How-To Choose Great Google Keywords for Your Lens

Now, do you really need to learn how to research keywords and use them properly on your Squidoo lenses. Does it really make a difference?

The answer is yes, because you don't want to spend your whole life promoting your lenses. It's hard work.

This technique will get you started with a lens that's already set up to do well for traffic.

There are plenty of really good Google key words tutorials out there already but they are often too complicated for most people to bother with. The technique in this lens isn't perfect, but it is simple, it will get you 80% of the way there and it will help you to increase your Page Rank.

You're going to need to do a little bit of research before you launch into your new lens, but don't worry, it's pretty straightforward.

If you want your lens to be successful and be seen by the search engines, don't skip this step.

You need to choose some keywords for your lens.

What makes a good keyword? Well, a keyword is good if:

(a) there's someone out there searching for it (ideally a lot of people)

and

(b) it's relevant to your lens

A keyword is even better if there aren't too many sites or lenses out there that already use it.

To see if anyone out there is looking for your keyword, head over to the free Wordtracker keyword tool and type it in:

Wordtracker will give you an estimate of the search traffic. It will also give you some other keywords to try out. Don't get hung up by the numbers. 1000 is great, 100 is OK, 1 is not-so-good.

OK, so I did some digging around 'keywords' for this lens, and have highlighted an interesting one in the results page:

'google keywords' gets some searches, so I'll run with that. It's not a high number but it's good enough!

How do you check if other sites use your keyword? A Google search will give you a very quick answer. Just type your chosen keyword into the Google search box and look for the number of search results. Here's the result for 'google keywords':

500,000 is pretty good, 2 million or more is going to be tough.

So why did I choose an example with 22,000,000 results? Good question! Read on to the end to find out and don't worry about my lens for now...

There are lots of other tools and techniques out there to get you an edge over the competition, but these two will give you a good start.

Now, choose one primary keyword that's highly relevant to your lens and to your readers. Does it describe the subject of your lens? Can you use it in a real English sentence? Write it down.

Also choose a handful of other secondary keywords that you'll use in your lens. Write these down too.

The primary keyword that I used for this lens is 'Google Keywords'

The easiest way to do this is to click on the 'Make a new lens!' link at the top left of any Squidoo lens:

You'll find these links on other Squidoo pages as well - on the home page (it's called 'Start Building'), on the Top 100 Page (it's called 'Build My Own Lens') and on any tag page. Anyone would think Squidoo wants you to build a new lens!!

Note that at this point some of these links will take you to the home page, but you just need to keep clicking and you'll get there

This page confuses some people, since it asks you what your lens is about:

You might have a couple of questions here:

"Wait - how detailed do I need to be here?"

"How do I say what my lens is about in only one line?"

Don't worry - all you're doing is entering the Google title of your lens. Make it short and descriptive and make sure it tells people what your lens is about.

You should use your primary keyword in the title, just like I did here. Remember 'Google Keywords'?

The title needs to be compelling enough for people to open up the lens and read it.

It's good to try and work in a secondary keyword here if you want - but please don't make it spammy or repetitive. If it reads like you're trying to cram in too many keywords, it's time to use the delete key

Now click 'Go to Step 2'

Don't worry too much about this one. Those nice people at Squidoo have already set up 4 lens templates for you, based on what you want your lens to do.

For example, if you're planning to sell stuff, they will include some of the affiliate or sales modules from the modules list.

You can always go back and change your list of modules. For now, pick the one that looks closest and click 'Go to Step 3'

It looks like there's a lot to enter here, but don't worry. Let's take it step-by-step:

The lens title should be already filled out for you, because you entered it in Step 1. Feel free to modify it here if you want

Choose your URL. The URL is the unique address of your lens on the internet. It'll look something like this:

www.squidoo.com/furniture-tips

All this means is that it's part of squidoo.com and the unique lens name is 'furniture-tips'.

Use your primary keyword for your URL. If your primary keyword is 'google keywords' (just like this lens) then type 'googlekeywords' (no spaces please!)

If you like you can use 'google-keywords' instead. Dashes are OK but underscores are not, so don't even think about 'google_keywords'

Squidoo will tell you whether this URL has already been taken - hold on for this bit though...

Choose the category for your lens. This is pretty straightforward. Just click on the list of categories and choose the one that fits your lens the best.

You should also choose whether your lens contains G-, X- or R-rated material.

Now click 'Go to Step 4' and Squidoo will check your settings, including the URL that you chose. Squidoo checks whether your URL is available since it has to be your unique 'mailbox' on the web. If it's already been taken, you'll be taken back to the same page and you can try a different combination.

Help - I can't use my chosen keyword!!

If this happens - again, don't panic. It happened on this lens (did you spot it?) It's time to try some different options:

• try adding dashes, or removing dashes
• try reversing the words
• try extending it - e.g. add how-to, or secrets, or tips, etc. So our example might become 'great-google-keyword'

If all else fails then you might need to target a different primary keyword for your lens. Feel free to try some of your secondary keywords if you like.

Don't lose hope at this stage. If you really, really want that primary keyword and you just can't get a decent URL for it, try one of your second choices and... run with it! The URL is important in SEO, but it isn't everything. You may find you're able to create a competitive lens anyway

Tags are like labels for your lens. Here you'll pick a few to help identify what your lens is all about.

Tags are cloaked in mystery on Squidoo, and a source of a great amount of discussion on SEO, LensRank, link juice, mystic powers and black magic!

Let's keep it simple though. What should you use for your tags? Your keywords!!

Enter your primary keyword where it says 'The best keyword for my lens is:'

Then add your Top 3 secondary keywords in the remaining 3 boxes.

That's it! Well almost. It's important to get these tags right, but if you've chosen your keywords well, this should be easy.

Your primary keyword (also your primary tag) is the most important tag for your new lens. Squidoo uses it for adverts, referrals and search.

The other tags are important too since they are also used for referrals. You'll also see them popping up in the Squidoo tags pages and this can be a good source of traffic to your lens.

Don't worry too much though - you can always go back and change your keywords at a later date (unlike that pesky URL...)

Now fill out the captcha and hit 'Done!'

OK. This is probably the most important part, because your lens needs to be good. If it isn't good, you won't attract visitors and comments, which are key to increasing your Lens Rank.

You should now be looking at the Workshop lens, which looks like this:

Turn off the phone, disable your email pop-ups and silence those BlackBerry cheeps.

Dig out your list of keywords, put them by the computer and use them as you write. All of them!

Here's where you should use your keywords...

• Use the primary keyword in a few module titles. Make the titles sound natural and interesting and above all, spam-free.
• Use the primary keyword somewhere within the first 3 lines of your lens intro, but make it sound natural
• Work your primary keyword into the text in several places.
• You should do this too with your secondary keywords but remember that the focus of the lens is the primary keyword.
• Use the primary keyword in image filenames.

Don't make your content spammy or repeat the keywords too often. Read it back to yourself and you'll know if you've gone too far.

Read your lens again and check you've used all the keywords. Check them off the list as you find them. Did you use the primary keyword the most?

Does the lens seem like it's all about the primary keyword? It should do.

Is it the best work you could write about that subject? If not, take a break, get some inspiration, then come back and make it better.

Also, review your tags. If you find you've used some other good keywords in your lens, you can add these as tags too. You add tags in the 'Tags' section under 'Workshop Tools' on the right hand side as you edit your lens.

Don't add too many tags. You're allowed 40 but often a smaller number works better

When you're done with editing your lens, hit 'Publish' and then get the word out there about your new work.

Tweet it, but don't use the default Squidoo utility. Tell people why it's good and why it's different and use your keywords in the Tweet.

Add it to your FaceBook page (use your keywords)

Blog about it (use your keywords - are you picking up a pattern here?)

Keep going - squidu, other relevant forums, tell your delicious group, write an article, send a Squidcast etc

Only joking!

Actually, you'll need to continue to promote and socialize your lens in order to keep it successful.

Remember that Google results page? Why did I choose a keyword with so much competition?

The truth is I'm not expecting to be #1 on Google for the keyword 'google keywords'. There's just way too much competition out there.

I wrote this lens to help out people on Squidoo, and there isn't so much competition on this keyword within Squidoo.

What About the Free AdWords Keyword Tool?

Some people use this to measure search volumes, and this is a useful tool. It gives a view of the competition too, but this is for paid advertising on AdWords, not SEO. These are subtly different

How Do I Know If My Keyword is Only Popular This Month?

This can happen. I'll bet the phrase 'Is Adam Lambert American Idol' will be less popular next month (well, maybe not).

There are a couple of things you can do here:

(a) check the search volumes regularly

(b) check the keyword search trend over at Google Trends

So What About alt tags, Anchor Text, inanchor Searches and So On?

If you've heard of these then you've probably spent some time already reading about keywords and other SEO techniques. This lens is intended to cover the basic techniques that will get you a good head start without getting too complex.

I'll leave the advanced stuff for another lens

Simple! 3 things...

1. Bookmark this lens so that you can find it next time you write a new lens of your own

2. Head over to my infinite42 blog for more ideas on website keywords

and

3. Get started on a new lens!