Cleaner Life

As you are probably well aware, Squidoo Introduced Themes for Lenses, and as I was cruising around enjoying all the variations as people began experimenting, I couldn’t help but notice some of the unexpected “quirks” due to custom HTML people have using to add to the visual impact of their modules. How To Add A Custom ‘Contact Me’ Button To Your Squidoo Lens, which is one of my newest Lenses, had some serious problems before the change (I was a bit lazy not taking care of the problem right away), but it presented me with an opportunity to make a new Lens, Advanced HTML For Borders & Backgrounds On Squidoo.

It seemed like the week went so fast, I had spent a lot of time reworking King Crimson: A Tribute To One Of The Most Influential Progressive Rock Bands by removing almost all of the videos, and using Bonnie’s great Add Music to Your Squidoo Lens to replace them with nifty little music widgets.

I was a little worried at first, because all of the examples of people using this technique on their Lenses, so far, have had music widgets that are set to auto-play, and I really find that annoying, no matter how good the music is. Luckily, I found that there is a setting when making the music play lists that sets the auto-play option on or off - my vision of placing widgets to sample King Crimson’s music throughout the Lens was possible, and that’s exactly what I did.

I didn’t have much luck with the companion Lens, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp because absolutely none of their songs were available. So I found new links to the videos that had stopped working, and added some borders.

I was also able to find time to improve Hotel Bedding Sets | Bedding Featured in Many Hilton® Hotels and Back To School Bedding. These Lenses actually do very well for me, but until now, I’ve ignored my own advice (that I give out to others) about making use of the module titles. I was just learning about placing images in Text modules, and linking to them when I made these Lenses, and I made the mistake of lumping all of the content into just one or two modules.

Sure I was taking advantage of all the character space available in the Text modules, but the result was a very cramped looking Lens. Many people advise against having too much white space on a page, but the opposite is also true. You really need to balance the white space with the content, and not have everything jammed together.

One of the points from Katinka’s SEO for squidoo - getting found in google: search engine optimization that I was missing out on was the part about optimizing my Lenses using the Headings, which in this case was the module titles. Some of the “SEO tricks” I used to get Cash Gifting | Cash Leveraging | Giving Programs | All Are Pyramid Schemes | Scams to the front page of Google for the words “cash gifting scam” simply involved adding certain words to the module titles.

One thing that really upset me before that Lens reached the front page was being outranked by someone’s video where they obviously used keyword stuffing to get ahead of me. Beneath the video was just a long list of the keywords that they wanted to make sure they were optimized for. I was worried people would complain that I was using the same phrases to often, and I was being beat by someone who was clearly just loading in a list of words.

In the end, I passed right by that guy, and I keep bobbing back and forth from first to second page on Google. It may not seem like the most competitive search term to get found by (with about 600k pages returned), but as I loosely watch my competitors, I keep seeing new pages I hadn’t seen before suddenly pop up, then disappear. I believe this is due to sites removing these pages as they get complaints.

Certainly, the original pages that the crew in the Squidoo Chat Room reported for abuse one night, several months ago, have all been removed from Squidoo. That’s what inspired me to do that Lens in the first place!

Back to polishing, looks like I really had a lot on my mind this time, but I need to focus the energy that’s left on getting my Lenses ready for the end of the challenge!

Should I stay at 56 Lenses or go on to make more? I added Natural Hair Products - Shampoo & Conditioner, How To Add A Custom ‘Contact Me’ Button To Your Squidoo Lens, How To Keep Track Of The People You Follow On Twitter Using Seesmic Desktop, and How To Backup, Export & Import Seesmic Desktop Userlists.

If I make more Lenses, I risk not having time to finish my polishing by the deadline of the 15th for the Greeter ontest. If i finish polishing after the 15th, but before the Giant Squid Challenge June 2009  deadline on the 30th, no new Lenses will count towards the Greeters contest.

Decisions, decisions!

In a bizarre twist, the FEED for Auto Backup Camera: How To Install A Backup Camera On Your Car, Truck, SUV, Or RV is now on the first page of Google for “auto backup camera”  – the actual Lens has fallen off, and is out of sight. This has caused a huge loss in daily traffic.  :(

What a week! I Really hit a good stride this week! I didn’t do any updating, but I added three new Lenses!

First, I completed Lawn And Garden Plants Transplanting: A Personal Adventure In Plant Relocation. I had been planning it for weeks, and it feels great to finally get it published. Next I came up with How To Disable PHP Register Globals — Drupal Status Report which is based on a real problem I just ran into last weekend, so completing this happened really fast. As fast as that went, it wasn’t as fast as my first TwittrList, Best of Primal Foods on Twitter. Less than twelve hours from concept to publishing, and less than twenty-four hours after I started it, I was fully promoting it.

The one step back was deleting my Lens about MagicBuilder. MagicBuilder was suspended, or disabled like three months ago, and it really wasn’t any kind of tribute, so it wasn’t worth keeping.

I still plan some more Lenses before the end of the competition, and hopefully I’ll still have time to finish the updating I had been working on.

I don’t know what anyone else really thinks about the Squid Greeter Teams for the current Giant Squid Challenge, but I’m loving being a part of Willow’s Wonder Squids, I’ve made some new Squidoo friends, and strengthened some existing friendships. The extra encouragement and feedback has been awesome, and looking closely at other team member Lenses also helps me to look back at my Lenses with a more critical eye.

I remember the last time I went for the Giant Squid Challenge, and I barely looked at other Lenses, even though they were being posted right along with my own on SquidU, but back then it was easier to think that the cheerleaders and the GS Organizers would take care of visiting those Lenses, and I could catch up after the challenge. Now, I feel more responsibility to spend some time looking at other Lenses, especially those belonging to my team members, and give an opinion in the team forum, a comment on the actual Lens, and a much needed rating.

Just published How To Grow Sprouts: Grow Your Own Broccoli Sprouts as my new number fifty!

I also discovered that the My Favorite Iced Coffee Recipe Lens, which I just published two weeks ago, is already on page two of search results on Google for the phrase “Iced Coffee Recipe” — without quotes! I always try to find my Lenses on Google without quotes because it does change the order pages are returned, and I think most people search without quotes, anyway.

I continue to break the “rules”  since my Iced Coffee Lens does not belong to any Groups, and isn’t Lensrolled to any Lenses, not even my own. Oh well.

I also completed updating Ants On A Log | Heathy Snacks For Kids Of All Ages, VR3 Bluetooth Hands Free Cell Phone Adapters, Tips And Ideas For Designing A Successful Website, Why I Love The GIMP, Using Spirulina - What Is Spirulina Good For (new title), Hotel Pillows - The Same Pillows Found In Top Name Luxury Hotels (new title), and Cayenne Pepper Supplements & Ointment (new title).

I’m updating both to be ready for the next Giant Squid deadline and to try to get better search engine rankings. I’m not just updating content with the new modules available, but I’m enhancing titles and subtitles with keywords. It’s seems a little strange, but my newer Lenses do better than my old ones. I guess it just shows how much I’ve learned since I started.

I did plan on working on, and maybe even publishing a new Lens or two this weekend, but I found out that a third party company was no longer selling directly on Amazon. This was a major concern since their products are the main focus of three of my top ten Lenses, I made this my top priority.

First before I knew there was a problem, I updated A Greener Diet For A Healthier Lifestyle, which was my very first Lens, and I updated Gas Or Electric String Trimmers by adding more information, and a lot more pictures.

When I found out about the problem at Amazon, I updated DIY Auto Backup Camera: How To Install A Backup Camera On Your Car, Truck, SUV, Or RV, which has steady Amazon sales, it is also the only “How To” page that shows up on the first page of Google for the term “auto backup camera.” It appears just below Walmart and Amazon for the search. Luckily all of the items are still on Amazon, and two links were being redirected, but I wanted to make sure I made new links for all of them.

VR3 Backup Cameras and Car Safety Products and High Quality Audio, Video & Navigation For Your Car, Truck, RV or SUV are related, and get a steady stream of traffic each week. I’m not exactly sure how much they contribute to my Amazon sales, but making sure they are currently updated seems better than just leaving them for later.

I was still in update mode, so I finally sorted out the links on Cash Gifting | Cash Leveraging | Giving Programs | All Are Pyramid Schemes | Scams by abandoning the Link List module, and making my own links on Text modules, which allowed me to also add more pictures to dress it up. For at least the past week, this Lens has been in the to four of the “Work At Home” category, which means it’s been on Squidoo’s front page all week!

A_willow asked me if I had given up, but I haven’t. In fact I’ve joined Willow’s Wonder Squids and just published my newest Lens, My Favorite Iced Coffee Recipe, as I work my way back up to 50 (and beyond) Lenses for the Giant Squid Challenge June 2009.

I have had a lot happen since my last post here, and my latest Lens is my first new Lens on 2009, so I can see how people could get the impression that I’ve quit. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

My Grandma passed away since my last post. She had gone through a year of health issues, and had returned to Rhode Island last Summer when it was clear she would never be allowed to live on her own anymore. She was able to see many friends and family, and actually appeared to be getting better. She moved out of a nursing home into an assisted living community about three months before passing, so at least she spent her last days in a bit more comfort than we thought she was going to have.

At her funeral, I reconnected with many relitives, including one of my mother’s cousins. He owns an insurance company, and after talking, he asked me to help him build a website. Now I’m thinking I may add freelance web design to what I’m working on. I’m already set to do some freelance graphics work, and I’m freelancing in job placement, even though I still haven’t been paid.

Money from Amazon and PepperJam is becoming steady, the best way I can see to keep that growing, is to make more Lenses on Squidoo.

I had mentioned my Cash Gifting | Cash Leveraging | Giving Programs | All Are Pyramid Schemes | Scams Lens last month in the Slow Going, But I Did Get A Squid Blessing post. That Lens has now recieved 9 Squid Angel Blessings, and is #4 in “Work At Home” which puts it on Squidoo’s front page. I’m also in the #9 spot on Google’s first page for the phrase “cash gifting scam.” That feels good, because my work paid off, and I didn’t waste time bookmarking that Lens all over the social bookmarking sites.

While I wasn’t paying attention, Hydrogen Peroxide Mouthwash started recieving a large amount of visitors, surpassing 100, then getting very close to 200 visits a week. I checked Google, and found it at #3 on the first page returned for “hydrogen peroxide mouthwash.” This was extremely satisfying since this Lens had no ratings when I applied for Giant in December, and when I received my report card from GypsyPirate, it was used as an example of what I needed to improve. So this was the first Lens I rebuilt using those recommendations.

The biggest thing I learned from that report card was to personalize my Lenses. The big mistake I made with the Hydrogen Peroxide Mouthwash Lens was not including any personal experiences, which was really an oversight since I really do use it. After making it more personal, I began recieving ratings, and great comments, including three public Squid Angel Blessings. It is currently #7 in Health on Squidoo.

I still have a lot of work to do, I haven’t even updated half of my Lenses since January, and I want to go into the next deadline with more than 50 Lenses, maybe even 60 since I want a head start on my first chance at joining the Giant Squid 100 Club.

I was going to wait before adding a new post, but since it looks as if most of the splogs have been cleaned out, I’m now getting spammy posts. They look just as useless as those slops (rambling nonsense, and/or poor English), except they are adding links to the posts.

Make sure you don’t just decline the spam comments, mark them as spam.

I hate captchas, but I think we have the option of turning them on. If I get too many of these worthless comments, I may turn it on. I might even try configuring Spam Karma 2 again!

UPDATE:

I posted this just 9 hours ago, and this morning I check and find 3 new ones awaiting moderation. All contained spammy links to planetpapers, and were posted from 194.8.75.163 with @gopoh.com in the email.

I took this opportunity to go back and see what comments were automatically approved and found two from the same person. He has a Squidoo Lens (no Lensmaster pict), but used a different name for each comment.

Marked them all as spam!

Update 2:

After receiving even more spam, I sent a quick email to one of our administrators, and the response was that they are working on implementing a new system for catching spam, so hang on, good things are on the way!

I only managed to update two of my Lenses this week. I just spent so much time on Holmes Space Heaters: The Best Space-heaters Ever and Using Spirulina - What Is Spirulina Good For? that I did not have time to work on anymore Lenses.

I’m not unhappy about that, even though it is pretty definite that I will not be ready to re-apply for Giant Squid by this month’s deadline. I’m actually very happy in the way these Lenses have turned out, I just wish I had done them sooner.

Since I am still working down the line from highest Lensrank to lowest, these Lenses actually get pretty steady traffic week after week. If I had updated them sooner, that many more people would have seen the improved versions.

Finally, my Cash Gifting | Cash Leveraging | Giving Programs | All Are Pyramid Schemes | Scams Lens received a nice boost when Squidster gave me a Squid Angel Blessing. Now it shows up on the list of Popular Workathome Lenses.

After last week’s blog post, I realized that I hadn’t optimized this Lens for the word “Scam”. I was showing pretty well on Google for “Cash Gifting Pyramid Scheme” without quotes, but that’s probably not the most popular search term i want to be found under. For “Cash Gifting Scam” without quotes, I wasn’t even turning up on the 37th page of returns.

I played with the keyword optimization, and by Tuesday, I was on page 15. I went as high as page 12, but dropped back to 13. I still haven’t done all the SEO things I think I should be doing, like social bookmarking, but those are things that can be done little by little. I really don’t like those programs, and systems that bookmark on a load of sites all at one.

I may be wrong, but I’m against anything automated like them, I don’t think it looks natural.

I’ll see if I can manage to get any higher. As I’m looking for my one page, I can’t help but notice some of the ones that show up before me, and many of those pages are in flux, so maybe I can manage to slip past them to a higher spot!

I really wasn’t expecting anything special to happen this week. I was planning on more updating because I don’t want to make anymore Lenses until I’m satisfied that the current 48 are worthy of getting Giant Squid status. Even if that means missing this month’s deadline.

My other projects, which are more important to me right now, are taking up all my time during the week, leaving mostly just the weekend for updating.

The first special thing happened because I was talking to Trekkiemelissa in the Squidoo Chat Room Friday night when she mentioned my Lens on Cash Gifting. I realized that I hadn’t added it to any groups yet, so I asked her if she thought that it would fit into one of hers, and she suggested adding it to her All Lenses Accepted Group.

I added it, and she surprised me by featuring it on the group’s main page, and in a post on her Daily Blogs. This prompted me to do a much needed overhaul of it, which included switching from a link Plexo to a regular Link List. I like the way regular Link Lists look better than the Plexos.

My next surprise was a message in the guest book of my Lensography, CleanerLife’s Lenses from EelKat. She had added my Lensography to her Lens, The Lensography Index. I ended up having to update that Lens, too since I hadn’t removed the two entries for the Lenses I had deleted.

I also found time to update Clip-on Fans By Holmes, Art Garfunkel, and John Wetton. I love working on the music Lenses, but they take a lot of work. Every time I revisit them I find something new to add, and that is to be expected since all the ones I’ve done so far are about active musicians, but I also come across some older bit of information that I forget to add before. There’s also the ongoing problem with videos disappearing from services like YouTube.

I wish more bands, or record companies would follow MontyPython and universalmusicgroup by establishing official channels on YouTube and post official videos that can be linked to. Even if the embedding is disabled. like with the Universal videos, at least they can be used as thumbnails in the YouTube modules.

So, a big thanks to Trekkiemelissa and EelKat for making my weekend a little extra special.

After last week’s post, I started work on updating DIY Auto Backup Camera: How To Install A Backup Camera On Your Car, Truck, SUV, Or RV, which is my highest ranked Lens right now.

Next, a new report was released about fluoride, Health Dangers of Fluoride in Drinking Water on Fetuses and Infants | All 4 Natural Health News, this prompted me to update Clean Water - Water Filtration by adding information on using filters to reduce fluoride in our drinking water. I also added the RSS Amazon feeds using SquidUtils, like I had mentioned in the last post.

I also updated Natural Toothpaste and Natural Mouthwash, making sure to add more information about fluoride.

After that, I did a major update on my King Crimson Lens. I was going to delete all three of the Video Showcases, because of the trouble I’ve had with King Crimson videos disappearing from YouTube, but I was surprised to see that all of the videos I had selected for the In The Court Of The Crimson King Video Showcase were still active, so i deleted the other two, and added what I could of them to the main King Crimson Lens. Then I added more info to the In The Court Of the Crimson King Video Showcase to help make it stand out on it’s own.

Sunday I finished my updating binge by working on The Love Of Dragons: Dragons In Books And On Video, VR3 High Quality Audio, Video & High Tech Navigation For Your Car, Truck, RV or SUV, VR3 Backup Cameras and Car Safety Products, Hotel Bedding Sets | Bedding Featured in Many Hilton® Hotels, and Ants On A Log | Healthy Snacks For Kids Of All Ages. Basically I was just working down the list of my Lenses from the top.

My logic is that I should be making sure that the ones that are getting the best traffic, should look their best before I work on the others.

As I was updating, I remembered that I’ve failed to join any groups with many of my Lenses. I don’t look to join every group I can, when I do look to join. To me, belonging to one or two quality groups is better than joining a bunch of “anything goes” type groups. Unfortunately, many of my Lenses don’t belong to any groups.

Finally, I was pleasantly surprised to find my Ants On A Log Lens is actually on page 5 of Google. I’ve neglected looking at my Search Engine ranking for pretty much all my Lenses, so I was very happy when I discovered this.