What I've Been Up To Lately At Squidoo

I haven't written in ages, lots have happened, some good, some not so good. Basically the last few months Squidoo lost a lot of traffic from Google, so overall our traffic and sales went down quite a lot. Mine is still slowly sliding, but I hope at some point it will start climbing again.

Squidoo is really doing a heavy spring cleaning trying to get rid of some of the spam that brought the site down overall. Also they've started really handing out lots of Purple Stars, I guess to encourage us to make more great lenses. I got about 4-5 the last few weeks as well. Granted, that Purple doesn't replace our lost sales or traffic, but it is a motivator to keep going.

Here are a few lenses that I made the last few weeks, these are all new, since the spring cleaning.

The very last lens written yesterday is about my favorite top science-fiction books. I love reading books, and this genre is one of my most favorites.

I also love reading books for kids, and classics will always remain classics. How about these classic children's books made into movies?

And going back to books, one of the genre I like best is related to mystery.thriller with a CSI aspect. So I've written a lens about the best forensic fiction written ever, from my point of view.

I wrote more, but these are the last three. Now let's see if Google will actually pick them up as fast as they used to do with lenses before the big drop.

Became A Giant Collossal Squid 250

On November 16 I became a 'collosal squid' with 250 quality lenses under my belt. I had around 270, just to make sure that there were enough to choose from, but I seem to have made it with flying colors. I can't believe it, just about a year ago I had around 30 lenses and was struggling with less than $50 at Squidoo per month. Now one year later, and I've achieved so much...

In addition on the 18th of the November I've just celebrated 4 years of beeing at Squidoo. Woohoo! Congrats to me!

Christmas Lens On Front Page Of Squidoo

It's been almost 2 weeks since I last posted here. So let's see what things have happened with my Squidoo account since.

Some of my lenses have been featured on the front page, including my Halloween lens on Grandma Halloween Costumes and my new one for a Christmas quest called Book Holders for Reading. Actually the book holders lens also got last week a purple star and it's been featured on the front page for the last couple of days already. I'm tickled pink!

I've started making a few Christmas lenses since the 2-3 I already have are making me some random sales. The two lenses I made so far are:

Presents for New Mums
Secret Santa Gift Ideas for Women

My goal is to make 10 Christmas lenses in November, so let's see if I can meet this challenge.

Made 250 Lenses

It took me a while, pretty much the entire year, but I've finally got to another milestone at Squidoo yesterday: made 250 lenses from scratch. And of course I got a fun monster for it and 500 points, lol.

My next goal: make another 20 or so lenses and then apply for the next Giant level 250. And then next? Well 500 lenses of course!

Oh and speaking of 'monsters falling', not sure if I've already showed this one from a few days ago...

New Halloween Lens On Front Page

I took part in a new quest at Squidoo in listing an already existing (or new) lens as 'best that we made' for Halloween, and I added one that I made towards end of August on Halloween candelabra. It was accepted and the next day I saw it on the homepage. Yeppee! And here it is in action...

Halloween Costumes Lens On Front Page

Remember the lens I posted about just yesterday on the Grandma Halloween Costumes? Well I've sent it in to Squidoo HQ as a completed quest, got 200 points and just now spotted it on the front page. Noticed a post in the Facebook forum that others have seen theirs too, so I refreshed the Squidoo homepage and there was mine too!

Here is the screenshot, my lens is the green one right in the middle with the red arrow above it. Feels great to see it there.

Last Halloween Lens This Year And Sad News

I've just received some sad news from my mom this morning, my grandma died in her sleep last night at the age of 86. Sadly I can't go to the funeral as I'm living in another country and across the sea, so it's not so easy. My parents are going, however.

This morning I started on a Halloween lens for a Giant Halloween Quest, but as I found the news about my grandmother, I scraped that lens and started a new one. It's a fun one about Grandma Halloween costumes, and I dedicated this lens to my granny.

So strange, today I've seen and heard several mentions of 'grandmas' during the day, at some point the church bells went off without any real reason (there was no wedding, or funeral or christening around here), then I saw an ad in the TV about food that grandma used to do, then I also so another Squidoo lens by another lensmaster with something related to grandmas. Most probably it's nothing, maybe I was just more sensitive to the whole 'grandparent' idea and I took more notice on things that usually I wouldn't.

Anyway I don't think this lens will have time to do anything this year since it won't get any tier payment the first month of creation, and unless it gets picked up by Google and visited by searchers on the net, it won't make sales. But it's ok, it will do next year. In the meantime I just felt that I had to do something while mourning my grandma today. While the costumes are rather silly and some ugly and scary, I know my grandma would have smiled (or made a cross) when looking at them. Rest in peace grandma.