I thought I’d do something fun – and necessary – review Social Networking on Squidoo just like I did One Week Marketing – as a paying customer. You heard me right – I went through the whole process just now – I read my sales copy. I remembered what it promised me. I paid money for it. Oh, I ordered through an affiliate’s link – whoever popped up as #1 in Google when I typed in Social Networking on Squidoo review – it was a Squidoo lens LOL! I figured whoever it was deserved the sale.

I got SO much out of my review of OWM (even if others didn’t) that I felt it would be wonderful to have my own product ripped apart while being implemented. To be honest, it’s been a long time since I read through every word of that guide. I have updated it, but Squidoo changes so fast that I know it needs an overhaul. In fact, it needs to be overhauled so that it’s evergreen to some degree.

What better way to do it than to break it down right in front of you – kinda feels like being naked in front of an audience – and here’s the kicker – I WELCOME your feedback on MY blog – even if you say, “Tiff – Social Networking on Squidoo sucked.” I want to know why. Why? Because I care enough to make it better. I won’t just say, “Oh well, there are lots of people who DO like it.”

No – I want 100% of my customers happy.

So I’m going to be raw and real again. And the cool thing is, I can EDIT what I feel needs to be changed after this is all said and done – or even as I go if I want to! Want to follow along?

I know my Building an eBook Empire is stellar – it’s rare that I ever get a refund for that and it sells well. But the Squidoo eBook sells well and does get more refunds, not a ton, but more than I want – so I want to know why.

First step – buy the guide. The order process went smoothly. I downloaded everything to my desktop folder. DLGuard worked perfectly. Here’s a copy of my receipt (I blacked out the email addressed and receipt #):

Okay – rereading my sales copy – I feel the headline’s a little outdated. It’s not just about capturing leads – Squidoo is a three-pronged approach for me now – it’s to promote tangibles via Amazon, digital products of my own or as an affiliate.

I can’t decide whether or not to leave John Reese’s testimonial right at the top. So many people who find my site now are new to IM – will they know him or not (at first, I mean?). Tell me your thoughts on that.

Moving into the sales copy – it’s not virtually unknown anymore. Gotta remove the verbiage about not being accused of Spam, since we all know they’re on crackdown mode lately.

I don’t want to edit the sales copy until you’ve all had a chance to read it as it exists now. Afterward, I’ll edit. Outdated stuff has to go – opt in forms are now out as of recently. Groups are gone (well for the most part).

I also want to add my 52 weeks on Squidoo as a bonus.

I discover I also now need a READ ME file to tell my readers what to read first, second, third, etc – something I complained about as a customer of OWM. (No, I’m not afraid to shine the flashlight on myself – me discovering those things is exactly why I wanted to do this – I had no idea I didN’T have a Read Me file in there. Now I know.)

Hmm how do I do this? On my DLG page, I have five different download files. Otherwise they’d be too large – especially with the audio file. Should I have them download a READ ME file too? Ideas?

I like that I’m told in the introduction to email Tiff, but I’m not given an email address to use. Of course, they’ll get an email from me, but what if they haven’t opened their email yet or they lose it and later want to contact me? I need to put an email address in there for them to reach me.

In chapter 1, I’m talking to the reader as if they’re an existing Internet Marketer. I talk about past instances like when we all got the MySpace crackdown. Well what if my reader wasn’t around then? What if they’re brand spanking new? I need to revise my wording in case they are totally new. I know WHY this was done this way – because the product was created because fellow marketers asked me to write about it for them, so I KNEW what they knew already – and I never expected this to grow into a product like this where Reese, Silver and even Travis the Bum Marketer was promoting it – to newbies.

Reading chapter 1 – if you don’t want the backstory, the what Squidoo is and why it was built and so on, then feel free to skip ahead but if you’re not familiar with the site, I suggest you read it. I like that chapter 1 goes into the lingo of Squidoo because I know this gets confusing when you’re new to Internet Marketing. People start throwing around words like lens, module and SERPs and your eyes go blank.

I need to take out 8 different themes on page 6 because that’s something that always changes.

One thing I like is that I told them in my Quick Note From Tiffany (introduction) that chapter 1 is an overview and not to worry if they feel confused because after this chapter, I’m going to go into step by step detail. If I hadn’t said that, they might start reading chapter 1 and see things like me talking about hyperlinking my Bio Box and wonder, “Well why don’t you TELL me how to do that?” (not knowing it’s in a later page). So I think I’ll make that warning stand out a bit more prominently.

Page 10 has my age – and I’d love to still be 38, but I’m not. I need to take that out. I like how on page 10, I go through some of the categories and talk about ideas on how they might be used. I don’t like that I mention SquidUtils in the Gardening category yet I haven’t yet explained to the reader what SquidUtils is – so they’ll be scratching their heads here.

Page 11 at the bottom says, “As you saw in the intro on my lens,” yet I haven’t yet been linked to a lens – so I have no clue what I’m talking about! I had taken out the link to that lens awhile back when this was reorganized, so I need to fix that.

I like that I do screen shots when I’m talking about stuff like traffic stats, Amazon orders, etc.

On page 16, I’m told to conduct some keyword research for my lenses. I hope this is covered later, or I’ll be annoyed. I need to address here whether or not it’s covered and if not, add it and tell where to find it. Also on page 16, I mention adding tags – but I haven’t yet explained what a tag is.

On page 17, the ghostwriting link is expired because I no longer ghostwrite That doesn’t bode well – one of the early links is outdated. Immediately I’d be thinking, “Outdated!” I also talk about how I’m using Squidoo to promote DLGuard, but instead of linking them to my LENS on DLGuard, I linked them to DLG through my affiliate link. Now that looks greedy – looks like I’m just pushing product rather than trying to teach them how I’m using Squidoo. I’ll be fixing that.

Right after that, I DID do it the right way with my Building an eBook Empire lens link. Page 17 also says it’s better not to use Squidoo to make money within the modules, but through your own links. I don’t believe that anymore – now that I’ve learned IPK (Info Product Killer), I see the benefit.

Same page – another outbound link – this time to the PLR Mini Mart. Now I know what I’m trying to do – show the site I’m promoting and then show a link to the lens to show how I’m promoting it, but if I wasn’t me and I didn’t know my intentions, I’d think it reeked of overzealous promotion. I’ll revamp that – directing them to the lenses is enough. I don’t need the extra spiel about the Mini Mart.

I think I’d like to revamp this to show the different types of lenses – like an Amazon product promotion lens, one where I’m an affiliate, and one where I’m promoting my own stuff.

Okay I’m stopping at page 20 and I’m annoyed. While I’m learning lots of good stuff, I’d like to get started, please! At least have me register an account or something. I feel like I’m in school – doing a lot of reading and studying. I want action steps – so I’ll need to go in and add some. Instead of doing this huge backstory/explanation in the beginning, and then doing step by step, I may revamp it to be like this:

Introduction (short)
Backstory for 1 topic (like registering an account where I talk about why and how to have multiple accounts)
Action step for registering your account.

That way, people are doing rather than just reading about ME doing.

I’d be surprised if I didn’t have refunds right here just because people want more steps right off the bat and feel my guide might just be theory. I know time is precious, and they may just close the file and click refund.

To be continued tomorrow…
tiff

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