• Elsewhere Online

  • It's My Life …
  • Kids Bedroom Ideas
  • Kids Bedroom Ideas on Squidoo
  • Sesame Street Birthday
  • Susan on Squidoo
  • SusanVillasLewis on Squidoo

• Share This!

  

• Recent Comments

  • thefluffanutta on Playing tag
  • Susan Villas Lewis on Playing tag
  • thefluffanutta on Playing tag
  • Susan Villas Lewis on The shine is off the Amazon … sometimes
  • aj2008 on The shine is off the Amazon … sometimes

Whoops. Running a bit behind. That’s what happens when you start doing all the stuff you say you’re going to do.

Made a few new lenses:
Hannah Montana decor – a split off my main bedding lens and about time too
Cowboy crib bedding – another split
Lalaloopsy bedroom – sorry for putting that song in your head today
Giraffe bedroom decor – trying to finish out this theme.

At the pace I’m going, not going to make it to my total lens goal. Which is OK, I suppose. The number of lenses I have isn’t the big deal, it’s the amount of money I can make for them. Just the more you have, the more you can make.

Generally spending too much time doing squid stuff, not enough doing others. Oh, yes, I’m getting blog posts written. But they aren’t the ultimate goal, right? I have bigger goals that are supposed to be getting done and not spending time doing them. Come on, Susan!

Almost spring (yes, it is!), which means it’s almost cycling season. Those lenses always do better in the spring, although better is becoming a tiny bump. Lately, they’ve done well all year long. Updated all the ones that hadn’t been since last year, so everything’s a January date now.

Major overhaul on beer cycling jerseys, reorganizing by brewery where possible. My thought is that some people search by brewery name and this puts it in the h1 tags and gives them the chance to see everything from that particular brewery. We’ll see how it goes.

Spent a good hour between the two accounts dealing with sub-categories. Yeah for adding new ones, boo for the fact that adding tends to knock old lenses out of their categories.

Updated several of my book lenses. Good because new books in a couple of series are coming out this spring as it turns out.

Updated all my Dallas event lenses. Didn’t do that last year. In fact, some of them still had 2009 information from when I first created them. Bad Susan. One thing I realized is all the intro images are way too small and my tagging at the time of creation was pretty pathetic. Hoping these get new life now that I’ve improved some of the basics.

Deleted one lens where the event has been wrapped up into another Dallas event that I already had a lens on. And have come up with a list of new Dallas events to add. Although … only money I’ve ever really made came from the ad pool, which means these puppies have to get traffic to make them worth bothering with.

Already time to update spring and summer lenses. Got my swimsuit lenses updated and working on cycling jerseys, although those are a year-round seller for me now. But spring is a big time for people buying new gear.

Discovered a glitch in the Google Maps module as a result. Something about the API being incorrect. Waiting for it to get fixed.

Traffic back to way up on my niche account. Nice to get a steady and high amount of traffic year-round and not just over the holidays. I’m sure I’m leaving some on the table somewhere, but that’s OK. Dropping steadily in my main account due to all those holiday specific lenses.

Money coming in nicely. I’m on pace to hit close to 3K this month, now. Yowsers.

Realized I am way behind on updating in my niche account. November was two months ago, Susan, not one. So scrambling to get the most out of date stuff up dated. Want to have nothing last updated in 2011 by the end of next week.

Annoying to post here. I get “oops couldn’t find” more than I get the blog.

New lenses
Turtle Wall Decals
Polka dot rugs
Turtle decor
Novelty cycling jerseys for kids
Astana cycling team gear

Sometimes, I let things go just to get the lens up. Hate when I discover two months later just how much I was leaving on the table because I hadn’t finished it. boo. One of those was my Disney Incredibles bedroom lens.

Also spent a lot of time updating my lensographies in my niche account. Easy to forget as I go blazing away creating lenses. And I’ve got so many now that it can be hard to pick out the news ones. Bah.

Brief update with some of the week’s work based on my goals for the year

Blogging
I’ve gotten scheduled out a few posts on my kids bedroom blog, so publishing two a week as planned. At least through this next week. Ha! I’m adding in a third post with a Friday deals post, which I intend to change over to the weekly “newsletter”. Goal is to have my give-a-way done by the end of the month and get the sign-ups going.

Got my 2012 goals post done on my personal blog. It might be good to schedule out a calendar to do blog posts in general. I have the editorial calendar widget on one of my blogs, not sure which. But I wish that could work across a set of blogs rather than be on each one. Did my challenge recap for my 2011 quilting challenge on that blog and got a post on my libertarian lenses done on my other blog that points to Squidoo stuff. Also did two more scheduled out for the week, so that’s my three for there for the week. Go me!

Money
Stupid me. I tend to get to 7% at Amazon almost every month. And yet, given the choice between Amazon and another merchant, I tend to go with the other. I think somewhere in my head, I have the 4% we get via the Squidoo split. But often times, Amazon’s 7% with my personal affiliate account is far better. So I’m working on switching links over from one of my merchants with a crappy 2% payout that has also had no conversions in the past three months. Only benefit to using those kinds of merchants is when they have a product you can’t find anywhere else or to just show how widely you’re shopping on their behalf. But if they’re only willing to buy from Amazon anyway, it makes little sense to send them to poorly paying and converting merchants.

Money is doing great so far. Generally. I’m on pace to hit $2k this month, which is freaking me out. Just feels flukey. I hate flukey.

New lenses
Working up lots of new stuff. Well, much of it is splitting off from old stuff, but there is work involved. Got a lens featuring NCAA Hello Kitty tees done (finally), and five new crib bedding lenses – teddy bear crib bedding, polka dot crib bedding, plaid crib bedding, construction crib bedding and ocean crib bedding. All but one is a split from another lens and I actually remembered to add them all to my crib bedding lensography. Go me again!

Other
Doing some homework on popshops; I think it might be a good option on some of my more niche blogs. Also setting up a rough schedule that allows for dedicated article writing and design time. Goals by end of month are to have my kids bedroom worksheet done for a giveaway to get people on the mailing list and one new design to post on Zazzle.

A few days in and things have been hopping. New lenses, updates, planning ahead. And sadly, focused mostly on Squidoo and not other ventures. Got to plan in time for those diversity things to force myself to do them, me thinks.

Among the new lenses is one of those “it’s about time” things. Pixar has a new movie coming out this summer that I’m eager to see. With another one-word title that’s tough to optimize for – Brave. Ran into the same thing with Up! when it came out. Feel like I’m actually a couple of months behind in getting to this, but still time for getting it attention before the movie releases.

One of the big things on my checklist is to split up some of my shops to make them more niche-y. I split off novelty cycling jerseys for women before the year end and have several more in that niche to do. Also have some decisions to make about a few in this niche. Seems a supplier on Amazon of some jerseys I had built lenses around seems to be no more. An entire line of cycling jerseys just gone. Fortunately, two were holiday related; not many Christmas jerseys like to be in demand in the spring. So holding off on a decision on those.

Also before the end of the year, I got a bunch of new calendar lenses done. I’ve been adding to my niche here with calendars that pair up with bedding lenses in my other account rather than strictly kids calendars. I mean, horse calendars work for any age really, but they go with my horse bedroom lenses. Same for skateboarding calendars and Sesame Street calendars. The Muppets calendars just fit with the general niche.

In my niche account, I’ve updated a ton of lenses with new products as well as just lenses that haven’t been updated in a while. I try to stay no more than a month behind on that as a rule. With almost 400 in this account, that becomes a job just in and of itself. Also created links for products I had discovered surfing around to add later, researched products for two new lenses that I’ve published now. Dog and puppy wall decals fills out my nice for a dog bedroom. And zodiac bedding isn’t really a kids bedding option, more teen if kid at all. Might switch it to my other account, but not sure just yet.

Also had to spend time replacing products from two merchants canceling their program. Ugh. Hate that because I’m never sure I’ve completely caught everything and these guys are on GAN. Have yet to figure out where a report on invalid links might be.

Dashboard money isn’t updating again. Should have something there because I’m still racking up a lot of points for sales.

Blew past all my goals for last year, which may mean I didn’t have as much confidence, knowledge or thought as I should have. I thought I was setting my sights high, but maybe not. Makes it a little tough to decide just where to go for this year, though.

My overarching goal continues to be to make enough via all my online endeavors to support myself. Basically, that means enough to qualify as a full-time salary at some job. Managed to do that this last year, so I’m confident I can do it again, but I’d like to see the number a little higher. This kind of goal has made it possible for me to meet most of my other life goals, especially around spending more time with family. The flexibility of working for yourself as well as having that work all be online is just amazing.

Money
I set the goal to average $1K a month in sales commissions last year. I ended up averaging $1682. Huh. Which leaves me wondering just what would be reasonable to set as a goal for this year. This is the one thing where I really don’t have control, where I can’t make it happen. So I’ve pondered just whether it was reasonable to even set a goal. Is that just inviting stress? I’d love to get to $3K average a month, which is almost double from this year. Logic says it’s doable based on this last year, but I have got to consider what tactics I’m missing right now that could make that more likely.

Lenses
Ended 2011 with 654 and would like to get to 1,000 for next year. Which is about 30 a month. Which is entirely doable despite the fact that I have at least 30 that I’m considering deleting. Still, I go back and forth about whether creating that many more lenses is the best use of my time in general. Back and forth. Back and forth. Lenses are the easiest way for me to create a sales channel but … . Argh. Still, shooting for 1K across both accounts.

Blogs
I have about a billion of these, it seems. Have even gotten rid of a few and still have a ton to maintain. Some are sales-related, some not so much. A few could be good money-makers if I could get it together. I don’t even have adsense on all of them and some of that is for darned good reason.

I have two main money-makers, one that maybe could be, one that’s personal, one for a “normal” business, etc. So, it’s probably obvious where I should spend my time. The biggest potential one is my kids bedroom site. I think. I have “ideas” in my main keyword, which doesn’t exactly say buying traffic. That said, I did make a couple hundred bucks in sales from there, so it has potential.

Kids Bedrooms – post twice a week, get to 10K readers a month, build mailing list to 5K, actually do weekly deals mailing
Others – three posts a month to personal blog, three a week to Squidoo lens blog, one a week to Sesame Street, twice a month to personal business, post new lenses to this blog

In addition, I want to finish up my free giveaway (which you get when you sign up for the mailing list) and maybe toy with an ebook idea.

Diversity
Ok, I already mentioned how I’d like to build out my blogs to get more money going there. I feel I wasn’t specific enough in setting goals in this area for last year, so it was easy to just pass by and get nothing done. So, here are more specific goals for 2012.

Build up two lines of designs at Zazzle – I have ideas for tons, but just two will do to get started.
Have 20 hubs (have six right now)
Write something once a month for all of my various article account – wizzley, triond, etc.

And that’s it for 2012. Not much there, right? Ha!

Well, December was a happy month for me, if a busy one. Trying to keep up 650 lenses that are attracting holiday traffic takes an amazing amount of time. Not to mention, I ended up with three lenses featured on the home page – resulting in tons of traffic and comments – and had the lens of the day in there somewhere, as well.

Money

I got over the $4600 mark in sales this month. Yowsers! That’s 4.5 times what I had last December. Wish I could count on that trend continuing. People were out to shop this year and given the amount of traffic I was drawing, it shouldn’t have surprised me to do so well. Yeah!!

Lenses

I finished the year with 654 lenses after making almost 30 more in December. Quantity is important here, but I am eying an entire new set of lenses to delete because they are just not performing. Trying to decide just where I could take the content and possibly get better traction for it.

And that’s about it for December. Just spent the month keeping things updated and responding to comments and making new lenses. Oh, and pondering goals for 2012. And realizing I need to make better use of this blog than just a monthly update post with no links. Sigh. So much for trying to whittle down things a bit.

Woot!! Managed to knock down my last specific goal for the year and so I’m a happy camper as we roll to the end of the year.

Money
Blew well past my goal of making $2K in commissions in a month. Well past. My first time over the mark ever and it certainly left me feeling pretty good. In fact, I made it to the 7.5% rate at Amazon for the first time ever as well. A good month for sales, for sure. And traffic. Just going crazy right now.

Lenses
I’m up to 628 in both accounts now. And the list of ones to make just never seems to get shorter. Argh! I keep thinking I’m going to run out of ideas at some point, but that hasn’t happened after four years, so it’s probably unlikely at this point. Just frustrating to not always get them done. Part of that is the whole maintenance thing. Just got through changing over a ton of links for a merchant because they were out of commission at one network and thus not converting for me. Which is a whole ‘nother set of things to talk about.

New goals
I’m already starting to think about goals for next year. One thing I’m learning – be more specific about the goal or you’ll never move forward with it. That’s part of the problem with the diversity thing this year that I never quite got to. (Not sure how I’m going to fit it in really. Got to get better at that time management stuff maybe. Or work more than 3-5 hours a day. I’m also pondering just how high to shoot given the fact that so much of this is out of my control. I can make a ton of lenses, but that doesn’t guarantee people will come or buy. So just how do you achieve a goal where you can’t control all the factors in the outcome? Hmmm.

So, October is over. It’s typically a month that gives me great joy, so I’m not sure just what to be thinking right now.

Money
I actually cleared just a tiny bit less this month in sales than I did last month. A little odd since October tends to be a great month for me between costumes for Halloween and people starting to look for Christmas decor and gifts. I thought for sure I’d bump up a little bit more this month and finally get past that 2K mark.

Now, I did have my first $200 day, which is a nice thing. I’ve had a few over $100 in the past, but never this much. I’d be happy about it except it’s something I can’t seem to replicate. Not a single other day of the month went over $100. And dang, I’d be thrilled if I got to the point where I was getting $100 a day. My daily average has more than doubled since the beginning of the year – good. But I want more! (That’s not wrong, right?)

Lenses
After the great lens giveaway last month, I dropped down in numbers, but I got busy this month. Especially the last week as I tried to finally get some ideas off the shelf and completed. Ideas don’t make me money if they aren’t on a page and getting traffic. And a lot of these were ones I just wanted to do but didn’t do any research on. So we’ll see how it goes.

One of my plans has been to split off more lenses or parts of lenses. Some of it’s based on searches done by current traffic. Some by the fact that there’s enough product to sustain a single lens. In all cases, I’m hoping for things that will pick up some seriously niche traffic and be more focused and easier to buy from than a really long lens. My college cycling stuff is where I’ve been starting.

Diversity
Yeah. I’m going to stop talking about this. I have created a schedule for myself for November that will force me to spend time every day doing nothing but writing. Kind of like this post. Which should force a little more buckling creating kinds of things. But I really need that design aspect to get some time so I can try my hand at making some money at that. Although … I do wonder whether there’s really enough money to be made at Zazzle to justify the time. Still, I’m going to be spending more focused time on writing for my various blogs that are designed to help make me money on stuff I own all by myself.

So, my main account was getting bloated with lenses that weren’t pulling their weight. Unless you think their main purpose was to guilt me into thinking I should work on them despite all evidence that it would be time ill-spent.

Coming to accept this – a huge step for me. The whole “letting go” thing isn’t easy for me; it smacks of failure. But I’m getting better.

I started September with 325 lenses in that account – a pretty nice accomplishment. Over the course of the month, I gave away 86 of those. Yowsers! Now I built eight lenses for the month and deleted two others straight out (one was a WIP I’d had for at least a year), leaving me with 248 by the end of the month. (And thus dropping me below the 250 I’m supposed to have for my Giant Squid status. Ooops!) Among the ones I gave away were two of my lens of the day winners and a few that still had money pending on the dashboard.

I have several lenses that have dropped into WIP status and haven’t proven their worth and are going out the door. Most are personal experiments that wouldn’t have made sense to give away. All told I have maybe 11 more that I intend to delete and get out of my sight.

Lenses
After the great lens giveaway, I ended September with 564 total lenses. Still above my goal of 500 that I started the year with, but far short now of the 600 I reset as a new goal. Wait, I had made it past 600 before. So does that mean I really did meet my goal? Huh. Overthinking as usual. Anyway, I’m shooting to end the year with 600. I’m already back up to 572 thanks to a quest I’m trying to do.

First quest I’ve undertaken and I totally didn’t even notice it until the end of September so I naturally started this way too late. It’s the Sammy Salmon one to take on a new niche and build out 31 lenses by the end of October. So I’m trying. I had planned on doing some libertarian related lenses anyway and this is definitely a boost to make it happen. I’ve got six published and two more in WIP. I have my list and some of it is going to be tough to get done by the end of the month given the fact that I’m supposed to working on a new website. Silly me.

Money
At one point, I thought I was going to hit that $2K goal in September. Bummer. Well, actually, the fact that I didn’t was the only bummer thing. How nice to be disappointed with an $1800 month. What I need now is for sales to stay at that level fairly steadily. And to get over the fact that things don’t always stay that steady.

Traffic
Why do I report on this? I don’t have a goal for the year on this. Not sure how you could given the variables involved here. My main account has stabled out to where it was before panda, even with 86 fewer lenses. My niche account shed about 2K in traffic, which I don’t mind as long as the money stays steady. But more traffic can equal more money. Need to figure this out.

Diversity
Anyone else bored with me saying – oh, I’m going to do something – ? Because I never seem to do anything here. Boo. I need to rethink this as a goal or at least get specific enough about it to make it doable. I need to scratch/check things off and right now, I don’t have anything to do that with, just some vague ideas.

• Categories

  • Experiments
  • General
  • Goals
  • Lens Promotion
  • Money Making
  • New lenses
  • Rankings/traffic
  • Uncategorized

• Tags

  52 week program abby cadabby animated movies auction bedding birthday party blog blogging book review books charity costumes count von count cycling cycling jerseys dying lenses ebay giant squids Goals google groups kung fu panda lens lens creation lenses life of lewister money motorcycle movies niches page break party theme people pondering questions rankings sales sesame street social bookmarking squidoo stats summer movies traffic unusual widgets