Squidoo Tools, Resources, and Guides

Official Squidoo News

Straight from the horse's, er Squid's mouth!

Fetching RSS feed... please stand by

Ping Tools

Submit your lens to various sites, blog directories, etc

The following ping tools allow you to submit your lenses whenever you have re-published or published for the first time.

I will not list every ping tool under the sun. These are the best ping tools that allow Squidoo lenses. You only need to submit to one or two, every so often.

They all have a different assortment of sites that they submit to, so none are "perfect". Try one, then another, on different days.

Blog Ping for Squidoo Lenses: A ping tool especially optimized for Squidoo Lenses, and and is for notifying the blogosphere when a lens is updated.
Ping-o-Matic!: Pings to blog services and directories.
Blog and ping | Pingoat: Ping over fifty blog services instantly. Pingoat also has an XML-RPC server. Ping services like Technorati, newsgator,feedster..
PingMyBlog.com: PingMyBlog.com is a service which does the hard work for you. We notify all the major blog directories in one go so that everyone knows about your latest blogs posts.

This works for non-blogs as well.
Ping.in: An Indian Search Engine Ping Tool.

Submit to Search Engines

You can submit your Squidoo Lenses to the various search engines to tell them to crawl your Lens.

In addition, it is important to try to get backlinks from other sites (see the Link Building Section below).

Add your URL to Google: Share your page or site with Google. We add and update new sites to our index each time we crawl the internet.
Add your URL to Yahoo: Add your page to Yahoo!
Bing URL Submission: Submit to Bing. The web crawler, MSNBot, can find most pages on the Internet.
Register for Stumpedia: Stumpedia.com is a social search engine that relies on human participation to index, organize, and review the world wide web.
Submit to Baidu: The Baidu search engine is the most heavily used in the country with the most people; China. You can submit to Baidu. This link explains how. It's very easy.

Submit Your RSS Feeds

You can submit your RSS feeds to these services below.

What RSS feeds are available to me?
There are a number of Squidoo-specific RSS feeds available to you. The easiest way is to get your feed via SquidUtil's Lensmaster RSS Feeds

**Example RSS Feed**

For more information take a look at the following:

Understanding RSS by Seth Godin
How to Get Deep Links with RSS Feeds by theFluffanutta
Seven of the Best Uses for RSS Feeds by Lynx92

Don't over-do-it though! Submit only when you've updated your information.

Google FeedBurner: Sign into Google and Submit to Google Feedburner. You can monetize it with Adsense too!!
General RSS Submission Form: Use this form to submit a new RSS feed, or update an existing listing. You need to specify a valid and accessible URL to the RSS file, and select a proper category for it.
Sports RSS Feeds Submission: Submit any RSS feed that relates to sports, sports teams or scores.
Political RSS Feed Submission: Submit any RSS feed that relates to politics, politicians, political issues or elections.
Educational RSS Feed Submission: Submit educational RSS feeds to the educational rss feed directory.
Automotive RSS Feed Submission: Directory displaying RSS feeds from automotive news and forums websites.
FeedAgg.com | Add Feed: Submit to FeedAgg

Check Your Lens Position

Using these free tools you can determine the exact page position for specified search terms (keywords), with respect to the various search engines.

Type in a few keywords and see how your page ranks in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

Choose your favorite. If one is "temporarily blocked" by Google, just use a different one for the time being.

GoogleRankings.com: Check your search engine placement and page ranking in Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. A free search engine optimization tool.

As of the 5th of December 2006, Google stopped issuing new SOAP API Keys. You do not need to include it.
Google Position Checker: The Google Position Checker tool that we have developed will automatically query Google's search engines. It checks if your URL appears in the first 1000 results for your chosen keywords. If the URL is present, it will output what position it occupies..
Google Position - Check Your Google Position: Check Website Google Position tool.

Tools Specifically for Squidoo

Advanced Dashboard for Squidoo Lensmasters: This Advanced Dashboard will show you all of your Lenses on Squidoo, with quick access to stats, edit, and ping.
Blog Ping for Squidoo Lenses: SquidUtil's ping tool especially optimized for Squidoo Lenses, and and is for notifying the blogosphere when a lens is updated.
Health Check for Squidoo Lenses [Beta]: This tool will analyze your Squidoo lens, and let you know which bits you need to change. The checks include: titles, tags, ratings and backlinks.
Squidaholic - View Your Competition and more: With one little click you can find out who's talking about your lens, keep up with the latest scoop on your topic, and get all kinds of nifty ideas for promoting your lenses. Not to mention keep an eye on your competition.
Backlink Checker for Squidoo Lenses: A backlink checker for Squidoo lenses, with the links grouped by domain name. It just keeps getting better. This is an excellent backlink checker!
eBay Product Feeds for Squidoo: This tool will create RSS feeds of eBay products, which you can then place onto your Squidoo Lens. Feeds come in 4 different styles, and can include images, prices and descriptions.
Amazon Product Links for Squidoo: This tool will generate special HTML code for any Amazon product, which you can place on your Squidoo Lens. Links include the product photo, price and buy now button.
Amazon Link Error Report: It will show you any Amazon product links that are no longer valid.
Squidoo Lensmaster RSS Feeds: Get an RSS feed of all of your Lenses on Squidoo - just enter your Lensmaster name. Feeds are available for lenses and/or groups, and include descriptions, categories and dates.
Table Generator for Squidoo Lenses: Table Generator for Squidoo Lenses
This tool will create a table in HTML code that is compatible with your Squidoo Lens.
Squidoo Enhanced - Addon for Firefox: To use this addon, you will need to install the Greasemonkey plugin, and then install this script. Very nice addon!

Traffic and Statistics for Squidoo

Traffic, reports, and demographics information to help you understand the traffic to your lenses.

Statcounter and Site Meter are the ONLY real-time traffic data that you can get for your lenses, since Squidoo is now updating only once per day.

Squidaholic: With one little click you can find out who's talking about your lens, keep up with the latest scoop on your topic, and get all kinds of nifty ideas for promoting your lenses. Not to mention keep an eye on your competition.
Google Analytics without JavaScript free Service: Google Analytics without Javascript: You CAN use Google Analytics on your Squidoo lenses. Follow the instructions, add them to your Squidoo Bio(s), and wait a few days. Log into your Google Analytics account to monitor visitors.

theFluffaNutta has a wonderful tutorial on adding Google Analytics to your Squidoo lenses.
StatCounter for your Lens: A free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats.
Site Meter for your Lens: A fast, free Web counter and statistics tracker that features custom counters styles. Site Meter creates dynamic 3D charts showing visitors, page views, country maps, visit durations and much more!

Click here for a review by theFluffanutta of Site Meter and StatCounter, with respect to Squidoo Lensmasters.
Web Analytics 2.0 | Clicky: It appears to track and provide a great amount of information compared to the other tracking and statistics tools. You will need to add the following non-javascript widget

Click here for a review of Clicky, with respect to Squidoo Lensmasters.
whos.amung.us: Similar to Clicky above. The whos.amung.us homepage. Here you will find really cool widgets for your website or blog - free! No registration required.
Google Trends for Squidoo: Google Trends Report for Squidoo
Quantcast Report for Squidoo: Referenced by Gil about tracking Squidoo stats, it is available for us to see too. You have free access to some fascinating info about the visitors and traffic statistics for Squidoo.
Compete.com: The link I provided is a comparison between Squidoo, Hubpages, and Redgage. Very interesting info!

Additional Tools

All of these tools can be used to help you with your Lenses (or any site for that matter).

Advanced Backlink Checker: An advanced Backlink Checker that checks PR, Anchor Text, Anchor Type, NoFollow and the number of other links on the page your link is on!

Find out what sites are pointing to your pages. This is an important part of linkbuilding.

*This is probably one of the best backlink checkers in existence.
StatCounter Free Web tracker: A free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats.

This is helpful for those of use that want to see daily traffic differences, which is not yet available on Squidoo.

* what keywords visitors use to find your site
* your most popular pages
* links used to reach your site
* what countries your visitors come from
* how visitors navigate through your site
Firefox Squidoo Plugin (official): You get:
a) Squidoo search in your Firefox toolbar
b) Shortcuts to your lenses, Groups, to SquidU, and even to see Lens of the Day
a) A powerful bookmarklet button for quick lensbuilding on the go.

Download Firefox

Addons for Your Lenses

All free

Want to add content that isn't readily available via Squidoo? These are the latest free addons that I've found.

Squidoo : Buttons & Banners: The official Squidoo buttons and banners for your lens!
Add a Google PageRank Button: Add a Google PageRank button, if you are interested.

They have several to select from, including the following and
Create A Free Hit Counter - Tiny Counter: Free hit counter with many fun and professional styles to choose from. Our free web counters count hits and unique visitors. No annoying ads. Totally ad-free.
Google Spider Last Visit: It shows the last time the Google spider (Googlebot) crawled this page.
It will look like the following:
Yahoo Spider Last Visit: It shows the last time the Yahoo! spider crawled this page.

It will look like the following:

You need to use http://www.squidoo.com
MSN Spider Last Visit: It shows the last time the MSN! spider crawled this page.

It will look like the following:
Table Generator for Squidoo Lenses: Table Generator for Squidoo Lenses. This tool will create a table in HTML code that is compatible with your Squidoo Lens.
1. Select data format:
Comma
Semi-colon
Space or
Tab delimited
HTML code block
Previously generated HTML code (not )
2. Paste in your data
Free Content - Dictionary: Free content, such as Word of the Day, definitions, and This Day in History.
FeedBurner - Headline Animator Overview and FAQ: Headline Animator is an easy way to promote your latest blog, podcast or RSS feed-powered content.
Twitter Grader: Get a Twitter Grade like this one

Twitter Grader is a free tool that allows you to check the power of your twitter profile compared to millions of other users that have been graded.
Free users online counter: Free Users Online Counter - No registration Required!

Get a free backlink to each page in which you have this counter. Just add the html code to the page somewhere.

It will look like the following:
ClustrMaps: Do you know your audience? You will with ClustrMaps! Visitors don't need to click on anything: just viewing your page is sufficient. We provide (free) the HTML that gives you a tiny map.
Visitor Map by VistiorMap.org: Get a FREE visitor map for your site!
Flag Counter: add our free counter to your website.: Plain old "hit counters" are boring! You need a free flag counter! Get your own Flag Counter with just one line of HTML code. Flag Counters are fast, fun, reliable, and best of all, free of charge!

Making Money on Squidoo

Read this post from PotPieGirl about how Squidoo pays. It's inspiring!

Check out The Squidoo Economy (or Squidconomy!) - It is a Lens showing the different payout tiers for Squidoo. It is no longer updated.

Here's another great lens on Squidoo Payday that IS updated.

According to Gil, the payouts are now based on average rank for the month. Great news!

The Tiers:

Tier1: $16.29 - Below a lensrank of approximately 2,000
Tier2: $2.77 - LR Between 2,000 and 10,000 (Approx.)
Tier3: $0.14 - LR Between 10,000 and 60,000 (Approx.)
*There may not be any fixed upper end to Tier3. It may be determined each pay period, so may fluctuate around 60,000.

The official Squidoo FAQ on Payment

Amazon

SquidUtil's Amazon Feed Generator - Very handy tool built by our own thefluffanutta!

Amazon RSS Feed Generator for WishList, Listmania, Wedding & Baby Registries, if you have an Amazon Associate ID. Very nice tool!

Amazon Broken Link Checker - Check to see if your Amazon links have been discontinued. It checks all of your lenses.

Firefox Browser Amazon Addon - Easily add Amazon html code or links. It references your Amazon Associates ID. Use Firefox to use this addon.

Ebay

Ebay Feed Generator (from Squid Utils)

Ebay Feed Generator (trial)

Instructions for the Ebay Feed Generator

Squidoo Buy/Sell Lenses

Buy and Sell Squidoo Lenses and Services

Lens Author

Sell My Lens - Buy and Sell Squidoo Lenses

Squidoo Buy/Sell Lens Creation Services

Custom Lenses By Noadi

Build My Lens By Lewis Smile

Digital Point - Services Section

How-to Guides and Help

Places to go for help with Squidoo

I have sorted the How-to Guides below in order of difficulty of understanding (In my opinion).

Squidoo CoBrands: These are the Squidoo CoBrands. In other words, they are other templates and web sites that Squidoo owns in which you could make Squidoo lenses.
The Lensmaster Lounge: If you want to talk with others from Squidoo or have questions, this is the official place to go.

You can search by going here - Search the Forum
Squidoo : Squidbadges: Badges that you can earn for your lenses. Basically, marks of excellence and celebrity on Squidoo.
Common Newbie Squidoo Mistakes: Making a Squidoo lens is easy. Making a good Squidoo lens, well, that's another story. A lot of Squidoo newbies ask veterans to critique their lenses, and most of these lenses are not nearly as good as they could be.
Find the Best Keywords for Your Lenses: This will help you come up with new lens topics and focus on optimization.

Using trend reports and keyword suggestion tools to find what people are looking for via the search engines, you can then focus your website content, advertising, and affiliate links to improve your conversion.

Utilizing the keywords in your Title, Intro, and URL, in particular, you can greatly improve your likelihood of being found by search engine users.
HTML Tips for Color: Color can be applied via HTML tags to fonts, borders and backgrounds.squidoo.com/basichtml and squidoo.com/advancedhtml show how to implement these colors.This lens however isn't going to show how the code is applied, but is a repository for the lists of colors in both the name and the hexadecimal.
Basic HTML for Squidoo: You can use basic HTML in a few of the lens modules. Mostly used to create hyperlinks (they are the live links to other sites). Though there are also other uses for HTML. If you find yourself in need of quick tutorial on how to do it, here it is!
Advanced HTML for Squidoo: The techniques shown here aren't much more advanced then what's in the Basic HTML tutorial. The code being used isn't any more special. But the results and presentation can appear to be more sophisticated. Hence it being the Advanced HTML tutorial.
Super Advanced HTML Tips and Tricks to use on Squidoo: Additional html tips to build on the above ones.
Free Images and How to Use Them: A large collection of free sources for images. Includes many specialty image resources.

Also detailed, step by step guides on how to add, manipulate, and enhance your images on your lenses.
Squidoo CSS Borders: The following inline CSS border codes show you the various CSS properties you can use to change the HTML styles to the border.It also provides you with a way of setting border styles for one or more sides of an element. It is not difficult and can really spice up your Squidoo lens or pages!
My Favourite CSS Tricks for Lenses: The basic tools provided by Squidoo will do pretty much everything you need to get your content out to your audience. But sometimes you want to format it a little differently, and this is where inline CSS comes into play.
HTML Color Code Combination Chooser: Choose the best HTML color combination with this free tool. Easy to use color finder that generates HTML codes.
Create Stunning CSS Backgrounds with Images: Here I'm going to show you how to spice up your lenses and pages and create beautiful backgrounds using CSS (otherwise known as HTML style).
Advanced CSS: Layout Tricks and Lab Experiments: Columns! Images! Colored boxes! This lens is my CSS sandbox, where I'm testing fancy layout tricks to make Squidoo lenses look great. As I figure out new CSS techniques, I'll share them with you, so you can use them on your lenses!

Important!

Link Building

From here down

Blog Commenting Tools

CommentLuv Search

CommentLuv Enabled Sites Search Engine: Find commentluv enabled sites within your niche that fit your keywords search and leave a comment to receive a deep link back to your site.

WebConf Backlink Builder

How it Works

Building Quality backlinks is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization.
It is not enough just to have a lot of backlinks, it is the Quality of backlinks along with the Quantity that help you rank better in Search Engines.

A backlink could be considered as a Quality Backlink if
1. The Theme (or topic) of the backlinking website (or page) is the same as your website (or page).
2. It links to your website with the keyword (keyphrase) that you are trying to optimize for.

This tools searches for websites of the theme you specify that contain keyphrases like "Add link", "Add site", "Add URL", "Add URL", "Submit URL", "Add Article" etc. Most of the results could be quality potential backlinks.

SocialMonkee.com

Your Instant Backlink Builder!

Social Monkee is actually a tool for submitting backlinks to social bookmarking sites. It is a fantastic way to potentially get traffic, along with backlinks.

The free version allows 1 submission per day, up to 20 bookmarking sites.
The Premium version allows 3 submissions per day, up to 100 bookmarking sites.

SocialMonkee: Easily build 25 UNIQUE backlinks to your pages every day with the push of a button! Sign up now and start generating quality inbound links to your site today! Enter your details below to get started...FREE! Create 25 inbound links every single day - FREE All links are on UNIQUE C Class IPs

Create Simple Sites Free

These are sites that allow you to create free web sites. They can be a great way to create good, related backlinks and direct traffic to your lenses.

You can also monetize them. :)

Google Sites: Easy to create, sometimes a pain to update. Google Sites easily allows you to create Wikipedia and other pre-designed templates. You can monetize with Adsense or even Amazon aStores.
WebStarts Website Builder: Make a free website with the #1 free website builder and get ranked on Google, Yahoo, Bing and MSN. Includes free web hosting and a free web address.
Weebly: Features a drag & drop website editor. It has over 70 professional designs to choose from or you can design your own.

It was voted TIME's 50 Best Websites of the year in 2007!

Directories that Allow Squidoo Pages

This is a listing of directories (places to list your Squidoo Lenses with links pointing to them). As I find more I'll add them.

The better ones are toward the top.

Backlink Bid Directory: Bid for position (and review). Simply outbid the highest!

Includes a Squidoo Lens category.
Lensroll Directory: Social networking for Squidoo lens masters to share relevant content. Build links, increase traffic, make money for yourself.
Squidoo Lensmaster and Groups Network | SquidLog: Social network of Squidoo Lensmasters and Squidoo Groups, powered by the SquidLog SQUIDOOzine.
Squidoo Directory - SquidUtils: Directory of the best lenses on Squidoo, organized by topic and primary tag.
Squoogle Article Link Directory: Lensmasters, Hub Authors, Content Producers, et al, are welcome to submit and categorize their best articles .
The Isle of Squid: The Isle of Squid is a Directory of the Best lenses on Squidoo.
Squidom: A directory of Squidoo lenses.
Squiddit: Register and list your favorite lenses.
Squid Point / Published Lenses: SquidPoint is a place for Squidoo users to let other people vote on their Lenses.
Squidirectory: SquiDirectory Squidoo Directory Listings.
Squidoo Lenses - Lowsterslinks Link Directory.: Squidoo Lenses category of the Lowsters Link Directory.
Squidlink.com: Accepts some Squidoo Lenses. It is meant for all websites and is human-edited.
SquidStop: Share articles, blog posts, and your Squidoo Lenses.

Plus it is Adsense revenue sharing too!
The Squidirectory a Squidoo Directory - squidirectory: The best lenses on Squidoo directory! An online directory of selected Squidoo Lenses hand picked links to the best of the best of Squidoo! From Arts and Literature to gift ideas and shopping and everything in between Squidoo has it all!
Squidoo - Free Submit Directory: This is the link directory where you can submit the URL to your homepage. There is a section for Squidoo lenses.
Tower Promote: A directory for Squidoo and Hubpages.
Squidig: Squidig is a "social content network" It's a place where people submit, share, vote and promote Squidoo Lenses about a particular topic, product, charity, etc. It only allows Squidoo lenses to be posted.
Create a Lens Entry | Article Troll: Feel like you're missing out? Build a Lens on Squidoo. Remember: Squidoo Lenses ONLY!
Lens Title (As the title appears on the LENS): * Lens Link: * Lens Link (URL the LENS is on)
Must be in the format: http://www.squidoo.com

Use Other Social Marketing and Bookmarking Sites

DoFollow Sites

You can mention your Squidoo pages in the following social bookmarking sites. The search engines will follow the links, increasing your chance of being found by people searching for your topic.

PR = PageRank (the Google measurement) - A higher number is better.

Slashdot PR8

Jumptags PR7

Hub Pages PR5

Searchles PR5

Google Knol PR5

Qondio PR5

A1 Webmarks PR5

Listible PR5

Faves PR5

OnMyList PR4

SyncOne PR3

MyLinkVault PR3

Yattle PR3

Snipsly PR3

Tip Drop PR3

Best Reviewer PR0

Info Barrel PR0

Seekyt PR0

Important!

Link Building

From here up

Squidoo-related Blogs

These are blogs about Squidoo or by Popular Squidooists

If you have a Squidoo-related blog, you can list it on Squidoosphere too!

SquidBlog: Straight from Squidoo themselves!
Seth's Blog: Seth Godin's riffs on marketing, respect, and the ways ideas spread. He's the person that created Squidoo back in 2005!
SquidooCool.com: The blog to help you be an expert Lensmaster!
Captain Squid: Free Squidoo Tips and Tricks from the best Squidoo Blog around... and Pirates
PotPieGirl.com: PotPieGirl will help you make your first dollar online...and many more!
I Squidoo, Do You?: Sharing my squidiction with the masses, throwing in some how to Squidoo tips along the way.
Squidoo Web Companions: Websites and Blogs with Companion Squidoo Lenses
Squidoography: Tips and tricks, my lens updates, interesting news, payouts, and everything else Squidoo related.
Reviewer of Sites: A mixture of SEO, marketing, social networking and other commentary, tips, and general curiosities. Plenty of good info on Squidoo too, by yours truly.
Squidoo Blog: Valley Of The Giants: Home of Giant Squids

News and Articles

The Good

Massive Increase to Squidoo Lens Traffic - Blog post by Kelly Stone on substantial traffic jump to Squidoo lens.
SquidVids for Custom Channels on Squidoo - The SquidVid feature
Quitters Can Win: Avoiding the Pitfalls of 'The Dip' - Article with quite a bit about Seth Godin
Washington Post Editorial on Squidoo From January 8, 2006. Old, but still interesting.

The Bad (or just not so good)

Hubpages vs Squidoo - The Battle of the Web Hubs Jan 9 2009
Yahoo Loves Squidoo : Search Spam Love Affair April 1st, 2008
Site Comparison of Squidoo, Hub Pages, and Mohalo - Interesting comparison of traffic between the three sites.

The Ugly

Google Squishing Squidoo Over Spam? - An opinion that Google may be limiting the value of Squidoo's links across the domain.

If you have any suggestions or comments please let me know

And please add Squidoo Tools and Resources to your Squidoo favorites by clicking here. If you find the lens helpful, please think about rating it too. :)

submit

Reply

ikoniatis May 23, 2011 @ 1:20 am | delete

Great lens! Thanks for sharing!

Reply

lilyofthevalley May 19, 2011 @ 11:22 pm | delete

What a wonderful resource! I have a lot of browsing to do :)

Reply

karitina May 18, 2011 @ 9:20 pm | delete

thanks for this lens, helped me a lot

Reply

DaveStone13 May 9, 2011 @ 3:08 pm | delete

Always useful to reread this excellent, helpful lens, especially when new material shows up. Many thanks, as usual.

Reply

Northbright May 7, 2011 @ 9:30 pm | delete

Very useful resource of tools and information. Thank you very much.

Reply

May 7, 2011 @ 8:59 pm | delete

MUY PERO MUY BUENA SU PAGINA REALMETE DE MUCHA AYUDA GRACIAS

Reply

reasonablerobinson May 7, 2011 @ 4:15 pm | delete

fascinating stuff, backlink section looks very interesting

Reply

artyfax May 7, 2011 @ 2:09 pm | delete

wow, so much information and all in one neat package. I will be bookmarking this lens for easy recovery everytime I want to use it. And I think I will want to visit often. Thanks for all your effort in creating this mine of information.