Reviving Thankfulness

Yes, the world has too little love, but might that be rooted in a scarcity of thankfulness?

My Thanksgiving lens on thankfulness had fallen into WIP status, and though I dropped from 27 such lenses to 20, I am working away to reinstate or finish each, one by one.

That same method, the counting one by one, is a center thought of the "Cultivating Thankfulness" Squidoo page.

I repaired some missing images, wrote a bit more personal content, and decided in light of Squidoo's direction to re-work this and many other lenses later, uniting more of the content into a smaller number of content and redirecting the tone from informative to more of a storytelling format. Until now, this update will do.

Saving Those WIP Lenses

How is it that some lenses seem okay for quite awhile after updating and fixing them for the filters.... then suddenly, poof?! Here are some more lenses that I worked on and tried to tweak to meet Squidoo's stricter standards for personal story form.

That is what I think the problem with some of the lenses may be rooted. There might also be issues with graphics that go missing or Amazon products that become unavailable.

Try making a schedule to check on lenses in a regular way over time.

A couple that I recently renewed.

Windmill Wind Power

A guide for understanding windmill technology dropped off the published list, although it had the 100/100 rating. So I included a bit of my private views and the experience of driving through a giant wind farm of the Midwest. Will this be enough to pass muster?

I Spy

Review of this series of books, one of my family's favorite- entertaining more than the pre-K it is geared towards- went WIP. So I tried to include the personal side of how we discovered the books and how much fun we had reading them.

Is it enough to make the lens okay?

Ack! 27 lenses go to WIP!

I don't know what happened but suddenly 27 of my lenses dropped radically off the featured charts into WIP status.

I am trying to delete overuse of words, in case this is the problem! I hate that there is little way to see what is creating a problem when previously the topics and writing seemed to pass inspection. It is hard to create links for some of the more obscure subjects, but here is a partial list of RED lenses.

• Scented Summer Candles
• Garnier BB Cream Product Review
• Garden Photography By Saxon Holt, a fan page
• National Seed Swap Day - from when Squidoo was encouraging lensmasters to make wacky holiday lenses.

Many of my lensographies became unacceptable:

Lenses about:

• Purple Star Awards
• Hungarian Culture
• The Collection Of Christmas Ideas: Cookies, Traditions, Gifts

Recipes, which surprises me, and some others which aren't discernibly breaking any rules.

• My Favorite Chocolate Desserts
• Review of I Spy picture books for kids- which I just love
• The Advent Log

What in the Bottom Five this Month?

I mentioned that my Silver Fox lens was staying within the top 100 ( it is actually at 12 today- WOW!). Well my complimentary lens "Silver Lights, Starring Your Hair" is last on my featured lens list. so it goes to show that a topic may not relate to the overall popularity of a lens.

The other four from bottom to top are:
Christmas Lenses All Year , which has languished no matter what the season. It was an attempt to make christmas topics relate to other seasons. Seems like that idea was a fail.

The Advent Log is a lens for the Christmas season. It is a new format lens which was created for a quest. We were asked to highlight a holiday family tradition. Christmas topics generally fall after the holiday is over, but these are quite low, even for seasonal lenses.

How To Have A Gorgeous Spring Garden centers on bulbs that pare planted in fall for a spring show of bloom. It is also in the new format, and has sunk into the bottom five. A lens that showcases my tips for planting bulbs including the Youtube videos I made on the topic.

Another seasonal holiday lens, Cultivating Thankfulness which was made for thanksgiving celebration is lingering near the bottom. Although I do think thankfulness is an evergreen topic, we usually connect it with Thanksgiving Day.

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See a pattern, yet? If you aim to write something that is based on a certain time of year, especially a holiday, there is likelihood it will get more popular approaching the celebration. Once that date is past, the lenses virtually tank,in y experience.

Off-Season

The trouble with making articles (or entire websites!) specifically for certain seasons is that they then have an off season. The times when nobody cares very much about the information offered, or the colors and decor are not the right feeling for the weather and the mood.

That can happen for a variety of reasons, but lately I have some Squidoo lenses that have dropped into the nether parts of the list and while I can't be positive, it is probably because they are seasonal in nature.

My Christmas website is an example of this in spades, while even the Garden website struggles during the spaces in the growing season, as well as in the dead of winter when interest levels are seasonally low.

The worst performing published lens, at this time is Ohio Autumn. It may have been dinged by someone, even! That suspicion derives from its quick drop which is not responsive to efforts to change the status, while the ranking is actually above the usual WIP range.
But this has simply given inspiration to list the seasonal lenses- make lemonade from the lemon crop.

Autumn

• Ohio Autumn Highlights
• Becoming Thankful
• Ultimate Thanksgiving Feast
• Soup Tureens
• Hot Autumn Decor
• Heirloom Apples

Winter

• Northern Winters , I Love Them
• Woodland Christmas
• Fireside Chat
• Ugly Christmas Sweaters
• Christmas At The Beach
• Make Teddy Bear Ornaments
• Cozy Scandinavian Decor
• How To Use A Woodburning Stove
• White Winter
• Holiday Dinner
• Christmas and Winter Lensography

Of course, all the many Christmas lenses tend to drift lower over the beginning of the year, but some have a greater struggle than others.

Coming up soon will be the remaining season's lenses.

Yellow and Red Are The New Squidoo Lens Colors This Season

Well, it is not quite that bad, but the axe did fall on some of my lenses.

 I had about 13-14 yellow warning lenses as the new filters scanned my lenses and didn't like some of them. At first I was working blind while trying to improve them, but later some HQ posts educated lensmasters on some of the ways to improve the yellow flagged lenses.


 The surprise for some of them was over using keywords too often. Changing keyword density helped some of them pass and get their green OK check. After all this time online, I still don't fully understand keywords, although I am slowly learning. So I changed lots of heading words and for some lenses that was it, for others there is still a problem. I added much more content and that pulled some out of the warning zone.

 It was helpful to know that there is approximately a 60% content to 40% sales percentage. Of the original problems I have fixed half of them.


 Red Lights
 Today some of my lenses dropped into the red zone again. They keep giving me trouble, I'll have to figure out a way to make them better.

 One is Candadian Humor of Red Green. Either the idea that he is Canadian, or more likely, the fact that he isn't at his zenith and not many know of him make this a lens that regularly drops off the published list.

The other is the Trabeculectomy, which is mostly a small information lens.

 The other three lowest lenses (to round out my bottom five) are:
Holiday Celebrations
Deck The Halls At Christmas
Make A Homeschool Unit Study

So...we knew it was coming and now there is a lot of updating and improvement work to do.

Five Lowest Ranking Lenses For First Week Of November and What I'm Doing About It

I've had trouble with some of my lowest lenses dropping into WIP (dreaded red) status. What do I do to try and lift them? Read on... it involves checking them, sprucing them up with attention to pictures or interesting new module additions, re-ordering the information flow, and sometimes using social media to "get the interest going".

First, what are those lenses today?

1. Franz Liszt 
2. My Zazzle Lenses
3. Squidoo Fireside Chat
4. Best Belly Dance Sites
5. Ilona's Garden, On The Web

I am in the process of improving all five, but have finished only a couple of these low ranking lenses.

Franz Liszt went into the red zone and it had been awhile since it was updated. I decided to change around how the information was presented, added some modules including a Youtube module with more music, and Blackbox with Liszt's birthdate. I may add more info in the future, but I don't want to make this a very long lens.

My Zazzle Lenses was too short with too few examples for a showcase; also, I had found a great lensmaking tool for Zazzle products which is now highlighted in this lens. I added much more of my Zazzle work, and a few more tips.

I have not yet worked on the next three:

1. My Fireside Chat has been needing an overhaul for awhile. I intend to rewrite some of it and compile the information in a more logical way.
2. Top Belly Dance Sites could use more information and more sites listed.This lens also could use some different types of modules and pictures to spruce it up a little. I'll look to see if it needs more links from related lenses.
3. Ilona's Garden On The Web was the very first lens I created on Squidoo. Because of its limited topic it often struggles to maintain rank. I think I could add and recompile the info better. Perhaps build a few links to it or share it, once it has been improved.

All these lenses could use listing on the Lensroll site. I think I will get to work on that once they are improved to my satisfaction.

Well, those are the bottom five at the beginning of November 2012, and what I am doing to improve them.

Upbeat, Downbeat, and Deadbeat

I started out the day pretty upbeat, and went out to get some Valentine goodies to treat the kids, and some chicken soup and juice for my son who has come down with the flu. It was lightly snowing, and everything went well.

I couldn't resist and bought a couple bacon wrapped scallops for me- which I seared and ate for lunch. I am the only one in my family who will eat them, so it is nice to get a small amount on occasion. Today was that occasion! That was the upbeat part, because it is always fun to shop at Wholefoods, and I brought home yummy cupcakes for the kids (per their request, Ha!)

Then I started work on the computer. Someone hacked my WP account again. After I had spent hours cleaning it up, reinstalling my wp and themes, getting rid of things that shouldn't be there. Their favorite seems to be to inject code into the config files, and then from there do other stuff. I had changed the admin name, but I probably need to change all my names and passwords, now.

That, and the fact that some of the lenses I had tried to improve slipped further down, was a little downbeat, too.

The deadbeats? Namely, Christmas Sweaters, in which I had updated, and tweaked the content. Thankfulness is dangerously low. I'll need to see if Amazon stuff is missing, etc.

Others dropping? Deck the Halls, probably since Christmas season is over. My fireside chat is down near the low numbers (which are the bigger ones, like Alexa ratings) , -so that should be updated and maybe reworked a bit. It probably has too many topics.

Belly Dance Fitness has dropped.

 Red Rose Petals was a brand new lens, so it is struggling, but I think it is a good lens, so it might turn around.

My wild and crazy musical carpet ride is not expected to do much... not sure what to do with it.

And I don't think people 'get' the mushroom factor. I guess your have to be a diy.

Oh well, I have some lenses that are doing extremely well, rank wise, so that makes me upbeat overall. Scandinavian decor has steadily been moving up and people seem to really like it. that is heartening since it is a brand new lens. It is pretty.

The Quaint Cottage Garden is moving up and some very nice Squid angels blessed it. I try to always list them on the page they blessed, so I will need to add some in later tonight.

That is the Squidoo news for today, folks. And almost forgot to say that there have been quests coming out the kazoo. I can hardly keep up!

Isn't This Cute?

In Sleepy Oaks Woods by Fearneve
Search for another artistic poster on Zazzle

I love these kind of drawings, and it inspires me to pick the next top ten Zazzle choices around a Fantasy theme.

Top Ten Favorite Zazzle

I might write more on Fairy Houses, to add to the rest of my fairy pages. Not sure when I will find the time for it, at this point, though. Did an update on the Fairy Garden Extras page. Products change so quickly. This was the most recent of my fairy garden pages, and I found several things that had to be deleted and substitutions found. All is well, since I saw more of the absolutely cute things that are offered for fairy garden aficionados. The fairy houses are especially desirable and getting more economical.

On Another Note

I have a new lens that I made for a quest:
Winter Decor from Scandinavia
This is a lens I worked really hard on, and I love all sorts of Scandinavian products. IKEA is one of my most favorite places for home decor.

I also saw a lens drop into the nether region of red lenses.
Enlightened Gifts for Yoga Lovers is not gaining favor on the Squidoo board. Which is kinda too bad, because it has a terrific selection of gifts. I know I would love several of them right now :)

Lowest published topics for November

These are lenses which are struggling to get their due:

• Cardamom Spice, the way to warm a heart
• Ilona, the name no one cares about
• The Forgotten Tales of Arabian Nights
• Sites Only a Few Belly Dancers Care About
• Things Only I Consider Beautiful, Apparently

Down, Down, Down, Again

My lenses are losing traction again. As soon as I think I understand how Squidoo and traffic tick, I find I don't. Oh well.

Did lots of new stuff today, including working on google sites and especially Google+1. Seems like more work, but it will be interesting to see if google can compete with facebook. So far, not impressed with Google sites, but Google+1 for pages looks promising.

Well. Don't you want to know the bottom five lenses today?

1. Top Internet Belly Dance Sites
2. Wedding Flowers For Each Month
3. My Personal Squid Journey
4. Ilona's Christmas and Winter Lenses
5. The fireside chat: ilona1

Both my newbie lenses and  the usual lensography, although some of the others have been doing well. I have tried to link to more of my lenses, but don't want to spam my sites and social media to do so.

Bottom Five September

I am not sure why, but the Bellydance at the Movies doesn't want to respond to any efforts to make it gain traction. It wasn't my best effort, but I didn't think it would prove so unpopular. One thing that I hope will help is by implementing a new Squid trick: using tags the way the famous fluffarnutta advises. It was an old post, but I'm hoping that revising all my tags will benefit the lenses and increase their traffic. Too soon to tell. On to enumerating the Bottom five as of this date:

1. Find Something Good To Eat
2. Family Pleasing Holiday Recipes 
3. Moroccan Argan Oil  
4. Grandma Moses Holiday  
5. My Personal Squid Journey

I'm sort of disappointed that the Squid Journey dropped so low because it has helpful info in it. I made the primary tags on the Lensographies to be that word , Lensography, so I hope it helps their ranking through more people finding them. Will report here on how this stacks up in the upcoming weeks.

Bottom Five and Falling in the Red

Again, I am having trouble keeping some published lenses from falling in the red. Perhaps that is just a problem with certain lens topics. It will require more work to lift them out.

The red lenses:

• Pie Cherries
• Styles of Belly Dance

The Bottom Five Lenses:

• Belly Dance Eye Makeup
• Garden Lensography
• Good Things to Eat
• My Personal Squid Journey
• Artist Supplies an Artist Wants

No one likes the lensographies, as they always seem to drop into the danger zone. And no one cares about my Squid journey. At this time.... hopefully I learn how to present my lenses better in the future.

Bottom Five and Code Red

In ER, code blue means the patient is in deep trouble, but on Squidoo it is code red- red status of a published lens going into the red zone. I just had one drop into there again: Franz Liszt seems very unpopular.

What are the Bottom Five of my Lens Listings?

1. What is white?
2. Family Holiday Recipes
3. I Love Winter
4. Advent Traditions
5. Ilona's Garden Lenses

Three are Christmas related, so that doesn't surprise me, but the garden lensography is proving troublesome... it keeps landing in the danger zone. so there must be something someone doesn't like, because I have linked it .... oh well, back to the drawing board.

Whenever something I write is unpopular, I try to discover why and improve it- usually I just attempt the "pig in a poke" method, and adjust things in a completely random sort of way. Maybe I should work on the keywords, which I never have really understood....