There are different techniques for different things. How you write on a lens will be different than how you write on a niche blog or an authority blog for that matter. Stories do sell. If you are trying to sell a product (which is what this post is about) telling a story of how it worked for you will help you sell it much better than just giving facts. People know the facts, they want to know if it will work for them. If you can tell a story that says “this worked for me” they will be able to generalize that to oh, this could work for me too then.

I do tell stories on this blog ~ quite often actually, however, this is not a personal blog, it’s a tutorial blog, so most of my stories are used to better explain something in terms of a tutorial. Here’s a great example of using a story.

If you want to follow the authority blog conversation go to the homepage, and you’ll see the latest post. This series is for those who want to learn more about squidoo ~ we’re still working on authority blogs just in a different area.

So I am a bit disappointed to see you back to lenses

I am not sure about lenses,but I feel story telling in authority blogs should be used only if your topic permits. Story telling will not work for authority blogs which rely more on delivering hard hitting information.

For e.g I often get bored when Internet marketers out there send video lessons saying stories about how they achieved blah blah and things like that.

I feel in such situation, its better to convey the message bang on. You can then sweeten up the message with some thing which does not sound like sales pitch.

I want to know the opinion of others, as because, I have precisely tweaked this in my Start a radio station blog today itself. With some long stories, I was not getting conversions earlier despite O.K traffic.

Waiting to see the results. Any comments on this strategy or even otherwise would be greatly appreciated by this novice.

Jackie BTW, I don’t see you telling much stories in your blog. Or do you ?

Now I was wondering, what do you think would be best as they are not getting a lot of traffic yet. Can I drive the traffic with links and in a slower but systematic way improve the lenses? I reading all your posts again as before Christmas I was really pressed for time and simply wanted to make some money, which I did, thanks to you.

If I redo all the lenses, and my bad blogs, I will not get to any linking and my feeling is get them there and them improve the lenses as some are buying as they are at the moment in any case?

On MNF you don’t have to hit the exact match button ~ it’s the default. Just go with the numbers it gives you when you search. 200 is not very good search volume for this: have you seen the product on how to narrow down a product name into a good keyword? It might help.

I’ve answered this in quite a few posts ~ the amazon page is being ranked based on the authority of the overall site, not the page itself. If you build links to it you can generally outrank the amazon page. And no it doesn’t necessarily mean just because amazon is ranked above you people will buy from them. I’ve made sales on the ironman lens and it’s at #5, below amazon.

For you Russell, I do not recommend UAW. The system can be kind of confusing, and at this point as you are learning I don’t think you would get your money’s worth. I’ve heard of the need an article service ~ but haven’t used it ~ I always wrote my own articles.

I’m back again with a couple more questions.

1. I’m using Micro Niche Finder to select a product for Christmas giving. I’ve found one I like in a good price range. When I search MNF using the Amazon product title it says in the heading ‘200 (exact) Search Results’. When I use the Exact Phrase column it gives me an Exact Phrase Count of about 22,700. Am I doing something wrong? The SOC reads 3 with a Light Competition green tick. Ad Cost is low @ o.o5. The search volume is 2,400. Would you read this as a good product to go with?

2. If I use an Amazon product title as my keyword and Amazon have already listed this with Google (which seems to happen in most cases), wouldn’t the average buyer go straight to Amazon to buy rather than going thru my Squidoo lens even altho I’m listed high on page 1?

3. In your reply, above, to Dennis, you mention Unique Article Wizard as being a good option.
Do you recommend UAW even altho is rather expensive @ $67 pm?
And do you have an opinion on Need-An-Article (which appears to go hand-in-hand with UAW?

Jackie, once again thanks for your continuing helpful advice and comments. I don’t think I’d cope without your help!

Regards … Russell

I home school my boys, and am grateful to have the ability (and help) to stay at home with my boys.

What I really think is wonderful, is you are helping others, keeping it straightforward and simple.
Happy Holidays!

Victoria