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Article and content marketing with Squidoo Lenses

Privateer Web Solutions — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:05:47 +0000

When creating content on Squidoo, you can add quite a bit of information without much effort.

Of course, since Squidoo lenses are not articles, it can help a little when creating them to take a minute and consider exactly how they relate to normal articles.

The Article Title

For squidoo, your Lens Title is the equivalent of your article title, so be sure to take some time deciding on it!

The URL

On Squidoo, you decide what you want your url to be. Most quality article sites use your article title as your url, and I recommend doing the same thing for your Squidoo lenses.

To do this, simply replace all spaces and special characters with dashes.

A lens with the title:
"Like eating fish? Learn to get more fish with dynamite!"
would become
"like-eating-fish-learn-to-get-more-fish-with-dynamite"

This helps strengthen the fact that your lens is about your title in the eyes of search engines.

Keywords

In step four, you can enter a few keywords for your lens. Be sure to do so.

If you want to add more keywords, you can do so on the right panel once you begin editing your lens by choosing "Tags" and then "Add More Tags".

Summary

For a Squidoo Lens, your summary is placed in your introduction and contents tool.

Be sure to edit it and write a strong summary. Additionally, I recommend turning on the table of contents unless you are creating a rather short lens.

Content

When I create a lens, I like to already have an article written.

I then take each section of the article and create a new text entry box for it, giving the section a title and subtitle and then filling in the content.

There are a lot of modules to choose from, but some of the ones that I tend to get the most mileage from are the following:

Text with BIG Picture: Just like the text module, but with a picture that goes all the way across. Great for large images.
Amazon Module: If I have a book to recommend, I’ll place an amazon module in for it; This will earn you a little extra cash if people use the link in it and you have your royalty settings set to give yourself some percentage as cash.
Featured Lenses: Great for providing quick information on other lenses.; This becomes more useful as you write more lenses.
Links Voting (plexo): Let people add links and vote on them.
Guestbook: Let people leave comments on your lens.
Polaroid: For when you just want to insert a big picture.
RSS: Add Your Blog: A great way to showcase items from your store or posts from your web site.; Automatically pulls new content as you put it up.
YouTube vids: Great for displaying youtube videos

Formatting your content
When it comes to formatting content, lists and paragraphs are the primary tools you have at your disposal in text modules.

Tables, data lists, and divs are stripped out automatically, so knowing how to style your lists and paragraphs can come in handy.

If you want sublists, the following can be helpful:

< style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">First List Item
< style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Indented item

The first list item is set to be bold with underlining while the second is set to be pushed an extra couple of characters into the page.

If you want nice looking callouts, you might use styling on paragraphs like the following:

Your callout here

The above results in a block with a reddish border and light grey background having your text centered within it. Some extra styles that can be useful are:

font-weight: bold;: That will make the text bold
padding-top: 0.5em;: That will make half a character height of extra space above the text, inside of the box.
padding-bottom: 0.5em;: That will make half a character height of extra space below the text, inside of the box.

Resource Box:

You really don’t have a resource box in a lens, but because you can place whatever you want in it, you don’t really need one.

Royalties

When creating lenses, I like to set them to donate some percent to the squidoo general find and the rest to me, but you can certainly set it up however you wish.

Squidcasts

When you create or alter a lens on squidoo, you can publish a squidcast, which is basically a short notice to anyone that has you ( or your lens ) favorited to give them some information about your new lens and/or update.

It is kind of like a built in twitter for squidoo users.

Don’t forget to send one out when you add a new lens or make major changes to an existing lens.

Thats it!

There really isn’t more to it than that. If you create lenses with good content, people will find them.

Additionally, you will be creating quality backlinks from within a fairly high page rank web site which the search engines seem to like quite a bit.

If you update your lens on occasion ( once per month or so ), it will continue to bring in new traffic for quite some time.

Quality content from a buyers perspective

Privateer Web Solutions — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:59:52 +0000

When creating content for selling, you can avoid making hard sales pitches by simply providing potential buyers with the information that they are seeking.

By publishing articles that give people answers to their questions, interesting uses for your products, or anything else that they are seeking an answer to or a solution for, you are providing them with actual value.

When you give them good information, it helps to establish at least some measure of trust and gratitude. When people are grateful for the information that you have provided and trust you, they tend to be more likely to buy from you rather than someone else.

Additionally, they become more likely to return for future products and recommend you to other people.

Consider this…

When you go to buy a car, are you more likely to buy from the knowledgeable salesman who answers whatever questions you might have and points out interesting aspects of particular cars that relate to your questions, but leaves you to your looking otherwise…or the pushy salesman that keeps trying to tell you why every car you look at is perfect for you?

While more people will buy from the pushy car salesman, the former will end up with a lot more people who come back for future purchases as well as more recommendations from those he sells to. On the internet, word of mouth should never be underestimated.

How to Have Your Target Audience Provide You With Information Marketing Topics

Privateer Web Solutions — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 04:18:56 +0000

Coming up with good topics for information marketing on a constant basis is problematic for many people.

However, if you make good use of the internet you should soon find yourself with no shortage of good topics to deal with.

Finding Good Information Marketing Topics
If you want to find excellent ideas for articles, then doing the following should leave you with no shortage of things to write about: Figure out who your target audience is. Find a site on the internet where members of your target audience talk about things related to what you sell. Look for questions to answer, problems to address, and needs or wants to fulfill. Of course, you should also try to be aware of the questions you answer for yourself or interesting things related to what you sell that you stumble across, as such things also make excellent topics for articles. I recommend keeping a notebook and writing utensil handy at all times so that you can jot down interesting ideas before you forget them and create articles about them later.

Finding Good Information Marketing Topics

If you want to find excellent ideas for articles, then doing the following should leave you with no shortage of things to write about:

Figure out who your target audience is.
Find a site on the internet where members of your target audience talk about things related to what you sell.
Look for questions to answer, problems to address, and needs or wants to fulfill.

Of course, you should also try to be aware of the questions you answer for yourself or interesting things related to what you sell that you stumble across, as such things also make excellent topics for articles.

I recommend keeping a notebook and writing utensil handy at all times so that you can jot down interesting ideas before you forget them and create articles about them later.

Who is your target audience?
Normally, people who are selling something have an audience in mind, though perhaps a rather general one. As long as you have at least one general target audience, you can track down sites where members of that audience gather. Of course, if you can define your intended audience better, you can find more targeted communities and focus your articles better. It also can help to look for lateral audiences. Perhaps you sell something that is normally considered to be one thing, but can think of other good uses for it to which most people never even consider putting it. When you can think of these kinds of uses, you typically find a reachable market with little or no competition, at least for a while.

Who is your target audience?

Normally, people who are selling something have an audience in mind, though perhaps a rather general one.

As long as you have at least one general target audience, you can track down sites where members of that audience gather.

Of course, if you can define your intended audience better, you can find more targeted communities and focus your articles better.

It also can help to look for lateral audiences.

Perhaps you sell something that is normally considered to be one thing, but can think of other good uses for it to which most people never even consider putting it.

When you can think of these kinds of uses, you typically find a reachable market with little or no competition, at least for a while.

Where does your audience congregate?
No matter what you sell, there is probably a place somewhere on the internet where your members of your target audience can be found. The following sites might be quite helpful when seeking out questions related to what you are selling: Yahoo Groups Yahoo Answers Ask.com Big Boards MySpace Forums Google Groups Additionally, entering the primary broad keywords that you are targeting along with words such as “forums”, “boards”, “groups”, and such can turn up a lot of good results. By simply scanning subject lines you can typically find more questions than you could possibly write articles about.

Where does your audience congregate?

No matter what you sell, there is probably a place somewhere on the internet where your members of your target audience can be found.

The following sites might be quite helpful when seeking out questions related to what you are selling:

Additionally, entering the primary broad keywords that you are targeting along with words such as “forums”, “boards”, “groups”, and such can turn up a lot of good results.

By simply scanning subject lines you can typically find more questions than you could possibly write articles about.

Creating Solid Content for Information Marketing

Privateer Web Solutions — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:37:59 +0000

For information marketing purposes, your content is very important. If you fail to provide people with good content, your work on a strong title, summary, and resource box will typically be a waste of time.

Content Creation
The body of your content should focus on providing exactly what the title and summary promise quickly and efficiently. The purpose of your content is to give the one viewing it the information that they were looking for, so that they will view it and hopefully take the action you are looking for. If you don’t deliver, then people will quickly hit their back button and see if they can find content that does deliver.

Content Creation

The body of your content should focus on providing exactly what the title and summary promise quickly and efficiently.

The purpose of your content is to give the one viewing it the information that they were looking for, so that they will view it and hopefully take the action you are looking for.

If you don’t deliver, then people will quickly hit their back button and see if they can find content that does deliver.

Creating Strong Content
When you are creating content, there are a few simple things that you should generally try to keep in mind: Keep the feel of the body similar to the feel of the title If you used a secretive title, but provide content that doesn’t have a hint of secrecy to it, your viewer may decide to go elsewhere. They chose your content based upon the title…so chances are good that they want content that has the same general feel to it. Keep it short Unless you promise a novel, it is best to keep your content as short as possible, especially when creating text content. Start strong and stay strong Your first two sentences should be as strong as you can make them. For audio and video, the first half minute should be good enough to hold peoples interest. Most people will go look elsewhere if you haven’t caught their attenting within the first paragraph. Providing a week introduction will prompt people to go elsewhere. Use paragraphs liberally in textual content Long paragraphs turn most people off. By breaking up your paragraphs, you make your writing more inviting and/or less intimidating for most people. If you know that your target market doesn’t mind (or even enjoys) long paragraphs, then ignore this. Use whitespace liberally If the venue or medium allows, consider using images and boxes to break up your text and make particular pieces of information stand out better. Use subheadings If it makes sense to do so, be sure to create subheadings in any textual content. This helps skimmers find the section of your content that they want to read. Callouts: If it is allowed, you might want to include a callout in your content. A callout tells your viewer what they should do now. If you don’t suggest that they do something, most people won’t. When it makes sense, I prefer to place callouts that are similar to titles, telling people the benefits of taking the action I suggest rather than just telling them something like "Click here to buy!" For example: “Learn how the courts work and answer your own legal questions without a high priced lawyer!” "Ignore the sycophantic media. Learn the real reasons for our economic problems now!" Directed towards the proper audience, both callouts could be quite effective…even though neither one notes what, exactly, will happen if the reader clicks either link. For comparison sake, here are the callouts they might replace: "Buy Jurisdictionary Now!" "Get your copy of The Revolution, a Manifesto now!"

Creating Strong Content

When you are creating content, there are a few simple things that you should generally try to keep in mind:

Keep the feel of the body similar to the feel of the title: If you used a secretive title, but provide content that doesn’t have a hint of secrecy to it, your viewer may decide to go elsewhere.; They chose your content based upon the title…so chances are good that they want content that has the same general feel to it.
Keep it short: Unless you promise a novel, it is best to keep your content as short as possible, especially when creating text content.
Start strong and stay strong: Your first two sentences should be as strong as you can make them. For audio and video, the first half minute should be good enough to hold peoples interest.; Most people will go look elsewhere if you haven’t caught their attenting within the first paragraph.; Providing a week introduction will prompt people to go elsewhere.
Use paragraphs liberally in textual content: Long paragraphs turn most people off. By breaking up your paragraphs, you make your writing more inviting and/or less intimidating for most people.; If you know that your target market doesn’t mind (or even enjoys) long paragraphs, then ignore this.
Use whitespace liberally: If the venue or medium allows, consider using images and boxes to break up your text and make particular pieces of information stand out better.
Use subheadings: If it makes sense to do so, be sure to create subheadings in any textual content.; This helps skimmers find the section of your content that they want to read.

Callouts:

If it is allowed, you might want to include a callout in your content.

A callout tells your viewer what they should do now. If you don’t suggest that they do something, most people won’t.

When it makes sense, I prefer to place callouts that are similar to titles, telling people the benefits of taking the action I suggest rather than just telling them something like "Click here to buy!"

For example:

“Learn how the courts work and answer your own legal questions without a high priced lawyer!”
"Ignore the sycophantic media.
Learn the real reasons for our economic problems now!"

Directed towards the proper audience, both callouts could be quite effective…even though neither one notes what, exactly, will happen if the reader clicks either link.

For comparison sake, here are the callouts they might replace:

Adding content to your site for targeted traffic

Privateer Web Solutions — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:41:50 +0000

Now that you have the basics of your store traffic website completed and launched, you should take a little bit of time to add the kinds of content to it that people who buy what you sell are looking for.

Types of potential paying customers

Typically, online store sites spend a lot of time selling individual products or services, but fail to put up content that will naturally bring targeted traffic to their site.

When potential buyers go looking for something, they tend to fall into a couple of categories:

People who want to buy something and know what it is

These people will find what you offer via search engines with product keywords

They will search on product names
Some will include "$" in their search as they want pages which actually sell items
Some will include words like "Buy", "For Sale" etc.

They are also the people who have the most competition for their money.

People who want to buy a specific type of thing, but have not decided upon a particular product.

These people will find what you offer via search engines with category keywords

They will search on general types of products
Some will include words like "best", "good", etc.

There is generally decent competition for these peoples money.

People who want a solution to a problem, but don’t know what the solution is

These people will use search engines to hunt for solutions to some kind of perceived problem.

They will search on problem words rather than product or category related words.
If you can provide a solution to their problem, then you can sell to them.
The words they search on may appear to have nothing to do with what you sell.

Competition for these customers varies greatly, but if you take the time to do keyword research and locate these customers, you can make a lot of sales fast…provided you sell something that will solve their perceived problem.

There are certainly other types of potential customers out there, but the above are all perfectly reachable and willing to buy if you can lead them to your products.

Content creation for potential paying customers

With the above three types of people in mind, here is how I recommend adding content to your store traffic site:

People who know what they want

These are the people that I would build product showcase pages for.

Since they already know what they want, they may buy from you without a second thought if you can show them what they want.

However, some will be looking for:

Specific details about the product such as color, size, brand, etc.
Specific details about your service such as shipping information, return policies, etc.
Any special reasons to buy from you rather than someone else

A clean, simple page with a good picture, clear information on the features and/or attributes of the product you are offering, and links to your selling policies will usually be more than enough to make a sale to these customers.

If they are bargain hunting or comparison shopping, they might also be interested in knowing about anything extra they get should they buy from you. Some easy to create extras which cost little or no money are:

E-books / pdfs containing information such as: Clear, concise instructions on assembly or usage; Extra uses for the product in question; How to care for and/or clean the product; How to customize the product
Storage cases
Low cost, closely related products
Coupons for services related to the product: These can be from other places

People who know what kind of thing they want

These are people I would build category and/or product showcase pages for.

Since they know generally what they want, they are often looking for:

Recommendations on good products of the type they seek
Information about how different related products compare to each other

To increase sales in this group, you might consider the following:

Providing detailed articles on the benefits of particular products: These I would place on product showcase pages either as part of the description or as links
Providing articles comparing closely related products: These should weigh the pros and cons in comparison to each other; I would place such articles as links in category showcase pages and perhaps note which you believe to be the strongest product for particular uses on the category showcase page itself.
Providing testimonials from people who have bought particular products and recommend them: These can be testimonials on other sites or direct testimonials from your own customers.; If you use testimonials from other sites, I recommend using a small snippet of the testimonial along with the provided name and site name that you found the testimonial on…but the site name does not need to be a link. If you do provide a link, I recommend having it open in a new window and making it into a nofollow link.

People who are looking for solutions to a problem

Doing this can work very well, but requires more than simply targeting obvious keywords and using them to bring in potential customers.

To find these people, I recommend looking over the products you offer and trying to think of how your products could take care of a perceived problem or need.

Sites such as ask.com, yahoo answers, and let you see what kinds of perceived problems people are trying to get addressed. Looking them over, if you can match one of your products to the solution for a problem, you have a good candidate for an article.

Tying it all together

You can create posts on your site and link them to and from your category and product showcases.

Additionally, you could write articles on other sites and/or create digital products based off of them to sell directly on your site.

For now, I recommend doing the following:

Update any product showcases with specific information about the product.: You can do this in this in your product description or via the sideboxes.; Check out "Creating boxed areas with html" for information on possible ways to cleanly show attributes of your products.; Check out "Creating custom sideboxes for product showcases" for information on ways to create sideboxes.
Update or create a shipping information and return policy and link them from your product showcases.: Check out "How to create a shipping information page" if needed.
Make note of other reasons to buy from you rather than someplace else: You might add a link to your store feedback if the store you sell on has such.; You might make note of any special discounts such as a percent off if they buy over a certain amount of goods from you.; You might create information products for certain products or product categories and note that they are free with any purchase.

Don’t get carried away. For now, I’d hold off on creating too many articles on your site because we will discuss article marketing before long. However, a couple of comparison or informative articles to give visitors more information about what you offer couldn’t hurt.