Squidlog

Have you ever wondered what an Angel Blessing will do to your lens? Or what happens when the blessing fades? What if several Angels blessed your lens all at once?

You may have heard by now that SquidAngel blessings will give you a nice boost in lens rank. The lower your lens ranked at the time of blessing, the bigger the resulting leap up the ranks. On the downside, SquidAngel dust shelf life is limited. It’s a bit more potent than the magic of Cinderella’s fairy godmother, which lasted only until midnight. But just the same, it wears off after  while.

Here comes the painful part. When several Angels bless a lens at the same time, the effects are gigantic. Both ways! My latest lens project literally blazed it’s way up the ranks to peak at #5 (of around 900,000 lenses) on October 18, 2008! All within less than 3 weeks of being first published. Every morning I gaped in awe and utter disbelief at my dashboard. It was breathtaking!

The very next day, before I could get comfortable in the Top 10, the inevitable happened. The first blessings wore off. Instead of floating down in a dignified, angelic way, the lens dropped like a duck shot in flight, all the way to #47. Then to #65 after another day. It’s rather sickening to watch.

Now, I’m not complaining, mind you. I feel very fortunate and blessed regardless of current lensrank. This lens was built for the SquidAngels, not for my own glory or pocket. But the rollercoaster of this blessing-induced ride through the lensranks has a very important message for those who care to hear it:

SquidAngel Blessings are no replacement for hard, honest work to bring your lens to the top and keep it there! It’s like a sugar rush. At the end of the day what really counts is unique, useful content, pleasing aesthetics, clever marketing, patience, and a satisfied readership that will return and help spread the word.

Amen.

Share/Save

In early September I was one of a lucky few who were appointed to serve the Squidoo community as a SquidAngel. Now there are many great lenses by other SquidAngels who came before me about what exactly a SquidAngel is and what they do. In a nutshell, SquidAngels have special powers to give lenses a boost in lensrank by “blessing” them. On the other hand, particularly spammy lenses get a “thumbs down”, resulting in a drop.

It is notable that there are no strict guidelines in determining whether or not a lens should be blessed or dinged. This accounts for the human factor in the lensrank algorithm. It is up to the individual Angel to apply their own quality standard. As a result, a rich diversity of lenses and topics have a fair chance of getting a blessing.

To help interested lensmasters figure out what makes the individual Angels “tick” (i.e. “bless”) I created the Who’s Who of SquidAngels residing at www.squidoo.com/angels-r-us.

It is also a showcase of some of the HTML and CSS tricks I’ve learned from my fellow lensmasters. The coding effort was immense for someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing.  AlI the graphics were custom created as well. All in all it took me over a week to complete this lens, probably in excess of 50 hours work. I cannot really recommend building lenses like this on a regular basis, but for this project I wanted to make the lens extra special and unique. But when it was finally ready - instant gratification!

Share/Save

Only 10 days left until the start of the 175th Oktoberfest in Munich! Dust off your Lederhosen costumes, grab your favorite Gretchen and roll out the barrel!

Share/Save

Japanese Tattoos | Horimono | Irezumi | Horishi | PICTURES OF TATTOOS Art Blog

Japanese tattoo art is really fascinating. Horimono, also known as Irezumi, are Japanese pictures of tattoos that have evolved into a complex art of stunning images.

Pictures of Tattoos - Home

Popular tattoo styles explained, with some info on how to care for pictures of tattoos.

Japanese Tattoos | Horimono | Irezumi | Horishi | PICTURES OF TATTOOS Art Blog

Japanese tattoo art is really fascinating. Horimono, also known as Irezumi, are Japanese pictures of tattoos that have evolved into a complex art of stunning images.

Pictures of Tattoos - Home

Popular tattoo styles explained, with some info on how to care for pictures of tattoos.

Share/Save

Pictures of Tattoos

Tips for researching and choosing the perfect tattoo.

Share/Save

This past few weeks have not been very productive in terms of new lens creation. I may have mentioned it before, even though I think that some of my lenses are pretty good I’m just not seeing the traffic and more importantly, the sales to justify all this time I spent there. It’s nobody’s fault but my own, I know. I read about how my fellow lensmasters make hundreds, some even thousands of dollars a month on Squidoo. Makes me feel like I’ve missed the boat somewhere. I’m lucky if I make enough to treat my kids to a Happy Meal once in a  while.

Yes, I love Squidoo very much. The community is great, it’s the first time I’ve been comfortable in an online community at all. And making lenses is immense fun, I could do nothing else all day, and I never run out of ideas either. The Giant Squids, Squidoo Activists and even Seth himself would keep me busy building lenses ’til the end of days. The only problem I have is that I need to contribute to the family income in a major way and I just don’t see this happen with Squidoo.

Ah, the distractions. Seth Godin launched Triiibes and many of us were scrambling to get in, just so we could answer YES to the question: Are you in the triiibe? Once there, I found myself out of place. It’s a great community with an incredible quality of professional members. It’s great if you’re looking to connect with marketing intellectuals, great for discussing the bigger picture. I’d love to participate more but again, it’s time consuming and fun but doesn’t help me put food on the table. At least not short term.

So now I’m taking the 30-Day-Challenge which needs all my attention. It’s still a lot harder than I thought. They make it sound easy at the start and watching the tutorials and using some software I can see that it all makes perfect sense. But it’s still hard work for me because of all the writing involved. This is the major stumbling block I encountered and unless I find a way to overcome that I guess it’s back to square 1 for me.

So there, I hope nobody reads my blog because I don’t want to come off as a whiner. If you do read this, just ignore this post, please. I just saw the need to write a post and this is all I could come up with.

Share/Save

Stained Glass Film | Hide That Ugly View With A Stained Glass Window Film

Project ideas that you can do yourself easily with non adhesive stained glass film.

Share/Save

Renaissance Remodelers | Full-Service Green Residential Remodeling | Marin County Builder Contractor - Home

Renaissance Remodelers offers a full range of residential remodeling services to homeowners in Marin County. As a dedicated Green Builder, they use only products and practices that are healthy and environmentally friendly.

Share/Save

Tax Services | Bookkeeping - Accounting Services | Suzanne Halladay Associates

Suzanne Halladay is The Tax Diva of the SF bay area who loves helping people maximize their tax deductions and save money on their taxes.

PICTURES OF TATTOOS

Blog about locating high quality pictures of tattoos on the web. As they say: The journey to a great tattoo begins with a single picture…

Share/Save

Party Planner Biz - Party Planner Resource | Free Article Directory | Tips &Ideas for all Parties

Party Planner article directory. Find free articles and content for everything related to parties. You can also submit your party articles here.

Share/Save