One Year of Squidoo and 368 Lenses Later

I started using Squidoo one year ago today (give or take 24 hours) and in that time I’ve:

• Built 368 lenses (just over 1 a day!)
• Been a Citizen Squid, Giant Squid, Squid Angel, forum mod, and all around Squidoo helper.
• Started a blog about Squidoo (this one)
• Started an auction site for Squidoo Lenses
• Started a lens directory for Squidoo
• Started a chat room for Squidoo
• Started a Squidoo Blog Platform
• Made a TON of new friends!
• Failed miserably at running groups on Squidoo
• Gone from $2 my first payout to over $2,500 in profit from Squidoo last month
• Had a lens earn $1,000 in a single month
• Made 749 posts at Squid U.
• Found out I love teaching people to think.

It’s been a busy year to say the least! And I honestly hope next year is even busier. To everyone who has helped along the way (and there’s a ton of you) : Thank You.

Announcing SquidTop : Custom Blogging for Squidoo

The light posting for the last week hasn’t gone by without something getting done. I’ve developed a custom blogging platform for Squidoo Lensmasters!

I’m Proud to introduce SquidTop!

What is SquidTop?

Squidtop is a site that allows you to create your own blog to talk about your squidoo lenses, accomplishments, progress, or any other topic you desire. What’s unique about it is a custom interface that allows you to update your blog with short little posts like twitter/pownce updates like so:

There is also a fully featured back-end built on wordpress, allowing you to create in depth posts about whatever you would like!

Other Cool Features

Twitter Integration - Simply add your Twitter RSS feed to the ‘Options’ page in your admin area to display a list of your recent twitter posts.

Adsense Revenue Sharing - I designed a custom adsense revenue integration into the site. Your blogs receive 80% of the impressions while Squidtop receives the other 20% to cover hosting, maintentance, etc. To activate it, go to your options page and insert your google publisher ID and your ad_slot number so google can track it. That’s it! you’re all set up.

Recent News - The front page of Squidtop shows the most recent posts made on the site by any blogger. This means that when you post updates, you are visible front and center for all the Squidtop vistors to see!

How to Sign up for Squidtop

Just head over to www.Squidtop.com and click on the big blue sign-up button. The whole process takes less than 5 minutes before you can have your very own blog to talk about your lenses on!

What are you waiting for? Give it a try!

Let me know what you folks think and if there are any obvious improvements that you would like to see in the site.

Squidoo SEO and Tagging Part 3: The Discovery Box

This post is a continuation of my first two posts on tagging with Squidoo: Tags and Lenses, and Tag Pages.  If you are a little lost, go read those two to catch up.

Until recently, tag pages consisted of the majority of link flow that could be influenced within squidoo. However, with the recent release of the ‘Discovery Tool’ on lenses (that blue box that has related lenses in it) the possibilities have increased significantly.

The Discovery box on Squidoo displays a subset of other lenses from across Squidoo. Many people have viewed this in a negative light, thinking that this would drive traffic away from their lenses. However, many people are overlooking two major benefits:

1. If you’ve tagged your lenses well it should very easily bring in more traffic than it sends out.
2. You can control all of the lenses in the Discovery box.

What you say? All the lenses? Yep.

You are manually allowed to enter up to three lenses in the Discovery box. Don’t even mess around with that unless it’s for a very specific purpose. Dynamic links can be much more powerful in many instances. Instead, use the Discovery tool algorithm to your advantage.

The Squidoo Discovery Tool Algorithm Deconstructed

From my calculations the discovery tool is based on many things, but a few factors that show through are the following:

• Primary Tags
• # of tags in common
• Category
• Lensrank

I’m not going to reveal which ones I think are the most important, because a Pirate Captain needs to keep a few secrets :). But with a little testing you should be able to figure it out yourself.

The Discovery tool truly provides the third leg for controlling squidoo link flow. I hope this little series has been of use to you all and I’d love to hear any questions about it.