You can extend the reach of your Merchant Circle marketing

October 2, 2007 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Dilbeck Marketing, Merchant Circle, Squidoo 

There are several ways you can promote your business on Merchant Circle: the contents of your basic listing, any items you post to your blog, coupons you create, photos you upload, and the bulletins posted on your directory listing page.

I just learned about Merchant Circle a few days ago and I’ve jumped all over using their system. You can see the profile I’ve created for Dilbeck Marketing on Merchant Circle. I’ve taken the time to use most of the tools and love their system.

(Your business is listed at Merchant Circle, right? If not, you can create a professional looking online listing for your business with our easy to use tools. Free! – MerchantCircle.com.)

There are probably other things you can do at Merchant Circle that I haven’t discovered in the less-than-a-week that I’ve been a member of the site.

What you may, or may not, already know is that every time you blog, create a coupon, upload a photo, or post a newsletter, these things are added to a newsfeed for you, automatically.

At the top-right of your listing, you’ll see “Subscribe to blog and coupon feed” followed by an orange chicklet that says “RSS/XML.” This is a standard news feed that can be syndicated on many services and can be read by anyone using a news feed aggregator or a news reader. Even without sending emails you are broadcasting to the world – potentially.

I’ll write a post later to explain more about making use of this. For now, suffice it to say that you can blog in one place and have it automatically republished in multiple places. This makes it very powerful for getting your news out.

One place you may want to syndicate your feed is at Squidoo.com.

To do this, you’ll need to be a member.

Are you an expert on something? Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, and you may even earn some money from it.

Of course, you’re an expert on your business, so join Squidoo and create a lens about it. It’s worth the effort to learn how to build free lenses on Squidoo, and it’s a perfect place to syndicate your Merchant Circle news feed.

For example, I’ve created a Squidoo lens about Merchant Circle and I’ve syndicated (re-published) my news feed and Merchant Circle’s news feed on that lens.

Also, as part of that lens, I’ve created a list where you can add a link to the Merchant Center listing for your business. I will be syndicating that list on some of my other websites, so you’ll get free advertising just by adding your link to the list. If you don’t understand, just comment on this topic and I’ll see what I can do to help you.

Act on your dream!

JD

Tags:

Get a Free Marketing Site at Squidoo

June 26, 2007 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Marketing, RSS Feeds, Squidoo 

The more I participate at Squidoo.com by building lenses and adding those lenses to groups, the more I see pages on Squidoo referenced in my traffic stats on various sites I have.

What?

I mean that Squidoo is sending an ever-increasing stream of traffic to my sites, blogs, and forums.

Thinking about that, I took a little time this morning to create a new Get A Free Marketing Site lens on Squidoo.

Then, I found several related groups and submitted my new lens to them.

This morning, my lens is ranked at over 180,000. I’m guessing it will jump to about 30,000 or less in the next 24 hours. Then, who knows where it will end up.

To make it a bit more interesting, I added a Plexo module where you can vote for your favorite marketing book on the lens, and I added an RSS feed for marketing articles from 21st Century Articles, my article directory specializing in business, communications, technology, and self-improvement articles.

If you don’t see your favorite marketing book on the list, please feel free to add it.

I have been getting tens of thousands of page views to my Get A Free Marketing Site suite of marketing tools at LinkScout, and I know it has been worth the time and effort – and money – I’ve invested in it.

Therefore, I feel confident in recommending it to you, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. I also recommend that you start building as many Squidoo lenses as you need to promote your business, talk about your hobby, or write about anything in which you are interested. It’s free, and you may well get paid by Squidoo. I earn a small check from them every month, and that’s a lot better than buying advertising, in my opinion.

If you have a blog on just about any topic, you should create a related lens at Squidoo, and don’t forget to use the RSS module to syndicate your blog feed.

It brings me more visitors, and I’m sure it will work for you, too.

Tags:

What are your favorite motivational books?

June 20, 2007 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Books, Products at Amazon, Squidoo 

Now that I have a modern web browser, having just received the new Macintosh I bought, I’ve been looking at some things I wasn’t able to do previously.

One of those things is viewing something called Plexo, which is available as one of the modules for building lenses at Squidoo.com.

Plexo lets you create lists of pretty much anything and then let others vote for what they like the most (by clicking the up arrow next to the item) or for what they like the least (by clicking the appropriate down arrow).

Not all Plexo lists use the down voting option.

So, I’d looked at Plexo and wasn’t impressed. When I read something about some Plexo lenses in a group on MySpace a couple of hours ago, I decided to take a look.

Now, I understand why Plexo is starting to make some waves.

So, to test the waters, I created a new lens that is devoted simply to a Plexo list of Favorite Motivational Books.

I started the list with a few of my favorites and I encourage you to go there and vote for your favorite.

Don’t see your favorite motivational or inspirational book? Feel free to add it to the list.

Pass the word along. I’m really interested in learning what the top ten motivational books will be.

It will take only a couple of minutes to go to Favorite Motivational Books and vote for your favorite. Won’t you do it now, while you’re thinking about it?

I welcome your comments on this topic.

Tags:

New Site Build It! Webmasters Group on Squidoo

October 11, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Musings, Site Build It, Squidoo 

I just created a new Site Build It Webmasters group on Squidoo.com.

If you are a Site Build It! webmaster, you are invited to create a new lens about your SBI site and how you use Site Build It to create your online business.

If you create a lens using the above link, you will be submitted for membership to the Site Build It Webmasters group on Squidoo.com.

As long as your new lens is about SBI and/or your SBI website, I’ll be happy to admit you to the group.

(Site Build It! websites, only, please.)

This is a great way to get one-way links to your site and the pages within it.

Squidoo lenses are powerful ways to build one page websites that link outward to other resources. You can even make money while you promote your site.

Do you have a CafePress store related to your SBI website? Add a CafePress module to your lens and sell your wares.

Do you sell products from Amazon.com on your SBI site? Add the top sellers to your Squidoo lens, too.

Feel free to put your 5 Pillar affiliate links on your lens(es).

Let’s all help each other succeed.

Act On Your Dream!

JD

Tags:

Squidoo Groups are Inspiring New Lenses

October 4, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Groups, Musings, Squidoo 

Now that Groups are active on Squidoo, I have been inspired to start some new lenses.

For the Country Music Fans group, I just created a new Dolly Parton lens. Pigeon Forge is only a couple of hours from here and I’ve been a Dolly Parton fan for decades, so it seemed like a good lens to build.

For the Addicted to Squidoo group, I started a Marketing With Squidoo lens. I have some ideas for more content on that lens, but I’ve run out of time today to work on it.

I plan to start a new group that I’ll announce in a few days. I created a couple of lenses for adding to the group when it is created. They include:
Success With Power Blog and Success With Blogging. They may fit into groups that also include Home Businesses and Marketing. I have an idea that we’re going to see a lot of overlap in groups since anyone can start whatever group they want.

In fact, I plan to create a few more groups to cross promote lenses I’ve already created.

With the groups I’ve created at MySpace and Squidoo, I’m starting to think that I don’t want to over-extend into another direction! It’s a lot easier to join a group and let someone else manage it than it is to find the time to visit all the groups and forums I’ve started here and there every day. Some days I have other priorities and just don’t have the time and energy to visit all those sites to make sure things are staying on track.

I just added another 17 lenses i want to create to the file where I keep all my information about my existing lenses. I found I wanted a comprehensive list of all the lenses, their URLs, RSS feeds they publish, and any notes for further development. Otherwise, I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with all of them and what I want to do, even if the Squidoo Dashboard does keep a list of all our lenses.

By the way, I just discovered a neat tool for promoting your lenses. On the bottom right of your Squidoo lenses dashboard, there is a section called Lensmaster Tools. At the bottom of that column is a link to Spread The Word. On that page, there is a nice tool that helps you create image links to your lenses. An example is shown below:

Check out my marketing with Squidoo lens

So, who else has been creating new lenses?

Tags:

New lenses and groups at Squidoo

September 29, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: Blogging, Groups, Musings, Squidoo 

Over the last few days, there have been some big changes at Squidoo.com with the release of the new groups feature.

Now, your Squidoo lens is not a stand-alone page. You can join appropriate groups for cross promotion of similarly-themed lenses.

Don’t find a group you like? Start one of your own. Help all the members of your group find more readers and more success with Squidoo.

New Squidoo lenses

I just created a new Success With Blogging lens and I invite your feedback for resources that can be added to that lens.

New Squidoo groups

I have several lenses, websites, and forums related to North Carolina, so I created a new North Carolina Group and I invite you to add your lenses to this group as long as they relate primarily to a place, event, person, organization, or business that is in North Carolina.

Tags:

CafePress Shopkeepers – Get a free lens on Squidoo to promote your products

September 19, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: CafePress, Squidoo 

A Little About CafePress

I’m sure you know by now that you can get a free account at CafePress where you can upload your custom designs onto about 80 products – free.

You can open your own free or premium shop at CafePress.com and sell your own designs. Whether you want to sell t-shirts with slogans, your own original books or CDs, or clothing, mousepads, calendars, and other products with your own original art, you’ll find CafePress an easy way to set up your online store and let them take care of the printing, processing, shipping, and customer service — and send your royalty checks for the sales you make.

I’ve been a shopkeeper at CafePress since 2002 and I heartily recommend the company. I love getting emails telling me that I just made a sale and then, a few weeks later, getting my commission checks in the mail.

If you are serious about selling your products on CafePress, I seriously recommend that you get a premium store. You can create multiple sections and offer your designs on more products. It is much easier to manage a single premium store than multiple free ones. I know. I also know that I am making more sales from my premium store than I ever did from my free stores.

I invite you to visit my CafePress shop at Shirts-Mugs-Hats.com. You will find an eclectic collection of products with a variety of designs.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have opened several themed premium shops and I am thinking about doing that next year. It is much easier to market a themed collection because you can target your market much easier and it is easier to describe what you are selling. Each premium shop costs only $7 per month (less if you pay annually), and I’m earning enough that my shop is basically free, since it is paid for out of my commissions earned.

A Little About Squidoo

You may not have heard about Squidoo, but you will.

Squidoo is becoming very popular. In the few months since it was introduced, nearly 41,000 lenses have been built.

You can open a free account at Squidoo and create as many lenses as you want for free.

In fact, you may even earn money from your lenses. I’m getting small commission payments each month, and they are growing. You can, too.

CafePress and Squidoo Co-Branded Lenses

Now, for the news I just learned about a few hours ago.

CafePress shop owners can now create a new CafePress co-branded lens by going to the CafePress headquarters on Squidoo and following the directions. It looks to me as if you must create a new lens to participate in the joint venture, so, in addition to my Custom T-Shirts lens, I just created a cobranded lens at John Dilbeck’s Shirts, Mugs, and Hats Store at CafePress.

Why go to the extra effort?

I believe in promoting my efforts as widely and as often as possible, so a new lens that links to my CafePress shop can’t hurt – and neither can linking to it from other lenses, websites, blogs, and so forth.

Additionally, I don’t know how CafePress and Squidoo are promoting lenses created through the CafePress Squidoo headquarters, but I did see a link to my new lens and to my list of lenses on the CafePress headquarters. So, I’m getting some additional promotion, at least.

What I don’t like about it

There are many positives to selling your products on CafePress and creating lenses on Squidoo. I’ve mentioned some in this post, and I’ve talked about others previously in different locations.

I’ll stipulate it as a given that you should do this if you are selling any designs through CafePress.

But, all is not perfect with this solution.

For example, on my new lens, I just wasted over an hour trying to use the automated tools provided for picking products from a particular CafePress store, in this instance, mine.

I know I have a white tshirt that says “Because I’m the Mommy, That’s Why!” and I can find it in about a minute on my site.

But, when I tried searching for it using the promote a store part of the CafePress module, I could not find it. I know it is tagged with both “johndilbeck” and “mommy”, but it never showed up in the search.

I know I have many products with “USA” on them and I tried to find them using the search. I found many of my other USA flag wear products, but never did find the USA tshirt or sweatshirt.

So, I manually linked to them in the introduction of the lens and deleted the promote a store module. I’ll replace it later, when I have more time.

Something for everyone

CafePress offers millions of products from hundreds of thousands of designers, so there is probably something there for everyone.

Not only that, but creative and artistic people can sell their own designs, and everyone who is willing to exert the effort can recommend their favorite designs through the affiliate program.

We all prosper by helping each other promote and sell our products.

It’s great to see Squidoo and CafePress working together to help us in our efforts.

Tags:

Kimberly Dawn Wells has been very busy lately!

September 19, 2006 by JD · Comments Off
Filed under: CafePress, Marketing, Squidoo 

A week ago, I didn’t know who Kimberly Dawn Wells was, and now I’m running across her lenses and groups everywhere I look!

That’s a good thing.

About Kimberly Dawn Wells

Kimberly is very active on Squidoo, CafePress, MySpace, and probably other places, but I’ve been concentrating on those three for the last couple of days. She has an outstanding lens about herself on Squidoo and an equally impressive page about herself on MySpace.

Activities on Squidoo

Kimberly is a Citizen Squid at Squidoo and has been creating groups on Squidoo to make it easier for lensmasters to group a bunch of lenses together on a common topic. While this is a pre-release feature at the moment, it looks like it won’t be too much longer before it becomes at least a beta release.

I’ve added a couple of my lenses to the Country Music Fan and Totally Awesome Tees groups, and I’ll be participating in more groups as they become available. I think this is going to be a very important addition to Squidoo.

She offers helpful advice

Kimberly is very helpful and offers her advice on a number of topics.

For example, she offers some very helpful tips on her MySpace Made Easy lens to help us improve our experiences at MySpace.

Activities on MySpace

Kimberly has several groups at MySpace, including Success with Squidoo and Success with CafePress. Groups on MySpace include the ability to discuss topics of interest on forums associated with the group and the optional ability to post bulletins which seem to be used to post news or ads.

I’m new to MySpace, so my limited knowledge of the community may not allow me to fully appreciate the nuances of membership and participation there. I’m open to being educated on the subject.

I created two groups at MySpace for Murphy NC Business and Site Build It Webmasters, which was an outgrowth of my Site Build It lens at Squidoo.

Free to participate

You can participate free at Squidoo and MySpace and I think both are great places to create content and tell about your activities and interests.

On MySpace, this is done through conversations on the forums, posting of bulletins, blogging, and leaving comments on your friends’ pages.

On Squidoo, you participate by creating lenses (one page keyword focused pages with out-pointing links) and joining the groups as they become available.

Both of these sites work well with other communities where I participate, including Ryze.com, MySpace.com, and others.

I look forward to meeting you on one or more of these communities.

Feel free to tell me what you think. Correct me where I’m wrong and educate me where I’m ignorant.

Tags: