Looking Back At My Accomplishments For June 2008

Looking Back At My Accomplishments For June 2008

Here's hoping that your June was as good as mine was!

I learned a lot, and implemented a fair amount of it, the
end result being a net improvement to my Alexa Rank
of better than 500,000 places. I know, I know: it doesn't
really mean anything. It does give you a yardstick to
guage how you are doing in comparison to your peers.

The traffic that has gotten me here has come primarily
from Social Marketing activities, a bit of Article
Marketing and by getting into Trackback Links.

These are all a direct result of info gleaned from reading
the 2008 Authority Blackbook. I keep telling you all to
subscribe up at the right, but tell you what! Here it is:

The 2008 Authority Blackbook

This is the biggest and best Web 2.0 Resource list you
will find anywhere. It just flat out rocks!

Apply what you read and you will benefit...

I also learned a little something from one of my readers
that advised me to put more of my blog's "Link Juice"
to work for me, instead giving it away.

What's that mean?

It means no more widgets listing MyBlogCatalog or
FuelMyBlog. It means making sure that when you
mention something from another blog post, linking
to it. It means making sure that your blog doesn't
have the look and feel of a garage sale.

Hey, I know I've been guilty of that one, and am trying
to constantly improve the quality and quantity of the
content and resources that I publish here.

My relationship with Blogger took a bit of a beating
in June as well, but we got through it...

Another blogger (who shall remain nameless) that I
was (successfully) competing with for certain keywords,
decided to get a leg up by reporting me to Blogger as a
spam blog. This got my blog locked up 3 different
times. Smoke actually came out of my ears once...

Fortunately the good folks at Blogger listened to what
I had to say in my defense and unlocked me pretty
quickly. Anyone that has had this happen to them
knows the powerless feeling that ensues, and can
relate.

Well, I did get past that, and am persevering with my
little Blogger blog here and have decided to keep it up
even once I get the WordPress projects planned off
the ground.

My copy writing services have suddenly become a
bigger part of Floyd's Online Income as well. Any
of you wanting to grab some traffic generating
Squidoo Lenses check out my offer HERE.

And speaking of The Squid! I suddenly got a wild
hair last Friday night and just had to do whatever
was necessary to qualify as a Giant Squid. So...

24 Lenses in 24 Hours

Unfortunately I found that I no longer like some
of my old lenses so I took them down and replaced
them to make that all important 50 lens mark.

I was already sort of cranked up about Squidoo
anyway from my Genepax lens hitting #3 in the
Autos category, and realized that to start getting
ranked in the Top 100 overall on Squidoo, that I
would need to be one of the Giant Squids.

Who knows, I still may not make Giant Squid, but
I sure had fun cranking them out. It also gave me
motivation to keep writing. Content is so important
to what we do here, and I was on a roll so...

Just kept on cranking.

One of my Digg friends, Janet Ford also got me into
putting up pages on eHow and Triond as a means
of writing for income. Both have good revenue sharing
programs, but you've got to produce a fair number of
articles before it starts adding up, but add up it does.

Speaking of Digg, been having some scrapes there too.

The url for this blog got banned there. Not really sure
why. Sent an email about it, but got nowhere. Not a
stinking thing you can do about it, so moved on and
started using Propeller instead...

BTW, it looks to me like FriendFeed is going to become
more and more important as time goes on, so if you
ain't jumped on yet, do so now! I'll now doubt be
posting more about using FriendFeed in July so watch
for it.

If you pay any attention to me at all (and why should
you) you have noticed a growing dependence on Google
Gadgets. This is an ongoing thing for me, and several
others in my circle. On the other hand, they have gotten
me one whale of a lot of traffic on several occassions.

My attitude on this is, why fight it?! Google accounts
for the lion's share of the traffic out there, so why not
go with the flow?

After my dust ups with Blogger and Digg, I'm just too
tired to tackle Google...

Eat a peach!

Floyd Bogart

Squidoo: 24 Lenses in 24 Hours

Squidoo: 24 Lenses in 24 Hours

Found myself getting into a rut, and a lazy rut
at that! So I looked around for some kind of
challenge to peak my interest, and what did I
find?

We were just a couple of days away from the
deadline for Giant Squid application!

And what the blazes is a Giant Squid?

Well even if you aren't using it, if you are reading
this you've at least heard of Squidoo. Seth Godin's
brainchild, and hugely useful for generating traffic,
sales and cash. If you are unfamiliar check it out
HERE.

Anyway, a Giant Squid is a lensmaster (the pages
you create on Squidoo are called lenses) that has
at least 50 lenses of good quality and gets selected
by Squidoo's appointed folks for that designation.

Selection only happens once a quarter, and so this
Monday (okay tomorrow!) is the next deadline for
application. This motivated me!

So I set out as a first step to get within shouting
of that benchmark of 50 lenses. Unfortunately
I only had 23 or so good lenses published.

Hmm...

Okay so since I got this urge on Friday AM it looked
like I finally found something to get me of my butt!

So, I challenged myself to produce:

24 Lenses in 24 Hours
(Click Here To See Them)

Now I have to admit that I set out on this without
really doing the math on what it would take to do it.
I started at 1:30 in the afternoon (EST) and set out
to finish by the same time Saturday.

The first 5 seemed to take forever, but were really
done in just over 2 hours, so I was encouraged...

I finally called it quits and went to bed around 2:30AM.
Slept in a bit, but knew I had it licked as I only needed
7 more to accomplish my goal.

Funny thing is, I still need 7 more to get to 50, but I
know I can knock those out tonight, and get my app
in tomorrow AM.

In the past my lenses have done pretty well traffic
and rating wise, but lately they have really taken
off. Mostly because of the info I shared in Lens #8
of my 24, titled Google Gadgets.

Well, better get back at it if I am going to get to 50
tonight. Just thought I'd let you know what had
me pumped again...

Eat a peach!

Floyd Bogart


This is off topic, but these are some great deals on wine:
Summer Clearance Sale at Wine.com! Save 20% off any 6 or more bottles of clearance sale wines.

A HodgePodge Of Social Marketing Apps And Functionality

A HodgePodge Of Social Marketing Apps And Functionality

It is definitely one of the joys of working online
when you come across something that makes a
task easier, or gives you an alternative method
of promotion that is not only easy but just plain
works!

1. Yesterday while doing a bit of Digg-work,
there appeared before me an unassuming Tab
that said "Blog It". Okay so it ain't the Holy Grail
of Social site promotion, but it really makes it
easy to post something from Digg to several
different blogging platforms. I went back and
blogged a Squidoo Lens of mine that I wanted to
say a few things about here anyway. This made
the post almost effortless. Use this, it's quite
useful.

2. Speaking of Squidoo. Each and every time
you update one of your lenses, be sure to use the
"Tweet This" link in the green box that appears
for a few seconds right after you hit the "Publish"
button. This will post a Twitter update letting
your friends know that you have updated your
lens. Microblogging is an important part of you
Social Marketing tasks that this can simplify
dramatically.

3. This one is pretty well known, but for those
that have not run across it, OnlyWire is a great
Social Bookmarking service because it posts your
bookmark to over 20 different Social Bookmarking
sites.

4. RSS becomes more important every day as a
means of both promoting your own site and also
to stay abreast of what your favorite bloggers are
posting, and giving you an opportunity to go and
get those all important Trackback Links. Grab
your 2008 Authority Blackbook at the top of the
sidebar for an explanation of how and why these
are important. Been relying more and more heavily
on my Google Reader for this lately, and find that
a web based RSS Reader just works better for me
than than anything else I have tried.

5. RSS Announcer. This is a handy little tool that
you can have on me. Run this every time you post
to your blog, or update any page you publish a feed
for. It will get you subscribers just about every time.

That's all for now.

Hope you enjoy these and use them too...

Eat a peach!

Floyd Bogart
Are You Leveraging Your Promotinal Efforts Or Are Your Wasting Them?

Evidently I'm a Wanker

Evidently I'm a Wanker


I was checking the stats on my Free Lens Traffic
Squidoo page when I noticed a bunch of traffic
from Technovia.

Being a curious guy I clicked over to the originating url
and made a startling discovery:

I am a wanker and a spammer to boot!

Read the post HERE
and then weigh in.

I am really curious as to what others think on this, as
it seems to me to be at the heart of the whole Web 2.0
experience. If we market using any Web 2.0 strategem
are we then spammers?

My opinion is obvious, but let me know yours!

Floyd Bogart

Squidoo and Twitter - What a Combo

Squidoo and Twitter - What a Combo


After watching the video in my last post, I promised that I would be
launching my own campaign using this method the following day.

Here are the immediate results:

I pored over my PLR materials and decided to do a Squidoo Lens in
the Travel niche. Here it is:

Travelling in Canada

This was pretty simple to put together in spite of the size of the lens.
I just cut and pasted each article into it's own module, and then searched
Google Images for an appropriate jpeg to post with it. Then I put up 4 posts
to my Travel Blog here:

Floyd's Travel

Then I spaced out three modules throughout the lens with
RSS Feeds to these blog posts. Now to supply Traffic!

I went to Twitter
and put up a new profile here:

Traveling Man

Now I "Twittered" the absolutely simplest
post pointing to my Squidoo Lens.
You can see it at my Twitter Profile.

Then I just searched the Twitter Profiles for the keyword Travel
and got back 66 pages of matching profiles. At 20 profiles/page
that translates to around 1,300 profiles with something about
travel in their text.

Not having bought the software from the page in Willie Crawford's
email, I had to manually push the "Follow" button for each profile.
To be honest I only got to about page 30 before calling it quits for
the night.

Twelve hours later, having only Twitted the Lens once, I had gotten
over 30 visits to the Squidoo Lens. I immediately finished off the rest
of the 66 pages of profiles, and then Twitted the Travel Blog as well.

Both are continuing to get steady traffic, and I still
only have the two posts at Twitter on that profile...

I will definitely continue to do more Twitting of the Lens
and the Blog as well, seeing as the initial results were so good.

More on this later!

Floyd Bogart

Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!

Overcoming The Squidoo Lens Google Slap

Overcoming The Squidoo Lens Google Slap

Recently, changes in the way Google indexes webpages have resulted in a loss of ranking, and therefore search results, for most if not all Squidoo Lenses. Squidoo remains an important tool for Internet Marketers, but new and refined methods are necessary to maintain traffic levels.

Watch all four of the videos below, and follow through on the methods outlined and you will see improved results for your lenses...



Floyd Bogart

Do You Squidoo?

If not, then you should!

Squidoo is the brainchild of Seth Godin,
and is another Web 2.0 success story that
you should be taking advantage of.

There is absolutely zero reason not to as
everything there is Free! Which of course
is everyone's favorite Internet Keyword!

You can publish an unlimited number of
pages, or "Lenses" as they are called on
Squidoo.

The range of tools to be found there is
truly amazing and with them you can build
lenses of any niche you could desire.

Here are feeds of a couple of mine:












A few other topics that I have done lenses on:

Eckhart Tolle and "The Power of Now"
Cat Stevens
Little Feat
Avery Brooks
Neon Park
Jeri Ryan
Robert B Parker

An eclectic set of topics to be sure,
and an equally wide array of content.
You can post video and audio but very
little in the way of HTML is enabled.

RSS Feeds are a great way around many
of the limitations and can be customized
within limits. You can see that I used this
within my Robert B Parker lens to post
links to full length episodes of TV Episodes
at AOL Video

There are Plexos and Wikis and a
whole range of other options to delve
into and create very Search-Friendly
pages on most any subject.

As you can see while there are limits
on the scope of what you can do with
Squidoo the possibilities could still keep
you busy and making fungolas for a long
time into the future.

So let me ask you again:

Do you Squidoo ?

Floyd Bogart