I mentioned that I’ll talk about Squidoo in my previous post. So here it is. Squidoo is a web 2.0 site that acts as some sort of micro blogging platform. You can think of it as a simplified version of WordPress, as you don’t need your own web hosting account, do CPanel installation and FTP uploading, or any of the relatively complicated WordPress stuff. . All you have to do is register to Squidoo and start creating your lenses (small sites).
As an internet marketer and blogger, Squidoo is an almost indispensable traffic generation tool for me because it’s so easy and fast to create a new lens, compared to a new site. It’s also easier to rank higher in the search engine and thus useful for getting search traffic or back links. Finally, it lets you access Squidoo users for additional traffic, to complement the search traffic. But, to get all of these benefits, you need to have a high ranking Squidoo lens. So, these are the 7 principles of building high ranking Squidoo lenses.
1. Make It Keyword Rich
Have your chosen keywords included in the domain name of your Squidoo lens. Your URL address will look something like this: www.squidoo.com/your-keywords. The best is to choose popular topics. After you finished tinkering with your URL address, now it’s time to go into the title of your lens. Squidoo wants you to, especially with the Lens Intro Title, keep your titles and sub-titles relevant to the page content. Squidoo have human reviewers and filters to check all of the lenses, so make sure you do it right.
2. Do Your Keyword Research
First, do your typical keyword research with Google Keyword Tool, to find keywords with high search volumes. Then, do the Squidoo version of keyword research. Find Squidoo lens with a similar topic to yours that rank high on Squidoo. Then, click View > Source on your browser to see the tags they’re using. Copy those tags to your own lens. Now, you’re done.
3. Optimize Your Modules
Time to optimize your modules. Squidoo wants 8 modules or more with each of your lenses. These modules can be a ratio of approximately 4/8 text modules, 1/8 video modules, 1/8 feedback modules, and another 2/8 of Amazon recommendation modules or something. Remember to make your lens looks good and non-spammy (don’t sound like you’re selling anything). The whole purpose is to give your lens the ultimate 5 star rating.
4. Remember Outward Links
Remember, you’re not creating Squidoo lenses just to get traffic to those lenses. You’re trying to get people to your sites or affiliate sites so that you can earn real money (not some small Adense revenues)through affiliate sales or opt-ins. So, put links back to your site in your lens. You can do this aggressively, putting large banner links on top of your lens, or you can choose more subtle approaches, like putting it at the bottom of your lens.
5. Put Images
Squidoo encourages the use of images in your lens. So upload your images to Squidoo or other 3rd party image hosting services, like Flickr or Photo Bucket. Then, insert tags to the images using your chosen keywords to optimize them for SEO purposes. You will be rewarded. Also, make sure the images you use actually fit your texts and, if possible, the overall design of your page to make it your lens more appealing. I mean, when’s the last time you read an ugly lens?
6. Follow the Rules
Follow the Squidon’t guidelines. When they asked you not to have more than 9 outbound links, don’t create 10 links back to your website. It’s not worth to go against them. Squidoo have a team of people reading lenses, looking for spam. They have an automatic filter that blocks spam lenses. And if your lens is filtered, it’s automatically lock. People can also report your lens to the Squidoo admin if they find it to be misleading or spammy. So, just play by the rule, ok?
7. Have Updates & Follow Ups
Track your Squidoo lens to see if you’re improving in ranking. Your ranking will appear in the upper left-hand corner of your lens and should continue to improve. If that doesn’t happen, run Health Check from your Dashboard to ask Squidoo how to improve your ranking. Then, do as they suggested. Remember to send some social bookmarking back links to your lens as well, to have it helps in increasing your ranking.
Squidoo is a micro-blogging platform. So, you need to update the content inside to keep your lens fresh. Do as little as removing and adding a word or two to the articles inside your lens to real updates by adding new modules.
These are the rules that I follow whenever I’m building my new Squidoo lens. It has been proven to work well in any niche/market (excluding all Squidoo banned topics). So, try it out and feel free to leave comments below, before or after wards. You can also tweet it if you like it.
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