The Poddyland News

I was wondering about our blogs at Squidtop lately.  Just how many people actually visit and look at our postings?  Is it just the small group of us that have blogs, or do other people actually visit at all?

There are often very few comments on not only my postings, but others here too, and they are usually by the same people – US!

I wondered what you do to promote your Squidtop blog, and does it seem to do any good?

South Florida has cooled off again this week, and the temperatures for the last 3 nights were down in the low 30’s, which is decidedly cool for here.   It’s funny to see people in thick winter coats, but I have to admit that although I have a good tolerance for cold, and I can stand being outside when it’s cold as long as the sun is shining and it’s not windy, once the sun goes in and that icy wind gets up, it starts to cut right through me.

This week has seen me making a few tweaks to our Off The Record blog, mostly tidying up the code on the Wordpress Theme.  Debbie also put out a wonderfully funny post about the shopping trip she took last weekend with her daughter.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you could be missing out on a good laugh.

I also worked on another site that I have been desperate to get off the ground this past week, The Laughline.  This is the place where I will be copying all the jokes and funny pictures from my original web site The Poddys Directory, plus I will be using it as the archive repository for all my postings from my Yahoo Group.  So if you get a chance and are in the mood for something funny, please drop by The Laughline.

Well the deadline has now passed for Debbie to get her visa approved, so there is not enough time now before Valentines Day to get her passport sent off the the US Embassy in London and returned before she was due to fly, even if she heard today.  So, our hopes of spending half term together for Valentines Day and Presidents Day have been dashed.  I have Presidents Day off and she has the whole week off, but now we have to spend them alone, 4,500 miles apart.  The next opportunity for her to come over is Easter, which is another 2 months away.  Of course we still have to wait for her visa to be approved to know if she can come over.  The waiting, since the end of October is so frustrating.  Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

Well have a good weekend everybody, stay warm, or cool if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, and if you get a chance, I have 3 lenses listed below that are in need of some love.  Please visit if you can and leave a comment to let me know that you were there.

HAVE YOU SEEN OUR NEW BLOG

Debbie (better know to some of you as Debnet) have a new blog, and we both invite you to join in the conversations there and to see what we are up to.   We plan to cover just about anything, from what each of us is doing while we are stuck 4,500 miles apart, to news, updates and information on trendy new items or web sites / software that we like.  So please if you have time drop in to see us at Off The Record.  Be sure to leave us a comment to let us know you were there. 

My SQUIDOO LENSES

My lens status as of today is as below:

LENS STATUS

Top 100: 0
Top 2,000: 3
Top 10,000: 8
Lenses: 74

NEW LENSES

The Best Breakfast Food
The Daily Joke January 2009

MY TOP 5 LENSES

1. My Pet Peeves
2. The Best Breakfast Food
3. Bournemouth
4. The Daily Joke Index
5. Religious Jokes

LENSES IN NEED OF LOVE – I AM LONELY – PLEASE VISIT ME

• Song Lyrics Baggy Trousers by Madness
• Song Lyrics Walking On The Moon by The Police
• Song Lyrics Hungry Heart by Bruce Springsteen

Very sad ranking updates for today – another lens drops out of the Top 2,000.

A week ago I had 11 lenses in the Top 2,000 and 5 in the Top 10,000.  Now I have only 4 in the Top 2,000 and 9 in the Top 10,000.  That’s a potential loss of close to $50 in the payout – ouch!   It shows how important it is to keep promoting and updating your lenses, and I have had little chance to do either in the last week.   I desperately need to do something, yet this weekend is already going to require more time than I have for essential things.

It’s going to be a busy weekend for sure.   I have to get my hair cut, go grocery shopping, see my daughters, plan a trip to New York that was to have been next Spring but now has to be done early September, get a new cell phone (mine is 8 years old and the case has to be held on with a rubber band to stop the phone falling out – embarrassing but the phone works ok though – just can’t get a case – it’s time to upgrade), research and shop for a new camcorder (can’t go to New York without one).   So a very full weekend, and in addition I need to spend time enjoying the 8 weeks I have left with my girlfriend here     I have a funny feeling my lenses are going to suffer further unfortunately.  The August payout in 2 months will be horrible I am sure. 

Well as usual no money from CJ or Amazon, and I still have to earn 1c on affiliate links on my lenses, but it does look as if Adsense might break records with amost $30 this month so far.  I hope as the year continues I can continue the upward trend on Adsense.

LENS STATUS
Top      100      0
Top   2,000      4
Top 10,000      9

Today my Daily Jokes For August lens shot into the Top 2,000, but the Daily Jokes For April dropped 400 places and out of the Top 2,000, so my rankings are even again.

Last night I had hoped to start work on a Halloween lens, but first I wanted to update the Halloween Jokes section of The Poddys Directory, my original web site, that will be 10 years old tomorrow (if you drop in I know it needs a complete rewrite – as soon as I find the right software I will work on it)…   My seasonal humor sections have always done well, the biggest traffic being over Christmas, Easter and Halloween, and I figure that this year has to be one where I try and earn some serious money, so I worked on revamping the pages, all 22 of them plus the index.  Well that took longer than expected, almost to 11pm, by which time it was too late to start on a lens, but at least a lot of the work has now been done.  I am looking forward to creating a great Halloween lens.

My Daily Jokes For August was accepted on the Isle Of Squid yesterday, so that needed to be updated, plus I visited all the people who had left comments for me yesterday (as I usually do), viewed and reviewed some of their lenses, lensrolled etc, all of which takes time.

LENS STATUS
Top     100       0
Top  2,000       9
Top 10,000    16

Even though some traffic might not result in sales or referrals etc, it’s “bad” traffic, it can still serve a purpose, if you can somehow channel it correctly. 

I have a directory (The Poddys Directory) that I created 9 years 10 months ago.  It’s really out of date, needs a complete rewrite and splitting into multiple domains, but it does get alot of traffic and has over 10,000 backlinks to it.

Well, in the past month or so I noticed that certain pages, mostly Jokes (I have almost 2,000 pages of jokes on the site) were getting a lot of traffic according to my site stats.  I have also been getting a lot of traffic in from Stumbleupon, but until this week I never put 2 + 2 together.    Well I finally figured it out last night – I looked in Stumbleupon, and found at least 10 pages of jokes that had over 40 people who liked them on Stumbleupon.   Someone must have added them a few months ago, and other people have also given them a Thumbs Up.    Now there is nothing special about these jokes, they aren’t the greatest jokes, but for some reason they got reviewed on Stumbleupon.  Just yesterday (1st July) alone, one page received 2,789 views!

The bad news is that despite my having updated the page a few weeks ago, practically nobody who visits clicks on the Adsense or CJ ads.  But it’s traffic nevertheless.

So how does this relate to Squidoo?

Well, if I add a link to my Jokes Index lens on Squidoo, and I can encourage 10% of the visitors to my lens, that’s maybe 200 visitors per day.  Then, they might also visit multiple lenses, get hooked, and might even sign up on Squidoo, or give my lenses a Thumbs Up on Stumbleupon too.

It just goes to show that even bad traffic does have it’s uses.  All traffic helps drive the ratings up, in this case Poddys.com is a PR3 rated site, and it’s just a matter of taking that worthless traffic and converting it into something more worthwhile.

I hope to add the links back to Squidoo tonight, and will hopefully see some changes in my lens views tomorrow.

Will keep you posted…

Meantime….  1 lens in the Top 100, and 9 more in the Top 2,000.