignore keywords. They stifle creativity, I told myself. They are entirely too left brain for me to even consider.

So I went to the Daily Digest tab on my dashboard page, and took a look at the lens most in need of updating.

The lens was called "Ghost Nurses." So I can't change the url at this point, but I added keywords, like haunted hospitals, and ghost stories, all of which rank high in google searches.

Then I had a lens called One Person Revolution, which mentions a family friend and American Folk Hero, Ammon Hennacy, friend to Dorothy Day, who is a Roman Catholic Saint who just hasn't been canalized yet.

Ammon Hennacy called himself a Roman Catholic Anarchist who walked across this country for peace. He spent years in jail because he refused to pay the war tax.

In my keyword search experiment, I found a documentary about Ammon which is absolutely stunning. I found beautiful pictures of Ammon, which were so much more appropriate than what I originally had.

I changed the module titles and changed the copy a little bit to mirror my keyword discovery.

What I realized is this: That this keyword game is a right brain activity, wholly creative and expansive.

Whenver you make a comment on a lens, whether a fellow lensmaster, or your own, make it relevant to the lens topic.

Keep in mind the "search robots," and write partially for that, too. If you are writing about chocolate, and call it sinful, some sort of religious connotation will be made about the word "sinful," and before you know it, your lens will be placed in another category you had never intended for it.

Like going to hell, for instance.

Mention your main keyword in the first two lines of the Intro, and put the word in bold.

Look and see where your lens is ranked and put yourself in the searchers shoes.

Who are you writing too?

Who is your audience?

You can type your entire URL in the Google search bar, and see what this yields, as well.

As you work with this, more possibilities arise. My main discovery is that this is a right brain activity. It is fun.

And the unexpected may reveal itself.

Ron Passfield of Squidoo fame was our guest on Giant Squid Open Mike 8/17. By the way, I like the sound of Giant Squid Talk Radio, don't you?

As I was reading over Ron's lenses and his most recent Twitters, I discovered he is an expert on a Social Bookmarking site called "Red Gage." After we got him out out of bed (4 pm our time and 6 am the following day his time) you could feel his energy and enthusiasm reignite as we discussed Red Gage!

Ron explained what Red Gage does. For one thing, hundreds of Squidoo community people are there. Connecting with them on Red Gage can only deepen existing relationships, as well as create new ones.

You can place all of your existing links on Red Gage, and from what I understand, when people visit your site from the link you provided on Red Gage, you get points, and make money.

However, I have a question for Ron to clarify that point for me, and am waiting for his response.

As Ron began to upload all of his material, and blog posts and Squidoo lenses he had written about Red Gage, as well as uploading pictures and videos, he noticed his material and links were appearing in top ten Google results.

He said once you get the hang of it, it is very easy to use. Concern was voiced in the chat room that Red Gage will accept lenses that have been banned on Squidoo and that so called Spammers will have a hay day on the Red Gage site.

This turned to the subject of "Comment Etiquette." Ron said he hasn't seen spamming on Red Gage other than what he called "Comment Spamming." This is when people show up on, say your lens or blog post and say, "If you rate my lens, I will rate your lens."

Or, "Great job!!"

Or "Congratulations on your Purple Star," and nothing else.

Or, simply, "Nice."

People make money making comments on Red Gage, so the temptation to write quantity without quality is great.

The administrators at Red Gage have outlined Comment Etiquette Guidelines. Like all other Social Networking sites, you have to pay your dues. You visit people's content and speak to the person in your comment, not necessarily only to the content. Make your comment relevant to the content. Repeat the keyword in what you write to help that lens get a ranking boost.

Comment on the content in a thoughtful manner. This is common sense. Write valuable comments that add and expand on a point. Disagree on a point, but do so with grace.

Do you have an opposite viewpoint? Offer that viewpoint with an attitude "What can I offer?" Simply agreeing is not a contribution. Don't forget, your comments also reflect your own work. Use humor in your comments. Add your own experience. Be mindful of the content by focusing your attention. Don't think of what you have to do, or what you plan to make for dinner. These guidelines help create community, bring traffic to your blogs and lenses, and make new friends and allies.

Think SEO as you write your comment, says Ron. In any Google search, look for the word "Cache" and by clicking on that word, you will see how Google has indexed your blog or lens in terms of search terms.

Chef Keem asked Ron to write a Squidlog post about this, which is now completed.

The conversation turned to Long Tail Keywords. Ron said this terminology came out of Google adword campaigns several years ago. The secret is to have a Primary Keyword and enlarge upon it. Treat Google as having the intelligence which it has. Ron gave the example of "Digital Story Telling" lenses. He broaden that key phrase to include "How To Make A Digital Story Into A Movie." "Digital Story Telling In Business." Digital Story Telling In Education." Digital Story Telling In Primary Education."

He came up with ninety different search terms, and this is how people found his Digital Story Telling lens. The trick is to create long tail keywords, always keeping the primary keyword in mind. People are moving away from one primary key word. "How to turn a digital story into a movie?" is a good example. Keywords help you to stay focused on your message and your purpose for your lens. When relevance is not added, the Google Bot comes to a dead end.

Google will not index shoddy content.

Google IS Artificial Intelligence!! Treat it as such!

Our guest on Giant Squid Open Mike was Alex Crabtree aka Drifter 0658, who recently created Factor Y on Squidoo, a new group of male lensmasters. Rocket Moms, a woman's Squidoo group, has been wildly successful for Squidoo and for all of us who participate there.

Factor Y is modeled after the Rocket Mom concept, but keeping in mind the difference between how men and woman utilize the Internet. Factor Y will support men using Squidoo for success or for freedom of expression, or as a creative outlet, whatever a person needs at the time of lens creation. Men are the gender minority on the Internet, Alex explained to us. Men are not multi-taskers, like women are, yet they spend much of their time surfing. And men buy more products on the Internet than women do.

Women often like to hangout and chat, thus the rise in Social Media use, whereas men are more and more turning to the Internet as a alternative to punching a timeclock in unsupportive environments. Women have had more of an opportunity to be "stay at home Moms."

Now men would like to have a similar experience, as the World economy is changing how people are doing business.

Alex said Factor Y officially opens 8/31/09. The focus will be--Focus! How to use the Internet, how to build quality lenses, and class work to help members achieve their objectives for Internet success, whatever that means to each individual.

The group will also use the "Ning" format to communicate class achievements and goals. Alex is in the process of formatting the Ning now for easy navigation. He was asked which of his lenses gets the best traffic at this time? He said the "Tail Of The Dragon" currently is ranking the highest. The lens is written about an eleven mile stretch of road with 318 curves in Tennessee, very popular amongst the biker community. Since this is the season for this activity, Alex attributes the recent rise in lens traffic to the parallel biker traffic on that famous stretch of road.

I was impressed by the great variety of graphic art which is represented on Alex's work. I asked him if he was a cartoonist, because of a series of cartoons I saw on his Lensography. He said he manipulated some of his pictures in his photo album to create a comic book effect.

He said that most recently, he is into sidebar graphic designs. The graphic runs the entire length of the
text, he said, and I saw an example of this as I was looking over his lenses.

He said the biggest thing about HTML in your lens? is not to go over board with it. Content is the most important part of any lens.

A comment from the Blog Talk Radio chat room brought on a lively discussion, having to do with encouraging the men on Factor Y to speak from their heart. Every person has a male, female component to their psyche. Sometimes the way a person expresses herself is not balanced, as in the example of the recent outcry against healthcare reform at the August town hall meetings.

This is not a good example since these outcries are orchestrated by Health Insurance Companies, which in turn are churning hysteria at meetings across the country. But don't take my word for it. Ask Wendell Potter, Cigna Executive Whistle Blower, who recently told Bill Moyers this on PBS.

Carl Jung, American Psychologist, wrote extensively about the anima/animus or male/female component we all have within our deepest soul. The male/female exists within all of us, often in need of balance. The core issue is learning to appreciate each other's energy, instead of manipulating one another.

We discussed the Right and Left Brain in relationship to all of this. Alex said his next lens will be about the Whole Brain, and how to operate from a whole brain perspective. The right brain is more predominant in terms of creativity. He used the example of a "white paper" and how generally boring they are to read. However, if a person places a hint of humor or an editorial remark, this makes the piece so much more interesting, in contrast.

Story telling is a right brain addition to any lens or blog post.

At this point, we discussed Natalie Goldberg's book entitled "Writing Down The Bones," and the sequel, "Wild Mind."

Her advice is to write without censuring and write the truth. Do not edit out details that help to paint a picture of reality.

Use powerful words.

Avoid "I think", or "I believe."

Be sure about what you write.

But don't beat people up with your words.

I think Alex will teach his fellow Factor Y men well--very well.