Big Howdy to Zujava.com

I trust the first month of the year has been treating you all very well. I myself have been totally swamped with my offline business and to tell you the truth it’s been tough to squeeze time out of the day to work on the directory.

The opportunity to work on the site did however present itself last week when Glen shot me an email requesting a setup for Zujava.com.  A new online publishing site.

I managed to squeeze out 30 minutes and  added  Zujava to the list of allowed domains that can be submitted to the Lensroll directory.

I’m glad to see that there were no problems and that Leaf’s are being successfully submitted to Lensroll. Great relief.

You see, I left town less than an hour after I made the changes and did have time to test.  I’m not a big fan of making changes without a extensive testing first so I’m pleased all is well.

For those of you that have never heard of Zujava.com let me fill you in.

Zujava is a new content publishing site very similar to Squidoo and Hubpages. You can turn your knowledge into articles, which are called a “leaf”, and get paid for them.

The best way to explain the site is to let the authors do it themselves. The following snippet is from their about page…

“Zujava offers revenue sharing on every leaf that you publish. Monetize it using Amazon, feature Ebay products, and easily upload photos to make your leaf unique and easily found by search engines. So not only will make money on good leaves that you publish, but you’ll have an audience.”

That’s pretty cool!

Any site that Glen recommends is definitely worth a look. The man has a sixth sense when it comes to great places.

So with that, we extend a big howdy to Zujava.com.

Welcome!

 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Lensmasters

Yes, I totally ripped off the title of a best selling book. And I’m completely unrepentant. Now that I’ve entrapped you, I’ll try not to disappoint and actually continue with the theme of the title…

It’s not hard to make a good lens. I believe everyone is capable of making a good lens. While it does take a talented Lensmaster to dig a little deeper to pull out that something special that goes into an award winning, highly ranked, frequently visited lens, for the purpose of this post, I’m just going to stick to the basics.

Yes, every one can make a good lens. But not every one is.

And surely it can’t be that hard.

So I’ve asked a few Lensmasters what are the seven things that they do with each and every lens they publish.

Will we see a trend? Will all have 7 prominent Lensmasters doing 7 identical things? Lets find out…

7 things Christene always does when creating a lens:

* First I have to be motivated and excited about my lens topic. If I’m not the lens will not be up to my standards.

* Figure out how I want to organize the lens. What will be the most helpful and easily understood.

* Look through all of my affiliate programs, as well as Amazon and eBay for items that fit my topic exactly.

* Put up an intro image and have all of my module titles filled in.

* Make sure I have relevant tags.

* Add a guestbook at the bottom of my lens and set it for comments from anyone with my approval.

* If I know I will be editing the lens for final touches after I publish I will post *This lens is Under Construction* at the bottom of my Intro module so people know I’m still working on it, and, hopefully, come back again to see it.

7 things Cinetech always does when creating a lens:

* Write a outline for the lens.

* Add enough content, so the lens looks finished.

* Support the content with high-quality pictures.

* Support the content with high-quality videos.

* Add high-quality backlinks.

* Check all titles and subtitles so they make sense.

* Verify that all important keywords for the subject are included in the content.

7 (or eight) things GypsyPirate always does when creating a lens:

* I think up a topic and try to talk myself out of writing it. Is it too broad? Is it too over written? What do I already know about it? The argument that I don’t usually have is if my subject is too niche, or that it might not have broad appeal. My subjects tend to be very eclectic, and I am willing to go with the “odd” if it interests me.

* I check Google and Yahoo for images on my subject. (Other sources often crop up for me at this point in the research and I follow those.) If I can’t find enough interesting images that I can use on my lens, I will double think if this is the right time to make it or not.

* I will now Google and Goodsearch for the topic itself to see what info is out there on my subject and what other sources for information exist.

* Now I have to sit here for a while and think of a really really cool title for my lens. I have been known to go with a “lame” one, often because I really want to make the lens and just can’t think of anything witty. But, occasionally not being able to come up with a great title is deal breaker too and the lens goes back inot the pool of ideas to swim around for awhile.

* Once I’ve thunk up my title, I find a good url for the lens. I prefer to keep it simple and relevant. If my first and second choices are taken, I will try to add dashes if I haven’t already used those. If the dash trick doesn’t work, I will go back to my original idea and add the word “about” with a dash before it. If that is also taken, then I will go searching in Squidoo to see what all these other lenses are on my topic and see how I feel about them. Sometimes I find that there is a lens that is so well done I just leave them a congratulatory note and go back to the drawing board. Sometimes what I find is so sad that I am even more encouraged to make my lens as I am sure I can do it better.

* Now that I am this far in I have to pick my template, but I guess that is too easy to count as a step. So, here is where I go to “Add Modules” and select all the really cool modules that will make my lens shine. If I haven’t been in there in awhile, I will also take a few minutes to stroll through all the tabs to see what is new in there. At this point, I also utilize the reorder modules feature to place my modules in the order I think I will want them.

* Now I build. Along the process I also utilize Wikipedia, whether or not I am including the module itself to see what it says and if there are any other sources I can use or learn from. This step also includes the ever important spelling and grammar self checks. (I find that reading text backwards can help me find typos in text I have written.)

Publish

* I think this one is just as important as the previous seven – I always always hit “View This Page” and take a careful look at how the finished product looks in the final layout. What modules may not work next to each other? What module headers don’t work due to length or other factors. This is where I check the visuals.

7 (or 5) things thefluffanutta always does when creating a lens:

* Keyword research. Before you even start the lens building wizard, you should find out your chosen keyword is going to get any search traffic. If not, then should should look for a different one.

* Now that the Health Check tool has been included in your dashboard, you can use it to check your unpublished lenses. It’ll catch some of the common problems early on.

* Module titles. Change them all from the defaults, and include variations of your target key phase where you can (without making it look spammy).

* Include a few CSS Tricks to tweak the content, for example straightening the margin of the Intro and increasing the font size. Don’t go over board though, as it can look tacky. (www.squidoo.com/css-tricks)

* Images. Before you upload them to Squidoo, make sure that their filenames describe what they are. A couple choice keywords in your filenames will be appreciated by the search engines.

The 7 things Janet21 always does when creating a lens:

* Write the content including a keyword rich Introduction. Check spelling and grammar.

* Search for affiliate products on eBay, Amazon, Cafepress, Zazzle and my 3rd affiliate sites. Note: When searching eBay, I try to find unique or unusal items because that increases my chances of earning a referral bonus.

* Add a Table of Contents, a Guestbook and atleast one Poll.

* Add images via the following methods:
i) Polaroid module
ii) AllPosters.com affilate program
iii) Large clickable product images
iv) Full-sized Flickr images with permission from Flickr members
v) On some occasions, I purchase stock photos.

In my opinion, good images add a lot to the look and feel of a lens.

* Other modules I use frequently: Amazon Search, MP3 Module, and YouTube, Countdown Module, Black Box.

* Add good keyword tags.

* View the layout making sure all of the modules line up nicely and that the lens is visually appealing. If something doesn’t look right, I re-order the modules until it looks good.

The 7 things Loyalis always does when creating a lens:

* add 10-15 commonly used tags. By common I mean ones used by at LEAST 10 other lenses.

* Make sure that module titles and subtitles are both optimized and useful but don’t repeat themselves exactly.

* add an intro picture

* change guestbooks to moderate.

* change plexos to show full description

* go to ‘add modules’ screen and make sure the order of the modules is logical.

* close my eyes, click my heels (twice), and say ‘There’s no place like Squidoo’

The 7 things Bonnie/BDKZ always does when creating a lens:

* Make sure I changed my module titles from the generic title. Get rid of the “New”.

* Check for spelling and typos.

* Make sure my modules are in the right order.

* Make sure that all my modules are functioning properly.

* Make sure my photos are in the right place.

* Add tags.

* Make sure my Payment is set correctly, either for charity or cash.

You’ll notice that not all Lensmasters do exactly the same thing. They don’t all follow the same modus operandi. What does that mean?

There are many paths to success with Squidoo. A blueprint with A to Z instructions will not work for everyone. Be encouraged, be inspired. Learn. And then do it your way.

Fit Write In

Write for the community

Whether you’re at Squidoo, HubPages, AssociatedContent, Gather, wherever!… think about the emotion and atmosphere of the community.

For instance, recently I was researching “farriery”. A farrier is someone who shoes horses.

I got to see this up close and personal not far from where I live, a neighbor gets his horses done regularly.

Now I can write an article about farriery in half a dozen ways. In fact, I did.

At HubPages I’ve published one called Pimp My Clyde. Which, for those in the know (and young at heart) is a parody of the title of the hit MTV show Pimp My Ride.

Now honestly, I could have got away at HubPages with either Farrier or Farriery, because they like being serious there. They want to be an authority site, rather than a place for personal blogs. But I didn’t think too far ahead at the time. Still though, the community does have a sense of humor and I’m not going to be whipped for it.

I could have perhaps used such a title at Squidoo. Or even Gather. I was going to do a more serious piece of farriery at Squidoo but both the lens names “farrier” and “farriery” are taken. And nothing published. What a shame. I’m sure I could claim the lens name allaboutfarriery or something similar, but instead I went for a different angle, a close look at Horses Hooves.

I’ve published an article at Gather called “Equine Pedicure”. Which I think will get a lot of attention there. That and the fact that I uploaded a LOT of photos. I’ve come to the conclusion that Gather people LOVE a lot of photos. That and the witty yet appropriate title should work well.

At AssociatedContent I’ve published a more serious piece on farriery titled Farriery: The Art of Shoeing Horses. Something you must remember when writing for AssociatedContent is that you you can’t edit the articles after you’ve submitted them. So be sure to put your best foot forward. But don’t go overboard with the outside linking either.

I’ve got a feeling that an affiliate link will get cut (or maybe the whole article rejected) but a link to a quality article (and restricting oneself to one or two) will be fine.

Be aware of the rules for each site, both written and unwritten. Don’t be afraid of publishing at a few different sites. It gives you extra bites at the apple when it comes to Search Engine Indexing, not to mention the benefit of backlinking AND also dipping into a fresh stream of traffic for your linked articles.

And of course be mindful of the quality of your articles. In the very least don’t crosslink duplicate articles, as it doesn’t benefit anyone. Especially your reader who has just finished reading it. You won’t get any respect if they click through and find the exact same thing, even if its been slightly reheated.

And get a feel for the dynamics of the community. Either by reading others articles or perusing through the forum (if they have one). Once you have some hindsight it really focuses your foresight.