A Squid Named SusanVillasLewis

Ya gotta love it when someone buys something from a lens. My joy point every month is when I finally hit the average of $1 a lens. And particularly as I get more and more lenses completed, because that number has to be higher each month. As I create more lenses, the odds of hitting on things that make money go up, but I also have higher targets to get to that $1 mark.

Loving someone out there today who bought $1,000 worth of stuff off of a lens. And from one of my affiliates rather than Amazon, so I got a 10% cut. Sweet!

Love to see bumps up in my money column but I wish there was a way for the ones that change to be highlighted in some way. I can’t always tell just what has changed in part because I have so many lenses, but also because so many of them have some kind of money in the column. If there was a simple way to download things, I’d just do that on a daily basis, but no go.

to having my first $50 sales day today. Came up $2 short. But wow! I’m already on target to make $500 for the month, including estimated adsense sharing at Squidoo, which just blows my mind.

It took me forever to see any kind of sales at Squidoo. Forever. What helped me turn the corner? A little luck, good instincts, paying attention to my stats and learning keyword research techniques. The luck comes in with my political lenses, which are leading the pack. Follow this with new keyword research, which gave me a great Halloween niche. Good instincts brought me the Kung Fu Panda wave, while closely following what people search for brought in the cycling jerseys series that has been a steady producer.

Now if I could just keep Google from dropping lenses right when they should be hitting their peak!! My election party and Tinkerbell costumes lenses are MIA right as they should be getting their best (last-minute) traffice. Sigh.

I’m sitting in the midst of a conundrum. Seriously. What to do, what to do.

I did a page about collecting pop tabs for the Ronald McDonald House. I had no idea there was such a need for this information out there, but I’ve quickly gone over 120 visits per week and the number just steadily grows. I have absolutely nothing on the lens to sell. Good or bad? Does it distract from the purpose of the lens to include items for sale? (And what would you include, anyway?) Am I wrong to want to take advantage of the traffic I’m getting?

I didn’t do this to make money really, so I’m startled by the traffic I’m getting. Mostly, I just thought it was a cool off-beat idea that was a great way to get your kids into the habit of giving. Hmmm.

Just got emails that two of my CJ companies are changing affiliate programs. This is where having a system would be helpful, huh? I can’t remember if I ever actually created links to anything on those sites, much less where they would be. Sigh. I know where I used one, but I can’t be certain it’s the only place. Another to-do for the list.

w00t! Made sales over night! I’m $3 richer. Husband says just to let him know when I have enough for him to retire.