I am asking this week that you leave me your thoughts, opinions, and suggestions on this weekly squidoo blog hop.
When I started it, my intention was a way for lensmasters who blog about squidoo to link up their blog posts.
There are a lot of lensmasters who blog about squidoo, whether it be tips, tricks, SEO, blogging about their lenses etc. I only ended up with 2 regular bloggers who linked up. I truly did appreciate them.
Then, I came up with the idea of allowing lensmasters to also link up 1 or 2 of their lenses as well. I was thinking this would give access to another point of backlinking. Also, it would give others a chance to see the work of others as well.
I have been doing this hop for about 3 years now I believe and it's still never really taken off. There have been a couple of weeks with around a dozen link ins, but that's it.
I paste the link in to 3 groups on facebook. I email the link to my connections on google+ and then I go back in and share the link with the one squidoo group in google+ that I am in (I was in 4 groups, but not sure if the others were closed or if I was kicked out?)
So please be honest with me in your comments this week. Should I stop doing this blog hop? If not, what suggestions do you have to get more people to participate and link in?
With all that said, if you do link up, please choose any 1 or 2 of your lenses that you would like to share this week, as well as any blog posts you would like to share pertaining to squidoo as well of course.
P.S. I've admittedly still been addicted to bubblews this past week. I've checked in with squidoo each day checking if any of my lenses are being flagged. As of yet none are. I have some photos gathered to update a couple of lenses. And, speaking of the word gather----I must get in to all of my lenses where I have shared gather.com posts and see what I can exchange for those links as the last word is that gather probably will not be returning, especially as we knew it.
There may be an element of fear of stopping links lest Google slaps the targets.
ReplyDeleteHi Marsha,
ReplyDeleteI did sign up a long time ago and sorry I have not participated. This is a wonderful idea even with all the changes with SEO. Your post reminded me that I have a blog. I posted a blog today the first in months and it is about a Squidoo lens.
To me, the fact that there are only a handful of people linking up doesn't really take away from the value of this hop. In fact, the fact that it hasn't become a "huge" popular link-up has its benifits. I feel like I've sort of gotten to build a relationship with the bloggers and Squids that do link up regularly, and this is a way to check in and see what they're up to. Its not just the lenses and posts linked up, but also the questions you ask and the comments that people leave that builds that community. I would miss that if you stopped the link-up.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, a lot of larger hops loose that "community" feel you have here...and having a handful of people who post regularly I don't think is a failure. Yes, a larger turn out would mean more traffic, but it might not be the same quality of traffic (people who actually post on lenses and give feedback and such).
As for suggestions for getting more participation, I think it would really help if you made a lens about this link-up. Then you could share that lens every now and then in the forums (initially as a new lens, and then sometimes there's opportunities to share a lens again). And there are some facebook groups you can join (Spotted Squids for example) where I think it would be ok to announce that the linky was up each week.
Also, if you wanted, you could have a co-host that would also post the linky. That way it would get exposure on two blogs. I've seen some people do that.
I think you should carry on with this wonderful linky. I haven't been linking very much lately because I have not been very active on Squidoo preferring to work on my blogs for now but I still subscribe to your blog and follow it. :)
ReplyDeleteMarsha, I don't know what to tell you about how to increase participation for your Squidoo Hop. You really just have to weigh the time and effort against the value for yourself.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about the hops I have hosted myself... it became frustrating to me that most would link up each week but not bother to comment. That, to me is disrespectful. It takes only a minute to say Hello and Thanks and says so much about the person, lol.
Be careful about waiting for a "flag" at Squidoo! Update lenses, as some that haven't been updated do not pass the filters when you do... sort of a warning flag just showing up when trying to republish and until you fix them they won't publish your updates.
I have 1 new lens for this week, which I will link up. I have not Squidoo blogged, but I did Squidoo post on Bubblews and will link that up too. If you want to delete it, I will understand, lol.
I hope you are feeling better!
I am getting much better at putting my time and effort where it gains the highest return and it is paying off for me.
I just started using it the past couple of weeks, and just starting putting effort into squidoo. But I'm thinking I might have to give up squidoo after having a brand new lens locked saying it was content duplicated elsewhere, when I wrote every single word myself.
ReplyDeleteIt was my first time linking up and I guess I messed it up. lol
ReplyDeleteI stop by and check out the links every time but I never really add my own. I'm not really sure why. This time I linked to the newest post on my Squidoo blog.