Week 1: The Journey

This is my first week through Squidoo, and boy has it been an interesting one! I've met several great people through the forums, and I'm starting to get my bearing on this crazy journey.

I've managed to make three completely different lenses, which is a blessing and a curse. So far they seem to be doing really well; they are all steadily increasing in rank, and are all in the top 10,000 lenses. Not bad for my first week! There were quite a few surprises with how they did. They took dramatic leaps daily; I was not expecting to get any farther than the 50,000s when I initially started. However, it seems like for the most part my lenses are being enjoyed, and some people are already favoriting them.

My biggest issue I'm having right now is thinking up new ideas, and looking for a niche. I have tons of unmade lenses sitting in my dashboard, but it's just so hard to think of anything for them. I've made a list of all my hobbies, but I don't really think I'm an expert in any of them. I'm probably going to go back and forth between a very large range of niches when all is said and done. That's not a bad thing, I'm just a little concerned for my traffic.

I feel so pathetic in terms of traffic. Currently the most traffic I've had is 14 views on a page, 13 and 7 on the other. I'm trying to advertise them, but without much success. It seems the most clicks I've gotten are either from the SquidU forums or from squidoovision. Edit: Shortly after posting this, I got google traffic on The Top Ten Funniest Youtube Videos. It may be a small accomplishment, but I'm really excited!

Summary of my lenses this week:

Highest Ranked Lens: Improve your writing: Snapshots: This lens is ranked at 6,481. I'm a bit surprised this one is doing the best out of my lenses. It has the lowest star rating (4 stars) out of all of my lenses, and seems to be getting mixed reactions. What ever though, I'll happily take whatever I can get!

Lowest Ranked Lens: Top 10 funniest youtube videos: Somehow I'm not surprised this is my lowest ranked one. Coming in at rank 9,951, this lens is actually doing pretty good. I'm happy with where it's at, especially since this lens took the least effort to make. However, this lens does have a 5 star rating right now, which actually is really nice. People seem to enjoy it, which is the sole reason this lens was created.

New lenses this week:
Genetic Engineering: Points of View: In my opinion, this is easily the best lens I have. I think that in the end this is going to be one of my best ranked lenses. This took a long time to make, and most of my (pathetic) advertising attempts are going towards this lens.
Top 10 Funniest Youtube Videos: My first lens. *Sobs* They grow up so fast! It seemed like just yesterday he only had 1 view...
Improve Your Writing: A lens on my favorite hobby, writing. Sadly, I'm much better at fictional writing than factual, so this didn't come off as good as I had hoped. I'm probably going to do a major revision to this sooner or later.

Currently Working On:
I'm currently working on a really wide variety of topics. I seem to start a paragraph in one lens, then move on to the next. I think some lenses you might actually see published next week involve the Bermuda Triangle, maybe some obscure animals, and maybe another writing lens.