Well, it’s that time of year again, and today marks the week of Eurovision. Because so many countries now participate – 42 this year – the event has been divided into two semi-finals, with the Grand Final this Saturday, May 16.

As I’ve already created a couple of lenses (3 actually), I couldn’t let this year’s competition pass without making a 2009 version. All the participating song videos are included, along with a poll to vote for your favorite. I’ve also tried to give a flavor of what the Contest is all about.

So, why not come over and take a look at some of this year’s songs – and cast your vote

Here’s the lens: The 2009 Eurovision Song Contest

More Eurovision lenses:

The Eurovision Song Contest: The Winners
The Eurovision Song Contest: The UK Entries
The 2008 Eurovision Song Contest

Here they are:

Intuitive
athomemomblog
WindyWinters
MsSnow4a
marsha32
genglo

I also want to send my very best wishes to them in their quest to become Giants or Giant 100 members. When their new lenses are published, I hope others will visit and rate them, as well as cheer them all the way to the finish line. You all have my full support

With only a few days left for applications to the Challenge (May 1st), this looks like it’s going to be my small, but perfectly formed, team and I am so pleased to have them on board. Thank you for taking a leap of faith

Here’s how it works:

Join a Team: From April 20th to May 1st each Greeter will be recruiting Lensmasters for their “Team”. Join a team by leaving an “I want to be on your Team” message in their Guestbook.

Here’s my team:

JustBon’s Blue Ribbon Squids by JustBon-Crochet-Designs http://www.squidoo.com/JustBons-Blue-Ribbon-Squids

Create New Lenses For Your Team: From May 1st to June 15th each NEW lens you create you will add to either the Giant Squid Plexo or the 100 Club Plexo that I have set up on this lens. It’s that simple!

What You Get: Whichever Greeter “Team” gets the most lenses added to their Plexo will win a special workshop chat with the Giant Squid Organizers and Greeters, a nice write up on this blog, big time bragging rights and more lenses towards the June 2009 deadline for Giant Squid and 100 Club status!

I will personally be visiting each lens that is created after May 1st, leaving you some feedback, and cheering you on. Sound good?

So are you ready? There are more detailed instructions and tips and tricks on the lens – so get ready, get set, GO TEAM!

The good news is that you can now do it

I’ve put together a short tutorial on a new lens that will help you jazz up any or all of your music related lenses – or any other lens that you choose.

Check out: Add Music to Your Squidoo Lens for all the info that you’ll need.

If you’d like, you can visit these two lenses to see what it looks and sounds like once it’s added to your lens — Enjoy

Lens #1

Lens #2

Let me know if you need more help with this. I’d be happy to assist!

Being March, I had to change the picture to the appropriate image from the Houston Fire Fighters 2009 calendar in my Handsome Hunky Men Group. I occasionally take a look to see how the Group is doing in lensrank, because I’ve noticed that it dances around in the Top 5 from time to time. Imagine my surprise today when I looked and saw that it was sitting proudly at number one! I nearly fell off my chair lol!

In fact, a few days ago, someone requested more than 50 lenses be added to the Group. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry – 50 is a lot of lenses to wade my way through, but the upside is that a Lensmaster thought the Group good enough to submit their work to.

Before I tell you how, here’s something about search engine optimization (SEO) you should know. There are two primary components: “off-page” and “on-page” optimization. “Off-page” SEO refers to such things as link building. The more websites that point their links to your blog or website, the better. Even more important with “off-page” inbound links is the actual link text (anchor text) that is used to point to your site. A blogger can’t do much about “off-page” SEO, besides writing great and unique content that generates lots of links.

With “on-page” SEO you have complete control over how well you’re optimized for Google. This includes keywords in your post titles, title tags, using header tags (h1, h2) and other tactics. Now, the one I’m going to concentrate here is the blog title tag.

Title tags are one of the most (if not the most) important “on-page” elements to ranking high in Google. Search engines weigh the importance of each word in the title from left to right. So, ideally you want your blog post title all the way to the left and your blog name to the right.

(For instance, if you look at the top left of this page in the blue strip, this post will show the blog name first followed by the post title. I’d really want this to be the other way around – but this blog is hosted by WordPress).

Like WordPress, Blogger templates don’t come with search engine optimized title tags, which means you aren’t maximizing your blog to rank better in Google. If you take a look at your existing Blogger title, you’ll see that Blogger displays the blog name first, followed by your post title. This is backwards, so you need get your blog configured correctly.

All you need to do is a quick edit to your Blogger template. Firstly, backup your template just in case you make a mistake (by copying and pasting it in an editor like Wordpad). That makes it easy to revert back without causing you a headache.

Step #1: In your Blogger dashboard, go to “Layout” => “Edit HTML”.

Step #2: In the template code, do a search for this:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>.

It’s usually in the first 5-10 lines of code in your template near the top.

Step #3: Replace that bit of code with the following code:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'>
<title><data:blog.title/></title>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>
</b:if>

(Please make sure the apostrophe after cond= and quot; is vertical and NOT angled. WordPress causes this to be angled.)

Step #4: Save your template and go back to your blog. Click into any individual post and look at the page title.

All your Blogger posts are now better optimized to rank higher in Google. I can’t promise an immediate difference, but this is a big step in the right direction. It’s now just down to you to write unique, high quality content so readers searching Google will find your blog first!

PS To test this, I have created a post on my new Blogger blog – so you can see how it works

Why? Because, while there may be a couple of small benefits to being among this group, I’ve acknowledged to myself that it is very unlikely to happen to one of my lenses, and that my sights should be set at where my lenses stand within the Top 2000 (or even the next tier). After all, apart from a little prestige, no-one’s lens is going to gain more financially whether it ranks 59 or 1059.

But now, even trying to maintain a lens within the Top 2000, is like trying to keep a grip on a very slippery rope. Since I became a member of Squidoo, the site has literally exploded with new lenses and Lensmasters, and where I used to have between 10 and 15 lenses ranked above 2000, I’m now lucky if I can hold on to three there. I did notice that today all bar one of my 114 lenses rank above 85000, which is great, as long as I can keep them there and on the rise!

So, I told myself some time ago, don’t obsess about the Top 100. Look at it as a bonus – yes, something to rejoice about when it happens – but not an obsession. If you need to obsess about anything at Squidoo, focus your attention on making quality lenses and helping other Lensmasters do the same – whether they’re doing it for themselves or their favorite charity.

I used to be pretty much a regular there, but because of other commitments and some increased negativity among the posts, I decided that my time would be better spent creating and updating my lenses, plus giving them a little promotion. For me, the Forum had lost some of its community spirit and, to be honest, I found solace in another venue where many Lensmasters hang out -Tagfoot.

But, I have been around Squidoo for over two years now, and as a Giant Squid, part of what I understand that title to mean is to give back to the community by way of sharing gathered knowledge of the site, and encouraging new users to excel at lens creation. To that end, I was excited to learn that I had been chosen as one of the new Giant Squid Greeters, which will satisfy both my need to get back to SquidU and my role as a Giant Squid.

All of this means that this old Squidoo bird will be hanging out a lot more (primarily) at the “Introduce Yourself” and “Critique Me” sections of the Forum, checking out the new Lensmasters and hopefully offering some helpful advice.

Oh! And if you come across any new lensmasters that show Giant Squid potential – let me know!

My new lenses for 2009:

The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 – the annual Europe-wide song competition.

Isla Fisher – the star of ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’.

Hugh Dancy – Isla Fisher’s co-star.

The Fourth American Idol Judge, Kara DioGuardi, is Not Needed – A new Twttrstrm.

Matt Smith – the new Dr. Who.

Let’s see now – where to start?

Some good news was the honor of being nominated for Best Music Lens in the 2008 Giant Squid Awards for my British Glam Rock of the 70s lens. I was really thrilled to find out this news as this was one of the first lenses I created upon joining Squidoo, almost two years ago now. It’s kind of like one of my babies, and I’m always really pleased that so many visitors find it entertaining. Looking at the voting right now, it’s probably not going to win, as it’s up against some very stiff competition from some other superb music lenses. However, whatever the outcome, it’s just so gratifying knowing that it is considered to be among the Top 5.

Much of the reason for not posting here is that while I’ve been trying to create and update lenses, I’ve also been trying to promote them a little more. Once I hit that publish button, I always forget to add my lenses to places where they are likely to get some traffic – and maybe snowball a little. So I took some time out to look around and look for some ideal places. As a consequence, I seem to have succumbed to a new addiction – a site called Tagfoot. What a wonderful place to share links that you’ve created and enjoy with others, while at the same time participating in a very friendly community, reading and commenting on their link submissions. There are lots of Squidoo lensmasters on board, some I’m already very familiar with, but also others who are very new to me. It’s a great place to hang out, and the site support is second to none.

I’ve also set up a page on Multiply. There’s not a lot there yet, but it looks like somewhere where I can add some links for my lenses in order to woo a few more visitors in. Always a good tactic lol!

On the lenses front, I’ve published only nine new ones since September. I wanted to create some Christmas lenses, but time got the better of me on this score too – maybe next year

New Lenses – September:

Queen Emily: A SquidWho lens about one of the final five contestants on ‘America’s Got Talent’.

Eli Mattson: Another SquidWho lens. He was the very, very talented runner-up on the same show.

Nuttin’ But Stringz: Guess what? They were finalists on ‘America’s Got Talent’.

Kara DioGuardi: This one showcases the latest American Idol judge to join the show.

What is Guy Fawkes Night?: With all the ballyhoo about Halloween on Squidoo, I went off on a tangent and created a lens about a UK celebration, recognized on Nov. 5th.

New Lenses – October:

1980 Best Selling Singles (UK): This is the 11th in a long line of yearly music lenses I’ve created, beginning with 1970.

New Lenses – November:

The Houston Fire Fighters 2009: A wonderfully hunky 2009 calendar, showing off the best bits of the Houston Fire Fighters. This follows on from the 2007 and 2008 copies. All done for a very good cause.

Hit Christmas Songs: 1970-1979: My obsession with 70s music continues with this seasonal offering of UK chart topping Christmas songs.

The Apple iPod Classic: This is the beginning of my niche Christmas shopping contribution. I’ve a feeling this is far as my niche will go right now. We’ll see…

In November, I was also celebrating my hubby’s 50th birthday. While I published it some months before, the lens 1958 was created for him as an online present.

Groups:

Handsome Hunky Men: I have been doing a lot of updating to this Group, featuring even more of the wonderful lenses. I’m pleased to report that the Group sits at #1 in People and has been in the Top 5 of the Movers and Shakers for some time.

My own lens Group: I thought it would be a great idea to open up my own Group with just my lenses. Kind of like a lensography, only in a Group style. Something I’d recommend all Lensmasters do, particularly if you have a hard time updating your own lensography, like me!

Other Groups:

Serve & Volley Tennis Group and Great Lenses – Zero Stars Group.

So here we are in December, and not one lens published yet! After 119 of them, I’ve slowed down a little to concentrate on my other love – crocheting. I’ve been selling my designs online for some years now, but this year I’ve been a little slow getting them listed. I used to use eBay a lot, but their charges became so crippling that I decided to scale down my Store there and list on my other favorite venue, Etsy. I have a few things listed, but I have a lot more to add, so my lens creating will have to wait a little.

As I don’t know if I’ll be posting here before the 25th, I want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas season and a safe and peaceful New Year. Thank you to all those Lensmasters who have visited, commented on, starred, lensrolled and supported my lenses this year. I’m so very grateful and humbled that you have taken your time to view my work As they say “You Rock!”

Lensrank Update:

Top 100 – 0 (it’ll never happen, lol!)

Top 2000 – 4

Top 10,000 – 19