More SEO and Marketing advice

I have been outgrowing my blog at squidtop for a while, but it took someone asking me to create an e-book to go and create my own blog about SEO and online marketing. The result is my Marketing Spiritual a blog about Online marketing with spiritual integrity.

The most popular posts there so far are:

• What I just did to get 5% more traffic to my squidoo lenses... 
• Search Engine Marketing Basics - 5 SEO Techniques 
• and the controversial: Tweaking the title tag for SEO 

The free online marketing e-book itself has also been downloaded a whole lot already. 

The e-book is basically the information from my SEO and Keyword research lenses, plus the most important content of my blogposts about SEO and online marketing, plus the basics about online publishing in general.

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7 Things I Ask Myself Before Creating A Lens

Below are the 7 questions I asked myself before/while creating my lens, BEARS: The 8 Wonders of the World.

1. What am I hoping to accomplish?
Raise awareness of the world's 8 bear species and raise money for Wildlife SOS.

2. Am I focusing on a singular sub-topic or giving an overview?
A brief overview / introduction of the 8 species.

3. How can I organize it to make it easy to navigate?
With only 8 bear species, it seemed logical to put the bears in alphabetical order.

4. How can I make it interesting?
Most people don't know the 8 species so I included their aliases (Brown Bear / Grizzly), photos and conservation status. I also added a Flickr slideshow and videos.

5. What do I want to link to?
I had already created more in-depth lenses on each of the 8 bear species so I linked to each of them. I also linked to organizations saving bears.

6. What can I sell?
I added bear Wildlife SOS's CafePress and Amazon books and bear gifts.

7. How much royalty do I want to give to what charity?
100% of the royalties goes to Wildlife SOS so I make sure I added a Donation Module.

Adding a guest book, some featured lenses, and a link to the Save Our Bears (SOB) Group made this a 5 star lens (in my opinion) right from the get-go. I have, of course, continued to update and add new items often.

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A Secret Search Term to Get More Squidoo Traffic

Shhh! Don’t tell, but I’m going to share a secret with you, one that could result in more traffic to your lenses.

Do you have a lens that features a person, a celebrity, someone that people want to know more about? If so, make sure you include two things on that lens: one, the person’s birthday (date of birth) and, two, the person’s age (so they don’t have to do the math). Fans want to know those things and when they search “how old is so-and-so” or “when is so-and-so’s birthday,” make sure your lens about so-and-so provides the answers for them.

A countdown module (like this one) is a great way to show a person’s birthdate; just remember to update it every year!

That’s the secret. Shhh!

(picture courtesy Gustty via Creative Commons)

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How To Use Free Sitebuilders to Give Yourself Quality Inbound Links

My newest Squidoo lens "How To Use Free Sitebuilders to Give Yourself Quality Inbound Links" is already getting alot of attention. I am pleased to see that although I just posted it 2 days ago, it has several comments, reviews and ratings. Pretty good for a brand new lens.

We are all searching for ways to get quality oneway links in order to improve our Google PR and Site Traffic. It is challenging. But with this simple and free idea, you can give yourself oneway links from these free site builders.

Since people seem to like it, I have been improving it. I have created a drawing to help readers more quickly understand the project (That is the photo you see in ths blog, to see a larger size drawing and to learn more details of the idea visit the lens How To Use Free Sitebuilders to Give Yourself Quality Inbound Links. I have also posted modules so reviewers can make suggestions for improvement. Who knows, maybe one day I will use the suggestions to repeat this project and see if I get better results.

Do you know of some good ways to give your Squidoo Lenses or your blog quality inbound links for free? If so, please leave some comments on this blog. If I learn something interesting, I will blog about it.

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