I was wondering who uses squidoo and has anyone got any tips for that? I am surprised at the success of the pages and am seeing pages with higher SERP than expected, but would like to improve. What about the rating system? Is it relevant and are their ways to improve ratings? This is one lens I am working on there: http://www.squidoo.com/chincoteague-island/
I have got a few lenses at Squidoo... one's about Digital Photography. The rating system is based a whole lot of things: "user ratings, lensmaster reputation, clickthrough rates, frequency of updates, inbound and outbound links, and lots of other factors and give the lens a number." (from their FAQ). So, it's not straight forward... just work on promoting your Lens like you would any other website. Cryo.
I have had a lens on the squid since its early inception, I think I will be digging into its SEO-ness a little later in the week.
I am having few lens as well. I agree with mad4 that few anchor text will work nice. Also if you add squidoo links to your own website, it will help you a lot. Ratings also help in improving the lense. Have a look at my lense Squidoo lens 1 Squidoo lens 2 Till now i didnt do anything to promote it, as time is killing me. I tried to make it more userfriendly, i will improve this once I get some time. Squidoo is worth investing your time
There is something that might help you with your Squidoo lenses: Groups. Basically, you can add you lens to a group of lenses on a similar topic, for example my photography lens is in a group called Capturing the Light. Finding a suitable group can be tricky, as it seems to be very new and they haven't yet implemented the 'Explore Groups' feature yet. Here are couple ways that I know of for finding a group: Go to the Hot Topics page, and select a topic that your lens is related to. Then, look down the right hand side for the top groups in that topic. Go to My Groups, and look down the bottom at the Top 10 Groups and 10 Newest Groups. Check the new groups every day. Once you've found a group to join, simply add your lens to it. Keep looking, as I'm sure they come and go, and a few will make it big. If they do, then your lens will surely benefit. BTW: sipltech - both your Squidoo links point to the same lens.
OOps Thanks Cryogenious! Here is the corrected lens URL "Lets go to the basics again" Joining a group is a good option. Squidoo is a fun and it is different than blogging. I came across people who sells Squidoo tips. I feel Squidoo groups are worth investing your time. The community is growing. Here is a blog by Dave Pye which is focused on squidoo tips. The book is awesome and free!
I recently created Squidoo pages relevant to each of my major blogs. Mainly using the link & syndication features of Squidoo (Blog-type Lense). Initially I wanted to get my content out there to more people and build some more external links. I'm finding, however, that I need to promote the Squidoo page just as much as the initial page & its a vicious cycle. Outside of the great suggestion of using the groups, are there any other methods to get some publicity to the lense?
Link Building as you do with your own sites, and invite more people! Squidoo is entirely based on social networking. You can reach people in around squidoo. The link of the book i mentioned in my post above is very much useful.
Thanks to everyone. I have learned alot from this so far. One follow up question...I am having a hard time finding and communicating with other lensmasters. Many don't have a method for contacting them on the lens. Does anyone have tips for that?
Lensmasters can choose whether or not they can be contacted through their lens. Look for "Contact the Lensmaster" underneath "About the Lensmaster". When I posted to the forum (www.squidu.com), I was advised to turn mine one so that other people could contact me. Do this by logging in and going to "My Account". Options are on the right hand side... Cryo.
Cryo, I am struggling to get my my refferal URL at Squidoo CP, can you help me to know how do i obtain that? thanks!
sipltech: Login and go here, or simply add you username to this URL: www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/_______. Edit: Of course, your lenses will automatically include referal links.
I have another tip, though I have no idea if it will actually improve your Lensrank or not... Apply SEO link-building techniques by contacting other Lensmasters within Squidoo. Reciprocal linking and rating will benefit everyone, especially if they are related. Here are some available methods. Lens Rating. This is a simple 'I'll vote for you if you vote for me' technique Add to Favourites. Every lensmaster has a favourites on their profile page (here's mine) Lensroll. Each lens has one, and can be filled with other related (or not) sites. Click on the link at the top of your lens for more information. Link List. You can link manually to any Lens from your Link List. Hope that helps, Cryo.
Oh Yess!! I was thinking of this model too, but was afraid if someone take it as spam I am also thinking of joining some groups and post comments to other lenses. I always feel that Squidoo will payoff huge in future as it have high quality lensmasters and it is very much different than blogs. Also in squidoo, lensmaster can have multiple lens and multiple username too. They can create their personal and business lens separately. A good stuff.
Breakpoint You wont regret it. It's like everything else, takes time to learn. If you track the keyword rankings for your lens, it might convice you to work at it long term. Both SEO benefits and real traffic have inspired me to spend time working on Squidoo lenses. As a next step I would recommend that you search the groups and join all that apply to your subject.
Here are some more tips for you guys: If you're looking for groups to join, then search for "keyword Headquarters" (obviously replace 'keyword' with something appropriate). You'll see a list of just groups. It won't include all of them, because some group masters change the their default titles, but it'll get most of them. Joining moderated groups is a great way of fishing for votes... There's a new Plexo module to add to your lens, which is proving very popular. More details can be found on the Introducing Plexo page. One tip for you though - avoid the Link Plexo, and stick with the Amazon Plexo. See my Top Sci-Fi Movies Lens for an example. Make sure that you take the time to introduce yourself in the Squidu Lounge (forum). It's a fabulous way to build relationships within Squidoo, plus get the odd link (and visitor) from the forum to your Lens. One great way to get more traffic to your Squidoo Lens is with StumbleUpon. It's not great traffic as far as revenue is concerned, but it does a good job of pushing up your LensRank. If you like Squidoo, then you might also enjoy HubPages. Very much a similar model to Squidoo, you build pages around a specific topic, and earn revenue. It's not as sophisticated as Squidoo, but for somethings that's okay. You will need to have you own Adsense, Amazon and eBay affiliate accounts. Here's one of my pages on Digital Photography. Cryo.