Squidoo Lens Traffic Secrets

If your lens is not properly set up there is no way that you will receive all of the traffic that you desire. It is amazing how many people, as they are setting up their lenses, fail to complete the simple tasks to make sure that their lenses will actually draw the visitors that they want. Some things you should consider...
* Use Descriptive Module Titles Which Contain Your Keywords
* Use the Table of Contents Tool
* Use the Bookmark Widget
* Especially in the first module make you keywords BOLD Search engines see that and take it into account.
* Use Squidoo's tool that allows you to label your pictures.

If you have several lenses on related topics, link the lenses together. One visitor to one lens can turn into visits to several different lenses. Use the Featured Lenses module, placing one of them on each of your lenses with your lenses in the same subject area listed. I also frequently place a Featured Lenses module after my Guest Book indicating "Other Pages by This Author." If they like one of my lenses there is a good chance they will like the others as well.

As you can see in the list of lenses below, the first paragraph of your lens is going to become the description in the cross-link. That's another reason to have a first paragraph that grabs the reader's attention.

What is pinging?

A quick, and dirty explanation is that it is a service which will send a message to a search engine of some sort letting them know that there is something of interest to be found at a specific URL. Often the search engine will actually take the lead from the service and send out their "bot" to check out your lens. If they find something there that they feel is worthwhile they will usually add the URL to their database of Internet pages. This is known as indexing. If your not indexed, your URL will never come up in search results. Does pinging guarantee that you will be listed? Nope! But it's a step in the right direction.

The Squidoo Forums are a tremendous source of potential traffic. There are several reasons for this.

~First, you are dealing with like-minded individuals. These are people who already have something in common with you...Squidoo! It is likely that something that interests you will also interest someone else on a forum.

~Second, you are dealing with folks who are likely to give you some feedback about your lenses. Is the lens well designed? Ask on the Critique Me Forum. Are you having an HTML problem? There's a place to ask that, too. Are you simply trying to socialize? I have had dozens and dozens of e-mail messages from folks who have read something on a lens that I wrote and wanted to learn more about it!

And don't forget, if you place a link into your signature that is just one more opportunity for somebody to look at one of your lenses. Just be sure that you are contributing to the forum, not simply trying to suck in traffic. Squids are smart, they catch on to that very quickly.

One of the best ways to draw people to your page on the Internet is to have other websites link to you. One way to do this is to provide other webmasters with content that they can put onto their site...and include a link to your page in the article. Webmasters are always looking for content. You can become a valued contributor to other websites that will direct interested readers to your page!

Twitter and other social networking methods are tremendous tools for letting folks know what you are doing. Whether you are active in Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook, MySpace, or some other network, don't stop. As a matter of fact, use as many of them as are applicable to your situation. For the most part, the more the merrier. The more you use, the more people have the opportunity to see something about your lens.

But be smart about it. NOBODY wants to follow a Twitter account which just says, "Look at my lens. Look at my lens. Look at my lens. Look at my lens. Look at my lens." (Gets boring doesn't it?) "Look at my lens. Look at my lens. Look at my lens." (And it's not very effective.) "Look at my lens. Look at my lens. Look at my lens." (In fact, it's counterproductive.)
"Look at my . . ." (Getting the idea?)

You're obviously active on the Internet. You probably have a FaceBook page.

* Use FaceBook to tell your friends about your lens.

Social interaction is a great way to use the Internet. Keep in touch with people you know from long ago in a galaxy far away or from right across the street. They'll probably be interested in some of the same things you are...or at least wonder what you are doing. A link to one of your lenses every now and then is a wonderful way to promote. But don't do it too often! People don't like pests!

One thing that most search engines take into account is how often a page is updated. The presumption is that if the page is updated regularly it will be updated with relevant, current information. And that is just what the average reader is looking for.

So update your lens once a month or so, and make sure that you let folks know that you have done so!

I sure did, but if you are going to build traffic, especially to a new lens that is not already known in the community, you need to make sure that the search engines are aware of you, and that your lens is active. Search engines like pages that are updated regularly. If they realize that you update regularly, they will visit you regularly looking for new content. Sites and pages that are up to date rank higher than those that are old and completely static. Every time you publish a lens, the last step to take before moving on to a new task is pinging the lens that you have been working on.

They've got to have one or two groups that deal in your topic! By the way...Yahoo Answers is a great source of traffic as well. Answering questions in which you can legitimately use your lens as a reference is a good idea. And once again, you are dealing with people who already have expressed an interest in your area of expertise. If the link that you include in your group signature or your Yahoo Answer is relevant and helpful, visitors will come!

I know you can't really sign an e-mail that you send. But you can add an electronic signature to the e-mails you send. What is a signature? Simple, a line added to the end of the e-mail that gives the reader the URL to your lens or website. And if you tailor your signature to the recipient it makes things even more effective. So.
~ Sign every email.
~ Make signatures relevant.
~Contact people often.