A Squid Named SusanVillasLewis

I never would have thought that I would be doing political/election lenses. They just kind of landed in my lap. I would have been working on them long ago to get the SEO going and promotion and so forth. But it is what it is. I just never would have imagined the kinds of things that were out there for sale. And of course, I’d like to do some for next time that are more serious, like supporting third-party voting and looking at party platforms, etc. Those just take a lot of time to develop and I don’t feel I’d get the ROI on them right now. I’d probably finish the the day before the election.

So what do I have? Sarah Palin, of course, which I started back in March. In the last few weeks, though, totally based on some cool products I found, I did a lens with items for Democrat donkeys and Republican elephants and one with supplies and ideas for throwing an election night party. Biggest challenge was figuring out the right keywords for the URL and titles.

Having gone through this, I really wish that Squidoo had done a 2008 election front door. Would have been fun to see all the lenses in one spot. Or maybe not. I think I’ve had 15 people try to leave the links to their Sarah Palin lenses (created after she was nominated) on mine. There were a lot of people trying to grab that opportunity. Kind of surprising to me. Unless I was already in that vein and working on related lenses, I don’t think I would have bothered to do one on her. Wouldn’t have seen it as worth it at that point. Too hard to build an audience after the fact.

At least, my very first lens is. I think Seth had another post about Squidoo that day, which reminded me that I wanted to come over and try it. I’m pretty sure it took me several days to actually get around to publishing the thing because I did a lot of research on it and it did pretty well because it’s seasonal and I hit at just the right time. I have gone back occasionally to add to it and touch up and it’s back in the top 10,000 because it’s green chile season again. It’s funny because when I look at the dates, it took me a month to put together those first three lenses. I got better.

First lens ever

• Green Chile (someone one-starred this guy almost as soon as I published it. and I got my first suck-it-up comment from Glen.

Then the two for my husband’s account related to his TrackAddict forum

• Skip Barber Racing School (I am still really proud of this guy. I did a great job for having no clue. Only updates have been to add links to forum posts and change that Kevin went.)
• Car Clubs
• (Just noticed that I had started a lens for him that shows a date of 8-24. Never got back around to finishing it!!)

Second lens I did for me

• How to Donate Your Hair (have done one complete re-vamp of this guy. Considering another one)

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.

One of them at least. I had set two goals for my lenses for the Labor Day weekend – have 125 published lenses and be making $200 a month in affiliate sales. I’m up to 116 published now, with nine sitting in WIP. At least three of those are under assessment for deletion, so I’m in need a few more good ideas to get going. But I’m close on that goal. Close enough that I should be able to reach it by the end of this month. Which is good since August starts the 30 Day Challenge and I might not have time to focus on making new lenses.

The money thing is trickier. I added up what I have mentioned in my daily updates for July so far and I’m at about $25 for the month. So extrapolating out, that could mean $50 for the month. So I’m not sure that $200 just from affiliate sales is realistic by the end of August. But I should definitely be hitting $200 total coming from all Squidoo activities by then and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

On the blog front, The Life of Lewister is at ~340 readers per month, which isn’t awful considering I’ve never set any goals for it and have only recently done anything to promote it. But I’d love to get it to 340 readers a day. Is that a reasonable goal? Yes. By the end of the year? Certainly. (I also have some goals for my niche blog on baby quilt patterns, but I need to really think about it and what’s realistic. Part of that is going to be heavy promotion, completing the first set of articles/posts and maybe one more lens. Once I get those done, I can get serious about goal-setting.)

I’ve taken over a group – Lone Star State. There were several groups already on Texas, but not a single one of them was being managed in any way. I didn’t see any reason to start yet another one, so contacted all the groupmasters to see if anyone wanted to give theirs up and ended up with this one. (Which was the best of the bunch already.) So I’m on the hunt for Texas-related lenses (and will be trying to define just what that means. Hoping to be a good groupmaster!!

New lens: Had such great success with a random brainstorm on my novelty cycling jerseys lens that I’ve done an off-shot of stylish cycling jerseys for women. Still pretty much just for fun, but we’ll see if it flys as far.

Hi-ya! I’m taking over the Top 100. Kung Fu Panda just moved in at #97. Given the traffic and sales I anticipate before opening day June 6, I expect to stay there at least a month or so. Hooray!

Latest lens is up: Matter of Trust. It’s one of my unusual charities that I just love.

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

Trying to decide about how to let event-specific lenses sleep gracefully when the event is over. Some could possibly be kept going year-round if I wanted to make the effort. But at what point is it worth the effort?