Cat Mugs for Cat Lovers

My new lens, Cat Mugs for Cat Lovers, has been done in response to a Fresh Squids Challenge to Nail that Niche.

This encourages new lensmasters to drill down on a subject and make their lenses as specific as possible – covering a very small niche. The thinking is that the more ‘niche’ a lens is, the better the chance of not only getting targeted traffic but also making sales.

This makes sense. If people are looking for cat humor or mugs featuring cats, for example, hopefully my lens will come up on their search and they will visit. While there, they are more likely to find something they want to buy or at least click on an affiliate link and maybe buy other things which will earn commission for the lensmaster, in the case of this lens, that’s me – fingers crossed.

I hope that people will find this lens humorous. It’s meant to be. The cat related pictures and sayings on the mugs make me smile as do the quotations and pictures of cats which I’ve included.

I hope I’ll be able to add more lenses to this particular niche which is the advice given on Fresh Squids.

Why, you might ask, am I doing something suggested on Fresh Squids when I’m a member of the Giant 100 Club? It’s because I can always learn something new. As it happens, I had known about concentrating on niches and most of my lenses probably qualify for that description. I’ve made very few of them very commercial, though, so I thought a lens about coffee mugs featuring cats would be an interesting experiment.

When I got it back, not only was the fault fixed, it had also been upgraded and more memory added as well as having XP changed for Windows 7. I wish I was brave enough and techie enough to try Linux but I’m not so have to use Microsoft. Hopefully, Windows 7 has been out for long enough to have some of the bugs fixed although it seems that most people have found it relatively trouble free – not like Vista.

I’ve lost track of all conversations on Twitter and Facebook as well as some forums. I’m busy trying to catch up now.  My regular updating of Squidoo lenses has fallen behind – I try to update a few everyday – and I haven’t posted much in the Lensmasters Lounge either.

The up side is that I’ve done more cleaning and cooking than usual although I’m happy to go back to my usual low level of cleaning and cooking duties.

Just to get this blog authenticated, I couldn’t put the code in the HTML tab because it was automatically deleted. I succeeded in authentification by putting the code in the WSIWYG tab instead. I’ve just deleted it as I don’t need to keep it any longer.

I hope none of you are working on new Valentine’s Day lenses or web pages right now. You’ve almost certainly left it too late to get much profitable traffic this year, if you are.

Easter, though, is nine weeks away. This gives you time to get a lens or two online. You’ll have time to choose a good subject, hopefully one that puts a slightly different spin on the usual Easter eggs and little bunny rabbits. You don’t want to compete head-on with the top Easter pages, do you? Maybe you know about some Easter customs unique to your area, or your family has its own traditions or recipes for the festival.

The good thing is, you have time to look for a different perspective. To try to give you some ideas for thinking laterally, here are three top-ranking Squidoo lenses about Easter:

Easter Music for Your Church Choir – it doesn’t have a lot of original content but it’s a great resource for anybody looking for Easter music.

Simple & Affordable Little Girls’ Easter Dresses For Spring & Summer – I would never have thought of writing about Easter dresses for little girls but it’s a great idea.

Painting Wooden Easter Eggs – the lensmaster tells us about her family custom of painting wooden eggs for Easter and she also tells us how to do it.

Can you think of something about Easter that will rank highly on Squidoo and, better still, get picked up by Google and other search engines?

Called “…And the Ladies of the Club”, the story revolves around the members of the Waynesboro Women’s Club and their families and friends covering a period from 1868 to 1932.

Yesterday I finished a review of this book on a Squidoo lens. Because the book is so long, my copy is almost 1200 pages, I found it very hard to give a good synopsis of the story.  So much happens to the characters during that period, it’s just not possible or even desirable to include specific events in a review.

Even so, the lens has already been well received with good comments, many saying they like the sound of the book and might read it. As I’ve read this book twice with an interval of nearly 30 years between the two readings, I hope people do read it. I think it repays the effort of getting through so many pages. In fact, I was so captivated by the characters and their lives that the book never felt too long.

I picked up many tips just by looking. It’s what I’ve always done to learn to improve my writing and web page building. Look at what the experts do and learn from them.

I am amazed at the number of new lensmasters who ask how to improve their lenses or get more traffic but a quick look at their profiles shows that they have not rated or favourited any other lenses. That always leads me to assume, possibly wrongly, that they haven’t bothered to look at any or many others.

It truly appalls me when a quick look at their lenses indicates they have no idea at all how to make one that is appealing to the casual visitor.

Who would stop and read a lens that is text heavy with no graphics of any kind unless they are desperate for the information and can’t find it anywhere else? Well, not me for a start!

Even worse, if you do begin to read because you are desperate or perhaps kinder than I am, and you find it’s poorly spelled, ungrammatical and full of text-speak, would you persevere? I think most people would give up.

Why does anybody think this is acceptable? Why would anybody assume this is what other people are prepared to read? I have no idea. What I do know is that too many people new to lens or web page building or blogging think this is perfectly acceptable.

Guess who has seen too many bad web pages and lenses recently!

Who would have thought a group for women on Squidoo would be controversial and provoke discussion and argument? That’s what has happened over the last couple of weeks.

Lens of the Day (LOTD) on Squidoo has recently been featuring Rocket Moms lenses for a fixed period (I think it was ten days). Of course, this means people who aren’t RM members stood no chance of making LOTD with any of their lenses.

In one way, I can see their point, particularly as this is the only group on the network that is officially recognised by management.  Maybe we could all say, “fair enough, maybe that isn’t right” but it seems that this was just the tip of an iceberg of resentment against RM. Women with no children argue they can’t join although they are assured they can.

Men obviously can’t join and many argue vociferously that RM provides a platform to present lenses and the RM community are so supportive that visits follow announcements in the forum of new lenses. They are also convinced that members give each other five stars, so helping to improve lens rank, regardless of quality.

All I can say about the last point is that I’ve never given a fellow Rocket Mom five stars if the lens didn’t deserve it. I’ve never given any lens an undeserved number of stars and I use the full range from one to five stars on lenses depending on their quality. I also don’t give any stars at all to some lenses including those made by RMs.

There are plenty of opportunities for Squids to join groups even if these aren’t officially recognised by Squidoo. Many of them are supportive, though, and provide a place to put links to new lenses. Many members of these groups also visit the lenses and give stars and leave comments, if they deserve them.

Megan Casey of Squidoo has announced that Rocket Moms was set up as an experiment and its great success means they intend to start more official groups. When that happens, we shall have to see if the people who shouted the loudest are prepared to join them and play active roles in the groups.

Jack Vettriano - the Book: My New Squidoo Lens

My new lens, Jack Vettriano – The Book, is the first I’ve made for over two months. I just couldn’t get on with any. I started several, decided they bored me so I deleted them.

I’m so glad I remembered how much I liked this book about the artist Jack Vettriano because it gave me the opportunity to write about something that really interested me even after I began to lens.

I’ve never seen an original painting by Vettriano, only prints or other reproductions so I can’t make any judgment on his talent as an artist on a technical level. What I do know is that many of his paintings are fascinating because they hint at a story behind them. They look like a glimpse into someone else’s love life or other drama.

When I lose the urge to write, I need a subject that just flows from my fingertips. I usually love research but when I’m in a non-writing phase, I don’t have the patience or the inclination. Now I’ve got ideas for new lenses and I want to get on with them, I’m pleased to say.

Santa Squid from Squid Art Too by Tagsforkids

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

I’m finishing this year feeling I’ve accomplished some things that I really wanted to do. There have been some disappointments and sad times too – just like many years, in fact.

At the beginning of the year, I was making very few new lenses on Squidoo. I’d become a Giant in October 2008 by making 50+ lenses. After that I just lost inspiration for writing. I’d start a new lens, think about it, then delete it because I couldn’t think of more to write or I was bored by the subject. Worse still, I sometimes finished a lens, read it the next day, decided it was rubbish and so deleted it. Although I made a few lenses, they were a struggle.

Early 2009 two things pulled me out of this Slough of Despond. I joined Senior Squids and started to take part in their weekly lens Challenge. The second was I received an invitation from Michelle (a_willow) to join the Wiwon Team to become a Giant 100 Clubber. That was in April and the deadline to have 100+ lenses was June 30th 2009.

Joining in the Senior Squids weekly lens Challenge helped me start lens building again. Only having a week to make a lens concentrated my mind – I didn’t have time to dither and decide I didn’t like what I was doing. I made lenses on so many different subjects, it was this that started me off doing gardening lenses like I Love Lilies, Moonflower – Night Blooming Plants and Best of Garden Flowers on Twitter.

Salute to Giants from Squid Art Too by Tagsforkids

Not only did these count towards my 100+ lens target, they also started me writing again. I made the Giant 100 Club having met the required number of quality lenses by June 30th.

Then Michelle asked me to be a tutor on Wiwon for people wanting to make Giant or the 100 Club. She would decide she wanted a lens on some aspect of writing for Squidoo and that I was the one to write it. Sometimes I only had a couple of days before she wanted it. Funnily enough, it really helped me too.

Now I’m a Squid Angel and I love doing this. It gives me the opportunity to help new Squids particularly. Sometimes I see newcomers with great potential and all they need is a little guidance on the best way to use Squidoo. It’s also lovely when I get an email or message on my Angel’s lens telling me I’ve made somebody’s day by blessing their lens.

That’s the really great thing about Squidoo – for many of us, it’s all about community and giving back as well as taking.

Both pictures came from Squid Art Too by Tagsforkids.

Seriously, I’m not joking. You should not only be thinking about Squidoo lenses or web pages for Valentine’s Day on February 14th 2010 now, you should also be thinking about Easter next year too.

I wouldn’t consider publishing a lens for Christmas now. The time for that, in my opinion, is at the end of August or in September. I might even publish one as late as October but that’s about my limit. Why? I want to have time to get it indexed by search engines. Although Google and other search engines can pick up a lens or web page within 24 hours, sometime they take longer than that.

My other reason for doing ’special occasion’ lenses early is because many people start thinking about Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter two or three months before the event and this is when many of them start browsing the web for information. I want my Squidoo lens there, ready and waiting for them. I don’t want to miss the boat and not even get the opportunity for many people to see my work.