The Most Effective Ways To Get Free Lens Traffic
Update 11-20-2008:
Over the past month I have been doing a ton of research, experimenting and casting about for the best ways to get Free Lens Traffic.
A lot of what I learned came from experienced lensmasters here and on their blogs as well, but when it came right down to it they all had a few similar themes.
My search for Free Lens Traffic ended with a realization that the Twitter method outlined below does in fact get Free Traffic to your lens there are better ways that will get your better quality traffic as well. So while I will leave the Twitter procedure in place at the bottom of this lens, I will start with a few very specific things that get not just Free Lens Traffic, but Quality Free Lens Traffic.
Update 10-18-2008: A quick and easy thing you should be doing for each of your Lenses is to subscribe to your own lens' RSS Feed in Google Reader. You need to already have added your Google Reader's Shared Items feed to your FriendFeed account. Now whenever you update your Lens, it will show up in your Google Reader, and when you then share that item, it propagates nicely on FriendFeed.
Let me be clear right up front.
I am not going to ask you to buy a single thing in
order to implement this method of driving traffic to your lens.
This is a method that works, is viral and will continue to work ongoing for your lenses. The only thing you have to do is to follow the instructions as laid out in this lens.
This will work for existing lenses as well as for new lenses that you build. I would recommend that if you are doing this for new lenses, that you hold back some content so that you can update your lens over time. This is something that I was doing as a matter of course anyway.
Without further ado, let's get started!
The instructions will assume that you already have a lens completed and ready to promote...
They also presuppose that you have something relevant to say. You will be posting content to the internet, so to avoid being labelled as a spammer, or worse it is important that you understand that even a short blurb of less than 140 characters needs to have a purpose. It needs to say something other than just "I want traffic!"
Enough ranting...
Have fun!
Floyd Bogart
Floyd Blogs About...
*Wow! This lens has become something of a lightening rod in a growing controversy over Microblogging. Let me go on record here on this issue. When you go about making posts to "Microblogging Platforms" you need to be mindful to make your posts useful. Brevity is no reason not to be relevant. Content can be both short and still have merit. If someone doesn't find your posts to be so, they can and will stop following or subscribing to your posts. 'Nuff said!
Oh, and to all of you that have taken exception to my work here: Thank you sooooo much for all the lovely traffic. Have gotten much positive input from folks that would never have seen my lens if not for your comments. So again, a heartfelt TY!
FB
Add to Onlywire
P.S. Want To Know Some More Squidoo Secrets?
CLICK HERE
An important note! One of the best ways to get free traffic continues to be giving away free reports and ebooks. New to this? For the easiest FREE way to create your own reports and ebooks go HERE
Over the past month I have been doing a ton of research, experimenting and casting about for the best ways to get Free Lens Traffic.
A lot of what I learned came from experienced lensmasters here and on their blogs as well, but when it came right down to it they all had a few similar themes.
My search for Free Lens Traffic ended with a realization that the Twitter method outlined below does in fact get Free Traffic to your lens there are better ways that will get your better quality traffic as well. So while I will leave the Twitter procedure in place at the bottom of this lens, I will start with a few very specific things that get not just Free Lens Traffic, but Quality Free Lens Traffic.
Update 10-18-2008: A quick and easy thing you should be doing for each of your Lenses is to subscribe to your own lens' RSS Feed in Google Reader. You need to already have added your Google Reader's Shared Items feed to your FriendFeed account. Now whenever you update your Lens, it will show up in your Google Reader, and when you then share that item, it propagates nicely on FriendFeed.
Let me be clear right up front.
I am not going to ask you to buy a single thing in
order to implement this method of driving traffic to your lens.
This is a method that works, is viral and will continue to work ongoing for your lenses. The only thing you have to do is to follow the instructions as laid out in this lens.
This will work for existing lenses as well as for new lenses that you build. I would recommend that if you are doing this for new lenses, that you hold back some content so that you can update your lens over time. This is something that I was doing as a matter of course anyway.
Without further ado, let's get started!
The instructions will assume that you already have a lens completed and ready to promote...
They also presuppose that you have something relevant to say. You will be posting content to the internet, so to avoid being labelled as a spammer, or worse it is important that you understand that even a short blurb of less than 140 characters needs to have a purpose. It needs to say something other than just "I want traffic!"
Enough ranting...
Have fun!
Floyd Bogart
Floyd Blogs About...
*Wow! This lens has become something of a lightening rod in a growing controversy over Microblogging. Let me go on record here on this issue. When you go about making posts to "Microblogging Platforms" you need to be mindful to make your posts useful. Brevity is no reason not to be relevant. Content can be both short and still have merit. If someone doesn't find your posts to be so, they can and will stop following or subscribing to your posts. 'Nuff said!
Oh, and to all of you that have taken exception to my work here: Thank you sooooo much for all the lovely traffic. Have gotten much positive input from folks that would never have seen my lens if not for your comments. So again, a heartfelt TY!
FB
P.S. Want To Know Some More Squidoo Secrets?
CLICK HERE
An important note! One of the best ways to get free traffic continues to be giving away free reports and ebooks. New to this? For the easiest FREE way to create your own reports and ebooks go HERE
Free Lens Traffic - SEO Basics
Let's face it. Any discussion of Traffic Generation, let alone Free Lens Traffic has to start with Google.
Google is the largest single source of free traffic on the internet so it stands to reason that they would also be the single largest source of Free Lens Traffic.
And that means SEO.
Don't be frightened! SEO is a lot simpler than it seems. Yes there are always more things that can be done, and tricks that you haven't learned yet but SEO Basics will do the job here and get you more Free Lens Traffic than you can get any other way.
This means that you need to be thinking about this when you are creating your lens.
1. Your main tag is the title of your lens, but also needs to be added as a regular tag. Don't ask why, just do it.
2. The titles of each module need to be laced with your keywords, and also added as tags.
3. Sprinkle your text with keywords and use them to link to the lens itself. Notice that whenever I post the words "Free Lens Traffic" that they are hyperlinked to the url of this lens? That is because Google's spiders love that kind of thing.
4. Any link that you do on a Squidoo Lens or anywhere else has more Google juice when it is linked with keywords (called Anchor Text) than if you just use something generic like "Click Here".
Why not say "For More Info on this Click Here: Free Lens Traffic
5. You already have a head start on other webpages just because you are here on Squidoo, so don't squander that advantage! Do a little keyword research and it will really pay off big. Your main keywords need to be in your Lens title and the titles and subtitles of as many of your modules as possible.
I will be adding to this list occasionally so check back for updates.
Google is the largest single source of free traffic on the internet so it stands to reason that they would also be the single largest source of Free Lens Traffic.
And that means SEO.
Don't be frightened! SEO is a lot simpler than it seems. Yes there are always more things that can be done, and tricks that you haven't learned yet but SEO Basics will do the job here and get you more Free Lens Traffic than you can get any other way.
This means that you need to be thinking about this when you are creating your lens.
1. Your main tag is the title of your lens, but also needs to be added as a regular tag. Don't ask why, just do it.
2. The titles of each module need to be laced with your keywords, and also added as tags.
3. Sprinkle your text with keywords and use them to link to the lens itself. Notice that whenever I post the words "Free Lens Traffic" that they are hyperlinked to the url of this lens? That is because Google's spiders love that kind of thing.
4. Any link that you do on a Squidoo Lens or anywhere else has more Google juice when it is linked with keywords (called Anchor Text) than if you just use something generic like "Click Here".
Why not say "For More Info on this Click Here: Free Lens Traffic
5. You already have a head start on other webpages just because you are here on Squidoo, so don't squander that advantage! Do a little keyword research and it will really pay off big. Your main keywords need to be in your Lens title and the titles and subtitles of as many of your modules as possible.
I will be adding to this list occasionally so check back for updates.
Free Lens Traffic - Choosing Your Topic
The lenses of mine that have gotten the most free traffic have been ones with a topic that was already being searched for heavily. I simply chose to create a lens on a "Hot Topic". Why wouldn't I?
More to the point: Why Wouldn't You?
Try it right now...
Go to Google Trends and pick something from the Top 25 searched for phrases on Google in the last hour: Google Trends
Now be sure that your lens title contains the entire keyword phrase from the Google Trends listing. Include it in as many of your module titles as possible. Remember to add the keyword phrase as a tag as well. I know you have been seeing all sorts of blog posts about tags being worthless on Squidoo but it just ain't so...
You can also check your old lens titles against Google Trends and see if anything comes up. If it does it will give you some good keywords to use in them for both titles and anchor text. And as I mentioned in the previous module, always link with anchor text for more keyword juice.
More to the point: Why Wouldn't You?
Try it right now...
Go to Google Trends and pick something from the Top 25 searched for phrases on Google in the last hour: Google Trends
Now be sure that your lens title contains the entire keyword phrase from the Google Trends listing. Include it in as many of your module titles as possible. Remember to add the keyword phrase as a tag as well. I know you have been seeing all sorts of blog posts about tags being worthless on Squidoo but it just ain't so...
You can also check your old lens titles against Google Trends and see if anything comes up. If it does it will give you some good keywords to use in them for both titles and anchor text. And as I mentioned in the previous module, always link with anchor text for more keyword juice.
Floyd Bogart's Twitter Page
As you read over this method to Get Free Traffic To Your Squidoo Lens you will gain a great appreciation for Twitter.
Key to it's value is getting others to "Follow" your Twitter profile.
Putting a module like this one on each of your Squidoo Lenses will help this immensely.
Just a note...
Floyd
Key to it's value is getting others to "Follow" your Twitter profile.
Putting a module like this one on each of your Squidoo Lenses will help this immensely.
Just a note...
Floyd
- floydbogart
- aka floydbogart
- 1,206 followers
- 4,033 following
-
- New blog post: A Way To Set Up Your Blog http://bit.ly/2eZCUK
-
- New blog post: Why Use Private Label Rights http://bit.ly/2K2Rld
-
- New blog post: The Easiest Way To Make Money At Home http://bit.ly/dp1Xb
-
- New blog post: Make Money At Home http://bit.ly/3wSHij
-
- New blog post: Internet Business Opportunity A Scam? http://bit.ly/1XcW3I
powered by Twitter
Grab this quick!
Jack Humphrey knows his Sh**!
This is simply the largest Web 2.0
resource list you will find anywhere!
Bar none...
*****************************************************************
Table of Contents:
- Free Lens Traffic - SEO Basics
- Free Lens Traffic - Choosing Your Topic
- Floyd Bogart's Twitter Page
- Step 1
- Step 2
- Step 3
- A Note About Steps 2 & 3
- Step 4
- Step 5
- NicheNinjas.com
- Reader Feedback
- Traffic Building
- Social Networking
- Floyd Bogart's Online Income Blog
- More on Squidoo!
- Reader Feedback
- Jack Humphrey - If you wanna talk traffic...
- The Go2Web20.net Web 2.0 Directory
- New RSS: Add Your Own Feed
- New RSS: Add Your Own Feed
- New Text / Write module
- New Text / Write module
Step 1
Open A Twitter Profile
I know, you probably already have a profile on Twitter, and get very good results from Twitting your Blog posts, etc., but you need to set up a new one specific to your Lens subject and preferably specific to your specific Lens.
An exact match of Lens name and Twitter profile name is not necessary, but you do want synergy.
For example, I set up this profile:
Traveling Man
For this Lens:
Travel Canada
IMHO you don't want an exact match, but try it both ways and make up your own mind...
But let's get specific here:
Step 1.
Go to Twitter and set up a profile based on the same subject as the lens you wish to drive traffic to.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Online Classifieds work!
Step 2
First Steps Toward Viral Traffic
This step is very important to do right off the bat...
Go here:
LinkBrander and get a free account.
This is a Russell Brunson product so you know it's the best out there. You might as well go ahead and sign up as an affiliate. You can do this in your LinkBrander backroom. You only need one LinkBrander account, so if you have one already, don't sign up for another.
Now Brand each of the two urls:
Your Lens url, and your Twitter profile.
(Copy and paste the new LinkBrander urls into
a notepad as you will need them in Step 3)
While you are there, you should also go ahead and upgrade your LinkBrander account to Platinum. This is still Free to do, and gives you Ad credits immediately, so upgrade now.
Set up two ads to use your LinkBrander credits promoting. The first pointing toward your Lens, and the second pointing to a blog, website, or affiliate program on the topic of your lens. I assume that you are creating this Lens for IM purposes so this should be a no-brainer.
Again lets summarize:
Step 2.
Set up a LinkBrander Account and create LinkBrander urls for your Lens and for your Twitter profile. Also set up two ads in your LinkBrander backroom: One for your Lens, and one for your Blog or affiliate program. Don't forget to copy and paste the two LinkBrander urls into a NotePad or other text document as you will need them in Step Three.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Online Classifieds work!
Go here:
LinkBrander and get a free account.
This is a Russell Brunson product so you know it's the best out there. You might as well go ahead and sign up as an affiliate. You can do this in your LinkBrander backroom. You only need one LinkBrander account, so if you have one already, don't sign up for another.
Now Brand each of the two urls:
Your Lens url, and your Twitter profile.
(Copy and paste the new LinkBrander urls into
a notepad as you will need them in Step 3)
While you are there, you should also go ahead and upgrade your LinkBrander account to Platinum. This is still Free to do, and gives you Ad credits immediately, so upgrade now.
Set up two ads to use your LinkBrander credits promoting. The first pointing toward your Lens, and the second pointing to a blog, website, or affiliate program on the topic of your lens. I assume that you are creating this Lens for IM purposes so this should be a no-brainer.
Again lets summarize:
Step 2.
Set up a LinkBrander Account and create LinkBrander urls for your Lens and for your Twitter profile. Also set up two ads in your LinkBrander backroom: One for your Lens, and one for your Blog or affiliate program. Don't forget to copy and paste the two LinkBrander urls into a NotePad or other text document as you will need them in Step Three.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Online Classifieds work!
Step 3
Cloak The LinkBrander Links
You are trying to promote your own sites here, not Linkbrander, so why not take that little extra step and make those links your own...
If you don't have a Link Cloaker of your own (shame on you if you are an affiliate marketer), you can use mine here:
Cloak Medic
Use your Lens title and your Twitter profile name respectively to cloak the links and create a bit of code that you will save in separate text documents, and then save as .html files.
Now upload them to your webserver so that the resulting urls pointing to these will look something like these:
http://www.floydbogart.com/Travel-Canada.html
http://www.floydbogart.com/TravelingMan.html
These are admittedly not short, but look far better to me than these:
http://www.linkbrander.com/go/61054
http://www.linkbrander.com/go/61055
Which yes, go to the exact same pages, but do nothing to promote my own domain. They also look less "spammy" and will usually get more clicks in the long run...
Step 3.
Cloak your LinkBrander urls using your own Cloaker or by going to mine here:
Cloak Medic
Save the resulting code in separate documents as .html files names for your Lens and your Twitter profile respectively and upload to your webserver.
(If you do not have your own domain, you can skip this step entirely)
A sidenote here:
I am now running all of my Affiliate Links through LinkBrander, and then Cloak Medic and uploading the resulting pages to my own domain and am seeing very good results across the board. Floyd
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
If you don't have a Link Cloaker of your own (shame on you if you are an affiliate marketer), you can use mine here:
Cloak Medic
Use your Lens title and your Twitter profile name respectively to cloak the links and create a bit of code that you will save in separate text documents, and then save as .html files.
Now upload them to your webserver so that the resulting urls pointing to these will look something like these:
http://www.floydbogart.com/Travel-Canada.html
http://www.floydbogart.com/TravelingMan.html
These are admittedly not short, but look far better to me than these:
http://www.linkbrander.com/go/61054
http://www.linkbrander.com/go/61055
Which yes, go to the exact same pages, but do nothing to promote my own domain. They also look less "spammy" and will usually get more clicks in the long run...
Step 3.
Cloak your LinkBrander urls using your own Cloaker or by going to mine here:
Cloak Medic
Save the resulting code in separate documents as .html files names for your Lens and your Twitter profile respectively and upload to your webserver.
(If you do not have your own domain, you can skip this step entirely)
A sidenote here:
I am now running all of my Affiliate Links through LinkBrander, and then Cloak Medic and uploading the resulting pages to my own domain and am seeing very good results across the board. Floyd
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
A Note About Steps 2 & 3
You Could Skip These, But You Really Shouldn't
I have gotten really serious about this process of running my affiliate links through LinkBrander and then Cloaking them. It really pays off. In just the past week, I have earned just under 20,000 hits to my sites just from this process.
The best part is that you really do get those hits! I've checked my stats and found the LinkBrander stats to be right on the money. In my experience that is rare.
Just a little food for thought...
Floyd Bogart
The best part is that you really do get those hits! I've checked my stats and found the LinkBrander stats to be right on the money. In my experience that is rare.
Just a little food for thought...
Floyd Bogart
Step 4
Post to Twitter
You need to sign into your new Twitter profile and post some activity there.
You only have 140 characters so you can't say much as you want your link to remain intact. If your link puts you over that limit, they will shorten that beautiful url that we just went to all that trouble to create.
Just a note like:
"Think I'll plan my next trip to Montreal!
http://www.floydbogart.com/Travel-Canada.html
This is and example of MicroBlogging, and as you go along you will be doing this quite often as you update the lens, and sometimes without any update.
Now you've got something for your Twitter Friends to look at! Which will be our next step!
But for now:
Step 4.
Twit your new Lens with a short description of what you would find appealing about this lens. Remember, you only have a total of 140 characters including the url, so be brief, but try to include a keyword or two.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Online Classifieds work!
You only have 140 characters so you can't say much as you want your link to remain intact. If your link puts you over that limit, they will shorten that beautiful url that we just went to all that trouble to create.
Just a note like:
"Think I'll plan my next trip to Montreal!
http://www.floydbogart.com/Travel-Canada.html
This is and example of MicroBlogging, and as you go along you will be doing this quite often as you update the lens, and sometimes without any update.
Now you've got something for your Twitter Friends to look at! Which will be our next step!
But for now:
Step 4.
Twit your new Lens with a short description of what you would find appealing about this lens. Remember, you only have a total of 140 characters including the url, so be brief, but try to include a keyword or two.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Online Classifieds work!
Step 5
Get Yourself Some Twitter Friends!
Twitter allows you to "Follow" other members activity. This allows you to associate with other members with like interests, and gives them the opportunity to do the same...
The easiest way to get others to "Follow" you is to "Follow" them. Do a search for the most obvious keywords for your lens. The first keyword I searched for my Travel Canada Lens was obviously "Travel".
This returned 66 pages of results, each of which have 20 profiles on them. There is a simple button to push allowing you to "Follow" them.
A few minutes of pushing buttons resulted in well over 500 profiles that I was "Following". In my experience you will probably find that just over 10% of these will turn around and "Follow" you as well.
Now watch the traffic start coming to your Lens!
You will multiply the effectiveness of this technique if you are using an RSS Feed from a Blog of your own to supply content to your Lens. If you do this, then intersperse some regular Twits to the Blog as well.
Don't forget that if your Blog is through Blogger, or some other free service, and you are using a redirect to shorten it, then you can also run it through LinkBrander and then run it through Cloak Medic and upload it to your server so that it will look something like this:
http://www.FloydBogart.com
Instead of this:
http://Floyds-Online-Income.blogspot.com
Of course the main point of this step is:
Step 5.
Run a search for your main keywords and start "Following" as many people as you can on Twitter, as somewhere around 10% and probably more will "Follow" you and this will result in traffic to your lens.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Never thought I'd be saying this but:
Online Classifieds work!
The easiest way to get others to "Follow" you is to "Follow" them. Do a search for the most obvious keywords for your lens. The first keyword I searched for my Travel Canada Lens was obviously "Travel".
This returned 66 pages of results, each of which have 20 profiles on them. There is a simple button to push allowing you to "Follow" them.
A few minutes of pushing buttons resulted in well over 500 profiles that I was "Following". In my experience you will probably find that just over 10% of these will turn around and "Follow" you as well.
Now watch the traffic start coming to your Lens!
You will multiply the effectiveness of this technique if you are using an RSS Feed from a Blog of your own to supply content to your Lens. If you do this, then intersperse some regular Twits to the Blog as well.
Don't forget that if your Blog is through Blogger, or some other free service, and you are using a redirect to shorten it, then you can also run it through LinkBrander and then run it through Cloak Medic and upload it to your server so that it will look something like this:
http://www.FloydBogart.com
Instead of this:
http://Floyds-Online-Income.blogspot.com
Of course the main point of this step is:
Step 5.
Run a search for your main keywords and start "Following" as many people as you can on Twitter, as somewhere around 10% and probably more will "Follow" you and this will result in traffic to your lens.
Learn The Secrets Of Squidoo!
Never thought I'd be saying this but:
Online Classifieds work!
NicheNinjas.com
A Video Blog about creating traffic.
I have watched all of these, and these guys have some good tips. Let me know what you think of it all.
Floyd
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byReader Feedback
nathan-mertongroup wrote...
There was me thinking that Twitter was just a flash in the pan thing, you can really make it work, lovely stuff. Great lens, the rss feed advice is a bit of a gem.
Posted July 15, 2009
supermom_in_ny wrote...
Wow. This lens is full of great resources I've never heard of!
5 STARS!
:)
Posted December 12, 2008
ElizabethJeanAllen wrote...
I don't have a twitter account but its something I need to do. I haven't tried linking back to the title. I'll be doing that on the next round of updates.
Thanks
Lizzy
Posted December 10, 2008
Traffic Building
What the internet's Top Authors have to say about getting visitors to your sites, blogs and lenses.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bySocial Networking
Articles on Social Networking by the Top Authors on the internet.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byFloyd Bogart's Online Income Blog
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byMore on Squidoo!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byReader Feedback
Is MicroBlogging for Traffic Website Spam?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byYou Bet It Is!
No Way!
magictrickcollection-com says:
No, I like quick bits of information; saves time.
Posted October 06, 2008
FloydBogart says:
By choosing to "Follow You" your friends are in essence "Opting-In" to getting your entries, so they have no grounds for complaint.
Just MHO...
Posted May 04, 2008
Jack Humphrey - If you wanna talk traffic...
Jack owns the Friday Traffic Report, Authority Site Center and Go2Web20.net so if you want to talk Web 2.0 traffic generation, then Jack is "The Man"!
Enjoy, and come back here often to see what is new with Jack...
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe Go2Web20.net Web 2.0 Directory
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byby FloydBogart
My interests are all over the map...
All I can guarantee is that every day something will catch my attention, and I will try to share it with you to... (more)
All I can guarantee is that every day something will catch my attention, and I will try to share it with you to... (more)
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