Archive for January, 2008

UPDATE: One of my silent bidders had to back out of the auction at the last minute due to unforeseen health woes. So the lens bids are being erased back to $500. I have notified the second silent bidder who was outbid, but the bids now remain at $500 even.

It’s time for me to let my grown-up baby be adopted by someone else. I enjoy building great Squidoo lenses but then I can always make more, so now I’d like to sell this already profitable lens to someone else and let them reap the rewards.

The lens profile is detailed in the PDF located in this zip file:

http://www.tiffanydow.com/gifts/TopToddlerToys.zip NOTE: At the end of the PDF file, it gives an erroneous link on where to place your bid. Ignore the link and post your bid in the comments section HERE instead. I have tried re-creating the PDF file but Adobe’s stuck

Feel free to download it and review the traffic, earnings, and content of the lens before placing your bid. To summarize, the lens is indexed in Google, ranks on Page 1 for several phrases and averages almost 300 hits a week in traffic from search engines and other sources.

This is a lens that will be around converting sales month after month. Toddler toys are a staple – there are always new toddlers coming of age and parents ALWAYS need toys – whether it’s for Christmas, a birthday, or “just because.”

In the PDF file, as you’ll noticed, I’ve compiled a list of 10 ClickBank products you can also add to the content to make the conversions of the lens even stronger and more profitable!

Since the lens has earned almost $500 in 3 months, my starting bid will be for $500. But it’s obviously worth more than that because it’s a mere 3 months old and once you own it, you’ll have it forever!

By the way, the lens was so brand-spanking new right before Christmas, that it didn’t have time to perform to its fullest potential (even though it did well anyway), but as sales continue week after week, it’ll rank even better in Google and I’m sure it’ll be amazing by the time Old Saint Nick rolls into town in 2008!

To place your bid, add it to the comments below.

Good luck with it!
Tiff

P.S. Someone asked me what sales are like since the Christmas rush is over. It’s true, they will spike from September-December, and this lens wasn’t even built until mid-October so in the coming year, you’ll get much more traffic since it’s an established lens. Anyway, it’s the month after Christmas, so sales are more sluggish. Still, the lens is earning over $1 a day. I expect it to have peaks and valleys. And this doesn’t include ANY ClickBank sales of products I suggest weaving into the lens in the PDF file.

In the last 30 days, it’s earned a little over $1 a day. Right after Christmas, that’s okay, since people’s pocketbooks are tapped out. LOL! But it’ll be more and less along the way. (It also earns about $11-12 for its Squidoo royalties payout per month and the payments are about 2 months lead in time, I believe).

I got bombarded by emails and private messages yesterday about a new Squidoo lens creator tool being sold. Everyone wanted to know what I thought about it, so here goes:

Although I like the idea behind it, I wasn’t impressed.

Nothing against the creator. I think his vision might be a good one. But it shouldn’t have been released in its minimal state as it is. It wasn’t a time saver to me and I felt like it was more of a hassle than a blessing.

The tool lets you enter your Squidoo login information.

Then you either type in a title or let it create one based on your file name (for the Txt document you’re going to pull content from).

Next, you choose if you want it to prompt you, stop creating the lens, or just add some digits onto the end of the URL if the one it wants to create isn’t available.

(So let’s say your Txt file name was “how to train dogs.” It would try to grab squidoo.com/how-to-train-dogs and if that wasn’t available, it would tack on a few numbers or letters to the end of it, like how-to-train-dogs8s6dn or whatever.)

Then you either Max the lens or not, choose to publish or not, and categorize it. (See to me, it’s not a shortcut – you’re still doing much of the same work).

Then you go to the right side and choose the file you want it to get content from. Click continue and it creates and publishes the lens.

But it only supports Write/Text modules. Nothing else. So you’re going to have to go back into Add modules and add more anyway. It’s not going to wear me out clicking Add to 1-2 more Text modules, so this tool, while the idea is okay, isn’t something I’d spend money on again.

Another drawback to this being released is “here we go again!” We just got over a big smackdown from Google about spam and what do you think is going to happen with this tool?

Some idiots are going to use it to flood Squidoo with their PLR content that’s not altered and then we’re going to have lens after lens of rehashed material. By the way, Squidoo headquarters already knew about the tool, so you can bet they’re going to be watching for cookie cutter lenses and they’ll shut them down without warning. Be VERY careful if you DO use this tool and alter everything and make it unique.

Just a warning and my $0.02.

And hey – if you bought it, give your own accounting of what you thought here.

I’d be interested to hear varying opinions. No one person knows everything, and maybe I’m missing something crucial with this tool.

Tiff

I made a video tutorial for you to show you how I begin to build a lens. I had originally made a 1-hour video but what a mess! So they’ll be broken up into 10 minutes or less increments so they fit nicely on YouTube.

Now this video doesn’t go into the selling portion - just the initial idea generation and lens registration. Let me know if you have any questions!
Tiff

It’s all right here:

http://www.socialmarketing101.com/flipthatlens.html

Let me know your thoughts!
tiff

Alright, to flip a lens, you have to have an audience. In this case, it would be an Internet marketing audience. But I flipped a lens that was brand new, and didn’t even show as published yet and i wound up with 45 potential buyers, but it was first come, first served, so the lens sold in about 7 minutes.

First thing I did was find a niche. Stress. What a killer niche! I narrowed it down to workplace stress. Grabbed the Squidoo URL http://www.squidoo.com/workplacestressmanagement and added a total of 9 modules. (He’s added more since yesterday when I created it).

After the introduction, I had (in this order):

Amazon Spotlight
Text/Write
StickyNote
Poll
Amazon Spotlight
Text/Write
Amazon Spotlight
Text/Write
Guestbook

Plus, as you know, the introduction makes the 10th module. I actually got confused because most of the time, I don’t have that last text module. But oh well. Okay, so before I do anything, I tag the lens using the keyword tool located at http://www.tiffanydow.com/merrychristmas.

I entered workplace stress and then added 40 tags for the lens based on those words. Then I add the modules as listed above. I go into my clip art and pick out 4 images to use in the lens - 1 for the introduction and 3 for the text modules. Then I start filling out everything that’s not a text module.

I start with the guestbook. Always make sure to use the keyword phrase in titles and content. I do the guestbook, the poll, and then the Amazon spotlights. With the spotlights, I like them better than the full Amazon modules. I take a quote from one of the reviews to enter as the “why this is a good recommendation” portion.

Then I go to fill out the sticky note. I love this one - and you can format it to a hyperlink, so I added a ClickBank product. After all that, I move on to the text modules, writing to use the keyword phrase often but not so much so that it’s stuffed. I go back and add my hyperlinks to the content, paste it in there, and save before I publish the lens.

Blasted my list, got 45 requests to buy it, and sold it to the first buyer in a few minutes. Other avenues might take longer. If you don’t have a list of people interested in buying lenses, then start building one. Otherwise, you’ll need to sell it on a site like SquidU, DigitalPoint, or wherever people sell turnkey sites.

Once the person pays via PayPal, you transfer the lens.
Easy as that!
Tiff