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My Squidoo Diary

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic (by 5 people)   Your rating: 1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic

Ranked #92 in Me, #20389 overall

Rated G. (Control what you see)

Why not Squidoo?

 

It took some time for me to warm up to the idea. I'm usually so busy, I don't have time to investigate new sites on the web. I have blogs to maintain, a job to attend to, and a family.

Plus at first Squidoo didn't seem like something I wanted to know about. An orange Squid? Lenses? What's that all about? Pretty scary stuff!

Read on to find out how I overcame apathy and fear to become an avid lensmaster and fan of Squidoo.

2006-2007 

2006-2007
A woman named T.Majors kept emailing me about things she was adding to her Squidoo lens, The Truth About US Foster Care. Since she and I are both family rights activists, I appreciated her emails and several times went to look at her lens. Eventually I started clicking on links and looking around Squidoo. When I realized it was a huge Web 2.0 site I of course wanted to take part, and at least make lenses to promote my two largest blogs, Fight CPS and Bigfoot Sightings.

Those two original lenses are:
Fighting Child Protective Services False Allegations,
and Bigfoot Sightings.

After that I built a few more lenses. I started a series about the Newbery Medal Winning Books and wrote my lensography. Then I decided not to work on Squidoo anymore for a while and see what happened with the lenses I'd made.

A few of my first lenses 

...from the summer of 2007

Almost a year went by... 

It was nearly a year later, in May 2008, when I got my first money from Squidoo: $55. I decided to give Squidoo another try and after a few days decided on a goal of making 200 lenses. I made a blog to keep track of my progress on that goal: 200 Lenses. I started posting there about my newest lenses, as well as linking to many of the lenses I visited. I have a philosophy that it is best to help others when helping myself, so I decided to spread the link juice around.

200 Lenses 

This is the feed for my blog, 200 Lenses. In this blog I keep track of my progress toward my goal.

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Every good goal needs a deadline. For my goal of 200 lenses, my deadline is the end of 2009.

Currently I have 21 lenses.

Goalsetting 

Goal Setting: How to Create an Action Plan and Achieve Your Goals (Worksmart)

Amazon Price: $9.60 (as of 12/02/2008) Buy Now

May-June 2008 

...giving Squidoo its due

When I got back into Squidoo during May and June 2007, I made a lot of progress. Here are some of the lenses I made:

The E-Bay Challenge 

...this ended on June 17, 2008

I decided to try out the eBay Challenge only a few days before it ended, so I couldn't do the entire ten lenses. It didn't help that I had to work extra hours that week.

However, I'm thrilled that I stretched my wings and tried something new.

All My Lenses 

Also during June 2008, I set this secondary blog up on Blogger.Com to generate backlinks for my Squidoo lenses.

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Squidoo Traffic: How to Promote Your Squidoo Lens 

I'm excited about this lens. I wanted to create it when I first started with Squidoo because I've done a lot of SEO professionally. I finally published it on June 24, 2008.

July 2008 

...another month, another module.

July 1, 2008 - I'm pleased with my progress toward my goal during May and June. I've got 26 active lenses now. Nine of those were created during the summer of 2007, so that means in just a little over a month I've created 17 lenses. That gives me a goal to reach for during July. I'm going to set my goal at 20 lenses for this month. Right now I have 18 WIP (work in progress) lenses, so I want to complete all of those plus two more.

July 7, 2008 - I'm working hard on some new lenses, but they require a lot of research! This is slowing me down, but I'll have better quality lenses because of it.

So far this month these are the lenses I've published for the first time:
Newbery Medal Winners, 1960-1969
Newbery Medal Winners, 1970-1979
Newbery Medal Winners, 1980-1989
Newbery Medal Winners, 2000-2008

As you can see, these are all lenses in my Newbery series; all those lenses are now published! I still have plenty of material to add to these lenses, but it will be little by little, day by day... because of the amount of writing and research that must be done.

July 22, 2008 - Today I noticed I have 526 more days to achieve my "200" goal. I now have 36 lenses. This means I need to make a new lens every 3.2 days to achieve my goal.

August 2008 

...a few goals.

August 2, 2008 - I finished the month with 39 lenses, so I created 13 in July - not as many as I hoped for but still not bad, especially since I'm working on making 'quality' lenses. Rushing is anathema to my process.

I've got goals for August:
1. Ten new quality lenses
2. Develop new monetization strategies for my lenses
3. Finish the fifth revision of my novel (The Scribe of Irohila)
4. Create some cool stuff at Zazzle.Com
5. Continue working on my art
6. Finish reading at least three books
7. Continue improving my already-existing lenses, updating each of them at least once this month

September 2008 

...back to business!

September 4, 2008 - I got sidetracked last month by Gather.Com . . . I discovered they had a new site redesign. You see, I used to spend a lot of time at that site but quit mainly because it was slow loading on my dialup connection, and had glitches. The new site redesign helps pages load fast enough to make it viable for me. I'm so happy!

I'm writing new articles at Gather, plus linking back to my Squidoo lenses in the comments and in my articles. All those links are GOOD backlinks, meaning they aren't cloaked and don't have the 'nofollow' attribute.

On August 30 I made an opinion poll page about Sarah Palin and later wrote a Gather article about my poll. I received HUNDREDS of hits to my Squidoo lens from that Gather article! It is a great way to get traffic... and it works both ways, really.

By the way, I've earned several hundred dollars worth of gift cards from Gather. Always a lot of fun.

If you haven't joined Gather yet, please use this link:



Here on Squidoo I created four good quality lenses. Now I need to scramble to get seven more done by the end of the month if I want to request the Giant Squid status. Wish me luck!

I now have 43 lenses. I'm excited that I finally got one into the top 100 earlier this month for a few days, and also excited that my 43rd lens, published only 4 days ago, has already had over 1000 hits and LOTS of activity on the Duel module. It is a poll I created re: Sarah Palin.

My Successful Sarah Palin Opinion Poll Lens 

Hey, I'm not even a Republican (or a Democrat) but this lens is doing great. I expect that after November 4 the traffic will slow down.

A Few of my September Lenses 

October 2008 

...what a month it was...

October 1, 2008 - September 2008 will go down in infamy.

During September I was promoted to morning shift supervisor at work... but unfortunately the evening shift supervisor (a long-time employee) didn't like that. She went on a defamation campaign against me, turning other employees against me, and only two weeks after my promotion, I was fired!

The boss said, "I know the problem is THEM but I have to do this..." and said he'd hire me back when things changed. But... now that I'm free from that job, I have no intention of going back. (I was a cook.) Since he didn't have the intestinal fortitude to defend me and tell them to get a grip on themselves, I can't see myself working for him again. The job conditions were miserable anyhow.

My honest opinion on why the other supervisor didn't like me is that I was over-qualified for the job with two college degrees. As author of about ten novels (unpublished), my accomplishments were a threat to her as she was/is on a control trip. In other words, I just didn't fit in with the other restaurant employees and, egged on by her, they resented me being there after I was promoted to supervisor.

Why I was there: 1. I needed the income. 2. This is a small town with few job opportunities. 3. I enjoy cooking.

Believe it or not - my boss dropped by my home this morning to return something to me and made a comment about how I have no firewood. (That's how most homes are heated in our backwoods location.) My boyfriend told me I should have said, "I was going to buy some but I got fired!" But of course I didn't think of that at the time.

My firing left me free at the end of September to finish three more lenses and slip in under the finish line for consideration as a Giant Squid. If I get it I'll be the most surprised one here, but I am so proud of myself anyhow for getting my fiftieth lens done just before the last day of the month.

My next goal: fifty more lenses.. and since I'm not working outside my home anymore, maybe I'll get them done before January. Wish me luck!

Good news! I'm now a Giant Squid!

November 2008 

...just another month

November 10, 2008 - I've been busy this month with NaNoWriMo... I'm a novelist and this year am rebelling against fiction; I'm doing my autobiography (my oldest daughter requested this). Right now I'm 30K words into it and am reworking the story threads.


This is my eighth year of doing NaNoWriMo.

November 12, 2008 - Jewelsofawe asked (in comments here) how I'm doing in November. I'm happy to report that I'm managing to get a lot of updates done, plus I've made two new lenses in the last week or so. One is about my writing and blogs: Linda Jo Martin... and the other is about a topic that I love to think about because I live in a Bigfoot infested forest: Bigfoot Videos... so I'm definitely on track again, making new lenses and improving older ones.

I still don't have any lenses in the top 100. One lens, Bigfoot Sightings, went there very temporarily for a few days last summer due to a Bigfoot hoax that was big in the mainstream media, but since then, nothing. Today I looked at and analyzed the entire top 100 list so maybe I'll make my new lenses more directed toward popularity, and quit making so many lenses that don't work.

November 23, 2008 - In my pursuit of understanding what does and doesn't work, I've made two more lenses this week: Website Content Writing Tips for Squidoo, Your Website or Blog, and My Least Popular Lenses - and Lessons I've Learned From Making Them. The first one tells what does work, and the second one analyzes what doesn't.

Today I wrote a blog post about my analysis of the Top 100 list: Lensrank - What Works and What Doesn't.

If you liked this lens, you might also like... 

Your feedback is WELCOME 

I'd love to hear from you ...

marsha32 wrote...

I want to make it to the 50 to apply for giant squid.....just going through the fans on my profile page now and checking things out. Are we friends on gather? I am marsha32

ReplyPosted November 22, 2008

Jewelsofawe wrote...

Wow! What a story! So, how is November going?

ReplyPosted November 12, 2008

EverythingMouse wrote...

Good luck with completing your goals!

ReplyPosted August 08, 2008

littlemisspiggy wrote...

hello. thank you for welcoming me to squidoo. my 3rd day and it's really fun. ^^ i really like this lens. :) you're very inspiring. 5* from me, hehe and i want to become your fan. keep up the awesome work. feel free to come back to my lens.:)

ReplyPosted August 04, 2008

spirituality wrote...

Inspiring :)

ReplyPosted August 02, 2008

 
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    LindaJM

    About LindaJM

    I live in the Klamath River Valley of Northern California. I have five children - the youngest is 18. I spend my spare time with my boyfriend, Bob. We like to watch movies at home on DVD, swim, hike, and prospect for gold in the Siskiyou Mountains.

    Giant Squid
    I am a Giant Squid!



    I started blogging in 2001. It took a long time to discover Squidoo, which started in 2005. I guess I was too busy with my blogs so I didn't join until 2007. I tell my entire Squidoo history in my Squidoo diary.

    Follow Me on Twitter



    My best blogs:

    Perspectives on Writing
    Country Kitchen Pantry
    Bigfoot Sightings
    Fight CPS
    Klamath Design

    In case you're interested in starting a blog, check out my Blogging Tips.

    Having made the jump to Squidoo, I'm thrilled to say I've started a few Squidoo blogs too.
    Lensmastery by Linda - this one has articles to inspire lensmasters
    200 Lenses - this one tracks my progress toward my goal of having 200 Squidoo lenses
    All My Lenses - this is where I record my statistics


    I live in the Klamath River Valley

    LindaJM's Pages

    See all of LindaJM's pages

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    Gold Star

    This is a certified gold star lens, which means it's the best of its kind on Squidoo (or shows some serious potential for getting there!)

    Read more about gold stars »

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    LindaJM is a Giant Squid!

    Giants are distinguished by their exceptional skill for making top-notch lenses, and lots of them. Whenever you land on a Giant Squid's lens, you know the person behind it is passionate about the topic and is hard at work making the lens worthy of your time and attention.

    Learn more about what it takes to be a Giant »

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    Happy holidays!

    The red bow is special. Whenever you see a red bow on a Squidoo page, it means the page is raising money for charity.

    Buy something from the page, and we'll automatically make a donation to charity, thanks to you.