Keyword Search Lite

The first step in the process is to come up with an idea for the lens. In this case, I wanted to make a sales lens for Addi Knitting Needles, one of the premium brands.

I then clicked on the keyword in the results list. This opens a new browser window/tab with the Google search results. "Addi Knitting Need;es" had millions of results. Time to give up? Not necessarily ...

You can see how many pages use your key phrase in the url or page title by starting your search with inurl: or intitle:. These pages are your real competition, because Google places a lot of weight on these factors.

As you can see, an intitle search on "addi knitting needles" shows 551 pages with that phrase in the title. That's still a lot, but a scan of the search results lets me think I can beat those pages.

When I went to create my lens, I found that there was already a lens with "addi-knitting-needles" in the url.

I took a look at the lens. If it was a solid lens that covered my topic well, I knew I wouldn't have much room to create a better lens on the subject. [Some topics can work for several lenses, but a single brand of knitting needles is too specific.]

Fortunately for me, the competing lens is incomplete, and looks abandoned. My lens will be the best Squidoo lens on the subject. I can build my lens!

I did need a new url though. Back to the keyword list, where a slight mis-spelling of the brand name was still fairly popular. Many knitters refer to the needles as "Addis", and "addis knitting needles" was a very common search term. And the "inurl" was extremely low. I could do well with this term. [And I have. In doing the work for this lens, I saw I'm currently ranked at 10. Not bad for a new lens with minimal promotion!]
I used the "addis-knitting-needles" name in the url, and "Addi Knitting Needles" as my title.

This also gives me coverage on two keyword phrases in the most important places.

Build your lens, referring back to the Google Keywords for module titles and key phrases in the introduction. Use the standard tips for making a good lens, including making your bio connect to the lens' content.

After you publish the lens, post about it in the SquidU "Critique Me" or "Lens Spotlight" sections. This will bring some internal (Squidoo member) traffic, Likes and maybe an Angel Blessing. This traffic will help with the initial page ranking at Google and other external search engines, and begin bringing in external traffic.

If you have a chance to promote the lens through a quest, do so. Also, this is a good time to make a few backlinks to the lens. I make 3-6, other lensmasters make more.

Now, it's time to wait. Go build more lenses.

After about 6 weeks, you should be seeing search engine traffic. Time for the next step.

If you look at the Traffic tab under the lens stats, you'll see what search terms people used to find your lens. Are there popular terms that aren't in the lens? Add them. This is how I capture the "long-tail" traffic the SEO experts talk about.

Also, go back to the Google Keyword Tool. Don't put anything in the keyword search box, but do enter the lens' url in the Web Page: box. The list of keywords that shows up is what Google thinks your lens is about.

If it makes sense, scan the list for more key phrases to add to the lens.

If not, look at the lens to figure out what went wrong. Did you repeat an irrelevant phrase twice in the Introduction? Maybe you used humorous module titles? Make your changes, wait another couple weeks, and check again.

My lens is only 2 weeks old, so I don't have enough data yet for this step. But it's Google ranked at 10 for "addis knitting needles" and 20 for "addi knitting needles", and is getting 7/8 of last week's traffic from external sources. I'm happy with this lens, so far.