New Lenses Added And Member Interviewed

I just added a batch of great new lenses. Please take a look at them when you can in our SCG Notebook.

We love our members and a lot of them are influential and popular people across many aspects of the internet and online world. Chef Keem has been a Squidoo lensmaster for just a few months and has achieved quite a high profile. He was just featured for an interview on the "So You Want To Be A Giant Squid" blog.

Congratulations Chef Keem and we're glad to have your Berlin Wall lens in the SCG.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

SCG Blog is now "Do-Follow"

The Squidoo City Guide Blog is now a "do-follow" blog. This means that we encourage people to add relevant comments to our posts and your links will be indexed, or "followed", by search engines.

SCG is all about finding ways for our members to promote and improve their Squidoo city lenses. We want membership in our community to be beneficial. Now you can add relevant comments and include a link to your Squidoo city lens, and get a little link love. You don't have to member of the Squidoo City Guide (although you should be).

Comments that are related to our topics and contain useful and valuable content will be allowed. Any spam, marketing or inappropriate links will be deleted. Please don't waste our time or yours.

I've been interested in this for awhile and got the info I needed from Do Follow Blogs which, of course, was created by a Squidoo lensmaster. I was directed from there to a helpful blog post that showed me how to remove the "no-follow" tags. "Do Follow Blogs" also has a "Plexo" where you can add the URL to your own "do-follow" blog.

We have also submitted this blog to the "Do Follow" Blog Directory. I hope this helps gets our members some beneficial backlinks. So comment away people. Let us know what you think about SCG and help us get the word out about all of our great cities, towns and villages.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

SCG Member In The News!

Squidoo City Guide member Joan4 has made the news! Joan and her lens about Pendleton, SC were mentioned in the Anderson-Independent.

Joan has been a Squidoo City Guide member since June 6, 2008 and her lens is shooting up the lensranks. As of today it was #10 in the Travel category and ranked #413 overall. A lot of hes lenses traffic is coming from townspeople themselves. Friends and residents are leaving posts in her guestbook and it's starting to read like a community bulletin board.

This will be fun to watch and will present some new opportunities to use a Squidoo lens to support, inform and unify an entire community.

So take a look at her lens and see what all the fuss is about. Great job, Joan. We're proud to have you as a member.
Pendleton, SC

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

On The Road

Hello from Ottawa, Canada. I'm up here for a couple days playing at the Ottawa Blues Festival with the Sauce Boss. And, you guessed it, we've got some great lenses in SCG about Ottawa. Use the SCG Search Engine to find member lenses and lots more relevant information. You can use it straight from here in the side-bar. Type in the city you'd like to find out more about.

After coming back in the states on Monday, we'll be playing in Rochester, Syracuse and Orchard Park, NY. As well as over in Lorain, OH. If we're going to be near you, please check out itinerary at the Sauce Boss website and come out to a show.

I just admitted a couple batches of great new city lenses. Please go to our SCG Notebook and take a look at our newest members.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

Featured Lens: "City Of Eternal Spring"

Our featured lens this time takes us to The Canary Islands and the old colonial town of Puerto de la Cruz. This is an excellent lens and makes you feel as if you're right their on the beaches and different areas of this town.

Lensmaster Piksychick has filled this one with facts about the town, the attractions, inside traveling tips. There's helpful info to help you go to either end of the spectrum on hotels and accomodations and what to expect from different types of transportation in the area. There's links to free maps and other informative websites, a table with exchange rates and even a recomendation for a physician if you need one while there. Plus video and lots of great pictures.

Puerto de la Cruz, Canary Islands

One thing I like about this lens is that it is very specific about where this town is. I've noticed a lot of lenses that have me searching and wondering where in the world this place really is. (I'll have a post about that and other tips for improving city lenses soon.) You definitely know where this part of paradise is.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
What's a Squidoo lens?
Read The Fair Tax Book

Brand New SCG Lenses.

I just admitted a new batch of lenses to the Squidoo City Guide. Including Portland, OR; Paris; Seoul, Korea and more. Be sure to take a look at all of them. You can find links to them in our
SCG Google Notebook

We're growing and we would like you to be a part of our community.Click on the "Make A New Lens" links in the side-bar and join the Squidoo City Guide.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

Featured Lens - Let's Climb A Bridge

When I pick a featured lens I usually go through my notes of ones that struck my fancy as I admitted them to the guide, or I scroll through our members lenses and see what jumps out. But this one popped right into my head... "Where's that bridge climby thing lens?" I really like this one and it has, to me, appallingly low lensrank. But we're going to fix that. Aren't we?

Lensmaster Littlesweetpea has taken us along with her on her visit to Sydney, Australia as she climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. (Ok, it's a mini "bridge theme". But big ol' bridges are cool.) Littlesweatpea provides us with facts about the bridge, some great pics, videos, need to know info in preparation (don't have a drink first!), equipment they provide you with for the climb and even a link to where you can buy tickets. And you do have to book in advance.

Not up to the 3 and a half hour climb? You can go to the top of the pylon at one end and watch the other crazies climbing the bridge. If you plan on making this trip you'll get through it like a pro after reading this.

Climbing The Sydney Harbor Bridge, Australia

This has a lot of the stuff I like about lenses that tie in with the concept of a Squidoo City Guide lens. It's informative, inclusive by using relevant pics and videos, great useful information and suggestions, it encourages feedback, cool related items to purchase. There's a couple pics of the beautiful Sydney Opera House. It really helps to have compelling content.

She even slips in a reference to some of her other lenses. Early on too! How bold. It's a great reminder that Squidoo lenses are about promoting yourself and your lenses. City lenses can almost always be tied into your other lenses and subjects. They are great way to do some cross-promotion.

Don't forget to rate the lens, Digg, StumbleUpon or any of the other ways to help promote an excellent lens. Leave a note in the Guestbook too. If you're not a member of Squidoo, join now and make your city lens.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

New SCG Lenses with Google Notebook

Now you can keep up with the newest additions to the Squidoo City Guide. You'll be able to find them in the side-bar of this blog, at the Squidoo City Guide, on our Facebook Profile, or with the RSS feed. It's an easy way to find out about new places and meet and support new members to the guide.

I've been using Google Notebook for awhile now. It's really handy for organizing links, research and info and you can access it from any computer when you're logged into your Google account. So it travels well too. Then I read a couple places that there is some good evidence that Google Notebook can help search rankings.

So in an effort to find more ways to help get our members more traffic and exposure, I'll be keeping a running list of lenses as I admit them to SCG. It's a Google Notebook that I have published to a web page. Take a look at the New SCG Lenses Notebook. You can bookmark that page and visit it periodically if you like to keep up with new members that way.

I hope this will be another valuable resource to our members. If you have any questions or suggestions about it, please comment on this post or email me.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

Featured Lens: 119,000 Cars A Day!!

The Buckman!! - For years, and even now to a degree, those two words were enough to strike fear in the heart of anyone living in the Jacksonville/NE Florida area. It's just down the street from my house and I used to avoid it at all costs.

This weeks featured lens introduces you to the Buckman Bridge. Containing pictures, video, stats and facts, this is a great look at this 3.1 mile trek across the St John's River. (Hint: take the "Danger, Flying Objects!" section seriously.)
JaguarJulie brings us this look at "the Buckman". I've always been intrigued by the concept of a series of lenses on related topics, and this is a great example of how that can be done. You'll find links to the other bridges in the Jacksonville, FL area and she even has a Jacksonville Group that brings them, and others, all together. JaguarJulie is one of the top lensmasters on Squidoo.com and we're proud to have her as a member of the Squidoo City Guide.

Are you a member of the Squidoo City Guide? Make a city lens, or another one, and join now.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

SCG, Facebook and New Friends

Squidoo City Guide is becoming quite popular on Facebook. We just went over 100 friends after only a few days of getting our page established there. I think Facebook will provide a great opportunity for our members to promote their city lenses and make lots of new friends. Be sure to come by and see us at Facebook. Send us a friend request, write on our wall (and include a link to your city lens. Self promotion is encouraged!) and find about all the other stuff you can do there to get hooked in to this growing network.

There's a lot of Squidoo lensmasters on Facebook. Here's a couple places to make some new friends that you already have something in common with - An addiction to Squidoo!!
Squidoo Community
Squidoo Lensmasters

SCG finds a lot of our friends through the Add Your Profile Lens. You can add the url to your profile page on your favorite social networking sites. It's a great way to make new friends and contacts.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

Featured Lens: Crazy Dubai Growth

Our newest featured city lens takes us to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Lensmaster triathlontraining show us the progress of this growing city. Along with some great photos and information, from a little history to economics to the largest indoor ski slope in the world (who knew there was more than one?), he also shows a bit of the down-side of progress.
Check out Images of Dubai's Huge Growth. Be sure to leave a comment in the guestbook or the "Duel module". Let him know what you think and we'll look forward to more great info in this lens.

If you have a city lens or know of one you would like featured here, please let me know. Send an email to squidoocityguide (at) gmail.com

Last weeks featured city lens: Stow, Ohio

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

Busy Week, But New Feature Coming

I'm on the road with the Sauce Boss. Port St Joe, Fl; Gulf Shores, AL; and Destin, FL on Father's Day. So I haven't had a lot of time to update. But I'll have a brand new featured city lens next week. That's the great thing about doing this blog, I get to go back through and see all the great cities we have in the Squidoo City Guide.

Until then, come and see us on Facebook. We're really getting our page together there. You can join our blog network and, if you're an SCG member you join our Facebook group. Come on by and add us as a friend and write on our wall.

Well, back to life on the road. Be sure to see all of our great lensmasters and their favorite cities at the Squidoo City Guide.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

First Featured City Lens

To get this kicked off with our first feature, I'd like to spotlight Stow, Ohio. This lens tells us about everything from the local newspaper to a beach for dogs! And lots more. Jump on over and check out Stow, Ohio.

This lens is by Squidoo lensmaster and my good friend, Gypsypirate. She has lots of lenses (hey, I ain't counting 'em all. See her lensography.), several different city lenses, she's a Giant squid, a Giant Squid Organizer , one of the top lensmasters on Squidoo.com and probably a bunch of other stuff I don't know about. She has helped me with the Squidoo City Guide since I started it and is a co-administrator.
So be sure to take a look at our first SCG Featured Lens. And while you're there, be sure to rate it and share it, leave a comment, etc, etc.

Thanks Gypsypirate for your help all the great work. (Personal hint: check out her USMC Silent Drill Platoon Lens. Very Cool!!)

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide
Read The Fair Tax Book

Now the official blog of the Squidoo City Guide

Welcome to the new Squidoo City Guide blog. This is where I'll let you know about some of the best city lenses created by the great lensmasters at Squidoo.com.

We're getting new lenses over at SCG every day. Lenses about cities from all over the world. They're fun and informative and the people who create these lenses are passionate about their cities.

In this blog I'll be featuring new members, stand-out and popular lenses, occasional tips to help make your lenses better and info on what we have planned to be a place that will drive more traffic to your lens.

I started SCG several months ago when I noticed that many of the lensmasters were making lenses about their hometown or favorite city. It seemed to be a common thread. Lots of people had created numerous lenses on a variety of topics and often one or more of them was about a city, town or village. I thought this was a great resource and wanted to create a way to bring them all together. These are almost always lenses to show their love, admiration, pride and knowledge; not just as a way to publicize or make money. (Although you can make money from Squidoo lenses!) So their sincerity shines through.

Topics for a city lens are endless. As endless as aspects of cities themselves. Everyone has a different experience and outlook with regards to their favorite city. And it doesn't have to be about a hometown. It can be where you went to school/college; where you lived for a period of time; a city you have vacationed in, done business in, travel to for entertainment or dining. And on and on... Several lensmasters have more than one lens on the same town! Some have lenses on several different cities. There's no limit.

I hope you enjoy finding new places to "visit" here through this blog. If you're not a Squidoo lensmaster, join now and make your own city lens. Thanks for stopping by and keep coming back to find out what's in store here and at the new web site that will be coming soon.

BigJim
Squidoo City Guide

Squidoo City Guide

COMING SOON - The official Squidoo City Guide Blog

Do you have a city lens on Squidoo?

Stay Tuned!