That Busy Time Again...

Heading towards a new major YuGiOh! release is always my busiest time on Squidoo. Over the past while I've developed a reputation for bringing news to the playing community first, and as people start to look at my lenses first, before they go anywhere else, I want to make sure that I don't let them down.

There's lenses to be built on the prominent cards. The ones already built need constantly refreshed and touched up. Busy times. Talking of which, I should be off doing something else...

Rinse and Repeat

That's kind of the secret of Squidoo, isn't it? Find something that works, and do similiar over and over again. That's what I set out to do with quizzes this year, although I must admit that while the ones I have all get good traffic, I'm slightly bereft of ideas for more. One I did spot a gap for the other day was another Pokemon one. The first quiz about the Black and White era of Pokemon has had a whole heap of traffic, so this one, all about Reshiram and Zekrom should hopefully do the same.

Cricket Attax - I'm Fascinated

As you'll know I'm a huge fan of all things Sports Card related. You might not know I'm a huge cricket fan. That's why I'm really, really interested to see how this one - Cricket Attax - works out.

You take the biggest sports trading card manufacturer around, Topps (behind things like Match Attax and WWE Slam Attax) and mix with the Indian Premier League of Cricket (one of the biggest sporting brands in the world), and come up with a product called Cricket Attax.

It sounds like it should be a match made in heaven, but is the Indian marketplace ready for a Collectible Sports Card product? It's going to be fascinating to find out!

Doctor Who Monster Invasion and Micro Figures - Letting My Geekery Run Wild

OK, so its been Doctor Who week for me on Squidoo, and it's taken me back to the days when I was lined up in front of the TV to see what adventures Tom Baker and K9 would get up to next. Whilst I've never become a serious obsessive, I've been a big fan ever since. That's why I've enjoyed the little two lens project I've been working on, on two new Doctor Who Collectible lines.

First up is Doctor Who Micro Figures. These are simply great representations of some of the main characters from the new series. The first wave contains ten models and there's more to come over the next few months. There's cool dioramas to build too. Fantastic!

Secondly, you'll all know by now that I love Trading Cards, so when Doctor Who and Trading Cards get combined, then you'll realise I'm in geek heaven. That's exactly what's happened with a fantastic new 90 card range called Doctor Who Monster Invasion. Happy days :)

The Grey Boxes...

OK, so the Google traffic mysteriusly re-appeared the day after last week's post - turns out I was far from alone. According to some, they also saw lenses dissappear from the rankings a couple of days later too. That one seems to have been a shorter lapse, and I didn't notice it at all in my stats.

This all goes suspicisouly hand-in-hand with broken image links appearing all over Squidoo. Many have commented that the Google traffic only stopped on newer lenses. Is Google prepared to give a long-standing page the benefot of the doubt if it temporarily has broken links on it, but punishing newer pages. Not sure, but an interesting thought.

Just The 19 Copies Then...

OK, so Google seems to have forgotten all about a few of my top ranked, and interlinked lenses overnight. Smashing. Of course on noticing the sudden traffic plummet I headed off to investigate, starting with the highest ranked of them.

Hmmm. It's a lens (like many of mine) all about a Trading Card release. The central and most important part for players and collectors is the card list. A quick Google search reveals the small matter of 19 copies of my version kicking around on various websites, blogs, retailer's sites, etc.

Of course all of those writers may have painstakingly compiled the list by hand in the same manner I did. Erm. And then chose to format the list in exactly the same way I did. Or maybe not. Of course, it could never be proven as plagiarism since my original is simply a compilation of readily available information for the convenience of players.

Ho-hum. Of course this may or may not have anything to do with Google's negative change of heart towards that group of lenses, but nonetheless it's a touch annoying.

Gift Guides

One of the biggest successes I've had on Squidoo so far was with a couple of fairly straightforward Christmas Lenses. The idea was simple - take a couple of hobbies I write about a lot, and create Christmas Gift guides, aimed at people that need to buy gifts for hobbyists but don't know the first thing about the hobby. They both worked extremely well and so one of the goals for this year was to expand the theory. Make them 'not just for Christmas'. Make more of them. We'll see if it works. Here's an example.

March Blues

Well, erm, March was a bit quiet for me on Squidoo. There is a reason - scouts honour - I do my own accounts and March is the month when it all has to come together. Gosh I hate accounts. It's not that they take all my time up - in fact my books are pretty straightforward - it's just that they melt my head, and I'm utterly unproductive on anything else while I'm doing them. Only 18 lenses for the month - not good - although someone important suggested making one lens per week on the forums - maybe a response to that on another post another time. Anyway, here's a new lens about a new toy that I rather like. Much more in April.

CSS?

Just seen a really interesting post from Kimberly on the Squidoo Blog. Just thought I'd say 'Amen'. I'm really not a fan of the CSS-Laden lenses that appear all over Squidoo and agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of the post. As I've said before, I read a lot of lenses, and I don't like multi-coloured text, backgrounds, borders, etc, etc, etc. I think they tend to be ugly and I switch off when I see them. I'd like to think I'm at least a fairly average reader, and so if I'm switching off, it means others are too.

Modules used 'out of the box' are clean and professional looking. I'd be the first to admit that they're designed by people that know far more about what they're doing than I ever will. So, thank you very much, I'll leave the module design to the Squidoo team and just concentrate on the content.

Talking of which, it's a bit of a YuGiOh! week, and I've been busy on some of the lenses on single cards featured in the Extreme Victory booster pack :)

So What's So Great About Polls?

Well, I made a vague illusion to loving polls in last week's post and I can't not explain myself can I? Essentially, it strikes me that polls can be used the same way that, for instance, Amazon use customer reviews.

Most people that visit a page about a product are already pre-sold on the idea of the product. So what we do is insert a poll into our lens that is a dressed up 'Is Product X excellent?'. Of course, most people visiting the page think it is, and tell you so on the poll.

Potential purchaser arrives at the page thinking that this product sounds not too bad. Then 'hey', not too far down the page, they find something that shows them that plenty of real people agree. Buying it sounds like an even better idea now, doesn't it? All those people can't be wrong. And 'hey #2', the person that wrote this page has left me a convenient way to go to Amazon (or eBay, etc) to buy it right now. That's helpful isn't it :)

A Couple of Things to Think About

I tend to steer clear of the heated forum debates, but a couple of fairly length threads have caught my eye over the last few days.

The first one was about monsters, the professional image of Squidoo and all sorts of other stuff that got dragged into the conversation too. In my rare appearances in the more debate-y type of threads, I've said publicly that I like the monsters, as a self-motivational tool - it encourages me to participate in the community, increase the interactivity of what I write and above all else, build more lenses.

I don't mind that other lensmasters see them too - other peoples achievements motivate me to work harder and maybe someone viewing my lensmaster page will take similiar motivation from it. Do the monster badges look professional to an outsider looking in? I think we probably give ourselves too much credit for how much the average visitor notices. Visitors/readers are there to find the information they're looking for quickly and conveniently - I don't believe many even see the stuff that goes on round about.

Which kind of brings me on to the second thread worth a comment - all about how less is more on lenses. Agree entirely with the sentiments on that one. When I read lenses - which I do a lot - it takes a really good 'long' lens to get me to read all of it. BUT, and this is the important point, I regularly read every word on the page on short lenses.

If I was more diligent in keeping stats, I'm sure I could prove to you that my short lenses, about single products sell more - or at the very least that time invested in them yields a greater return. The lenses of mine that tend to sell are - here's some brief information on a SPECIFIC product, a few videos, a few more details, some interaction (usually polls), and here's where to buy it. (I might talk about why I think polls work so well for selling stuff another time). Anyway - I'm nowadays firmly in the 'short and sweet' camp.

Happy Lensmaking, and it wouldn't be a blog post without mention of at least one new lens, so off you pop and try an Iconic Toys and Games Quiz ;)

A Trading-Cards Week on Squidoo

This past week's been a little hampered in my Squidoo life by other stuff that's needed a catch up, but I'm getting back on track and starting to get the new lenses rolling again.

Most of you will know that my main niche on Squidoo is the YuGiOh! Trading Card Game. With the latest release for the game making its first appearance this weekend, it was a busy old time, both in the shop - there's always a special launch tournament for a new product - and on Squidoo keeping all the lenses up to date.

To explain a little of the challenge. New YuGiOh! stuff always comes out in Japan several months before the rest of the world. A couple of prominent bloggers translate all the card names and fans then, by convention, stick to these when they write. Of course, there's always different ways to translate the same words and invariably the official translations differ in many instances. The same is even more true of the card text of course, so it's a race to get the official information out fast.

I did it though - I finally scooped the world of YuGiOh! Because I get the event organiser's card checklist, I was the first person to publish the official English-language card list online, right on Squidoo. There's still plenty of work to do though, changing over from unofficial translations to official ones on all the single card lenses that lead from the main lens. The expression 'rod for my own back' does spring to mind.

Meanwhile, I'm also plugging away at new Pokemon from the forthcoming Black & White DS game. Whether I can touch the handful of very long established Pokemon sites in Google though remains to be seen. Anyway here's Janovy as an example. Happy lens building.

It's Even More From Toy Fair

Working through the Toy Fair notes always takes a heap of time, and it'll probably be a month or so before I write all the lenses I'd like to from them - expect posts here to be called 'Even More From Toy Fair Volume 3' and 'I Can't Believe It's More Toy Fair'.

Two more potential big crazes to mention this week are Androidz - a series of 2 inch high battling, rolling robots and Pinypon - a lovely series of Spanish dolls with an anime look and interchangeable parts.

There's also a couple of noteable boardgames I've given some coverage to on Squidoo this week. Firstly, there's a return for Khet in 2011, reboxed and looking good, but still the 'chess with lasers' game we know and love. In very exciting news too, there's a new Discworld Boardgame in town, called (what else could it be?) Ankh-Morpork. Looks great.

This Week It's All About Toy Fair

This is probably the most important time of year on Squidoo for me. I go to Toy Fair and see everything new coming out this year, then head back and fire into the lenses about them. Of course, Google likes pages that are the first to talk about subjects, so time is of the essence - it can make a huge difference to both Squidoo earnings and visits to my website, and every day counts.

There are three up there already that I think'll be big Toy Crazes this year. First is Iwako erasers - Japanese collectible erasers that have interchangeable parts. Very nice indeed and already big in certain parts of the US. Then there is Zoobles - already out in The States and already popular, they get their UK release imminently. Imagine Bakugan for girls and you aren't too far off the mark. Finally there is Paciocchini - miniature dolls that have been around since the 70s in Italy, but being given a re-launch and a Europe-wide (at least) release - again very cool. Enjoy!

Another week... More Lenses...

Pokemon makes its return with the Black & White era in March, complete with a brand new list of new Pokemon species to catch on the brand new DS console game. I'm thinking that there might be some mileage in an individual lens on the more prominent of them. We'll see how they go. I;ve started off with the three new starter Pokemon to pick from. If you want to see an example, this one's about Tepig. On each lens, I've included details of anime appearances, console game stats and appearances for the Trading Card Game. There's also video segments and other fun too.

That doesn't mean that the main niche is getting ignored, of course. As you might recall, one of the missions this year was to write a quiz every week. This time out it's one for the YuGiOh! fans, all about the new Storm of Ragnarok booster. The main SOR page is getting a lot of visitors right now. It'll be interesting to see how many of them click through to the quiz.

In the movers-and-shakers department this week, it's good to see an old favourite start to sneak back up the rankings. The first two lenses I wrote were about Crazy Bones (still my highest ranked lens) and Gormiti - it's been keeping quiet for a while, but visitor numbers are starting to sneak up again. Nice to see!

This Week For Me on Squidoo

I know. Another new blog. They're all for different audiences though. Really they are. This one's for keeping up to date with everything I'm up to on Squidoo at the moment. Onwards...

After spluttering coffee across the room, seeing the lensrank update this morning, only to calm down when I arrived at the forums, it was time to get down to work. Earlier this week, I set my goals for Squidoo in 2011. They include a plan for another 300 lenses this year. (12th of January, I've done 16 - decent start) One of the goals was a quiz per week - I enjoy writing them and they see traffic and so why not. Anyway, the first one rolled off the production line today - all about Uglydoll.

Meanwhile, as anyone on Squidoo will know, the main thing I write about is the card game YuGiOh! We're due another booster in early February, and my goal is to write individual lenses on as many of the individual cards contained in it, in time for them being heavily searched.

There's a couple of flaws, of course. There'll be a hundred different cards for a start - obviously a hundred lenses is beyond me in a short timescale, so figuring which cards will generate most interest is important. Secondly, you can kind of get a head start - but only to a point. Without getting into too much of a technical explanation, 80 of the 100 cards have already appeared in the Japanese version of the same booster pack. The flaw is that the card names have only been translated by fans - they'll have many of them spot on, but some will change. Of course the lens text can be changed, but the URLs can't, without rewriting the lens from scratch. Hey, ho.

Anyway, the booster is called Storm of Ragnarok, and you can find the links to the individual card lenses (14 so far) from there.

Meanwhile, over on SquidU, there's a game to update a lens that begins with consecutive letters of the alphabet each day. C today. A bit stressfull - I'm missing a good few letters of the alphabet and you probably know how competitive I am. It was also payday the other day and another record for me :) Could Squidoo pay my mortgage eventually? A long way to that kind of sum, but who knows, eh?