Strategizing for the Year to Come

New Year's Party Invitation by gravityx9
Create notecards at zazzle.com

Happy holidays and a happy healthy New Year to everyone!

This week between Christmas and New Year is often one that people waste when it comes to business, but I recommend that you use this "down time" to assess the last year, and strategize for the year to come--2010.

This is the time to take a summary of your activities, figure out which ones have brought in the most money, and which ones were a waste of time. There will always be some business experiments that do not go as planned.

Look at the year coming up and plan your marketing plan at least two to three months in advance of any major event or holiday because it takes time for your articles to ripen and mature. People also shop ahead of time, especially online.

Decide what your strategy for the year is and what your goals are. Then work towards them.

This is what I will be doing this week, so you can think of me when you are doing your planning. :)

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Maximizing Your Adsense Earnings Through Backlinks

I am a strong believer in maximizing and compounding your online earnings as much as possible and getting as much earnings from the same articles as you can. It seems that lately several websites have popped up that will share Adsense earnings with you for bookmarking your pages with them, so I thought I would compile a list here to make sure that everyone knows of the websites, and is taking advantage of the income and backlinks available. Some of the listed websites give credit for referrals, some do not, but all of them give you income either through Adsense directly or through some alternate form of payment.

If you would like to join or check out any one of these websites, just follow the link I have provided below:

• Xomba
• Tagfoot
• Yousaytoo
• Shetoldme
• Addblogurl
• Hubpages
• Redgage

A note about Hubpages: Hubpages is not a social bookmarking site, but it is an excellent site to earn Adsense income from and write articles containing backlinks. They do have a two link limit per article, but since you only need one link for a backlink that is not a problem.

Do you use any other Adsense revenue sharing sites regularly that you can recommend? If so, add them to the comments here so that everyone can learn about them.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

New Amazon Associates Direct Links in Blogger

Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com Juggernaut


If you haven't already become an Amazon associate, now is a good time to do so, because Amazon has just added convenient usage for associates to Blogger. I do a lot of blogging to promote my articles and websites, and I thought I would try it out with this article so here it goes. If you see a link in this article, it was put in with the new Amazon tool.

As the year winds down, I am reviewing what I have learned from my online ventures, about making money online, and affiliate marketing, and I can say that I have learned a lot this year, and had some successes that I can definitely build on next year. I have set up a network of blogs, and articles that are already generating income, and that will increase in the year to come, and my main website is beginning to really show some results.

I have to say that I am thrilled with my growth online this year, and am excited to see how much my business will grow next year. So here is to finding more ways to grow our income online and offline and to a very successful 2010 for all of us.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Using Offline Marketing to Send Traffic to Your Zazzle Gallery (and Your Squidoo Lenses)

Too Cold for the Beach by lakeerieartists
Browse more Cleveland Mugs

Since many of Squidoo's lensmasters also have Zazzle galleries, I thought that I would talk a bit about marketing your Zazzle gallery offline.

Those of us who work online forget that there are excellent ways to market our online businesses offline. We spend so much time in front of the computer, we forget that we also meet lots of people off of the computer when we are not working.

I am here to remind you that every person you see face to face in your life is a potential customer for you. Almost everyone does some searching and shopping online these days, which is evidenced by how every commercial on TV or the radio gives a company's website.

Well, your Zazzle gallery (and your Squidoo lenses) are your business, and you can also market them offline by using standard marketing methods.

These methods can be:

• Getting business cards with your Zazzle gallery website on it and handing them to people you meet.
• Going to any social or business networking event and letting people know about your Zazzle gallery.
• Telling relatives and friends about your Zazzle gallery.
• Making flyers about your Zazzle gallery and posting them on bulletin boards where you go at libraries, grocery stores, or anywhere else they let you.

Handing out business cards is so easy to do when you meet people, and it costs so little. You can buy 100 cards for a few dollars, and you can make that back with one purchase. Just like being online, marketing offline is a numbers game and you have to talk to a lot of people before you get a sale but because you see them face to face you will have a bit more influence on the people you talk to.

Most of us get invited to parties and other social gatherings during the last few weeks of the year, and if you are already there and someone says, "What are you doing these days?" it is the perfect opportunity for you to say, "Thanks for asking, here is a link to my Zazzle store."


You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Let the Holiday Shopping Season Begin

As I sit here sipping coffee this morning here in Cleveland, Ohio on a frigid, windy morning, I am trying to work out some last minute kinks in my Lake Erie Artists Gallery website that I didn't realize were there until an order wouldn't go through earlier this week.

For those of you who don't realize it, tonight is the first night of Chanukah, which my family celebrates and my husband and I just started shopping for holiday gifts yesterday. This is the mindset that I believe many Americans and global citizens are in, either because they are so busy or because of budgetary constraints, waiting until the last possible moment to purchase their holiday gifts for their own family, and friends and acquaintances. I have talked to many customers who are just buying presents as needed before they see the people that they are visiting.

With many online vendors offering free shipping or reduced rates on overnight shipping, don't be surprised to see a lot of last minute purchases that are scheduled to arrive at people's homes on December 24th. UPS ships right up to the holidays, and continues shipping the days between Christmas and New Year, and so does the US Post Office. What I am trying to say is to not be discouraged if your customers do not seem to be buying yet.

On another note, I recently finished a lens about using Zazzle images on your lenses to help yourself and your fellow lensmasters sell Zazzle items. It is a win-win situation for everyone because you can become a Zazzle affiliate without making anything, and both you and the designer will make money on any purchase. To read more about this, follow this link.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

December on Squidoo

Wow, it is hard to believe that we are in the final month of 2009, and what for many of us is the busiest month of the year every year. For my retail business, it is always true, and this year after my first full year of being a Squidoo lensmaster, I can see that my year's work is really paying off in the visits to my lenses, and purchases.

I have some lenses which didn't do well last year at the same time, soaring this year, and the holiday season has really only just begun. Most people don't really get serious about Christmas shopping until the last two weeks of December. So to start I wish all of you lensmasters a successful Squidoo shopping season.

This is not the time to stop tweaking and improving your lenses, nor should you stop creating new ones. If all your holiday lenses are doing well, then starting making lenses for Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day. Give them time to percolate and mature.

Continue to update and improve your existing lenses by adding products, making sure your links are still good, or writing articles and creating backlinks to them. The more work you put in, the more success you will reap from your work.

I did want to let you know of another site I have been recently introduced to that you can earn Adsense and Amazon income from, YouSayToo.com which was recommended to me by an excellent source. This is another place to publicize your writing and blogs, and get backlinks. So check it out, it is easy to use.

Happy Squidcember, everyone!

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.