How do you Squidoo

Take one catagory you want to build a lens about, lets use growlights as an example.

Myself I go to Mr. Wall's tool
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/

Try it out for your topic or company and get a feel for what people REALLY search for versus what you Might think they do.
It is always exciting to see PPC numbers versus my gut feeling guess.

Check this out:
http://www.squidoo.com/growlights

I now have the right keywords in the lens name, this is a great starting point:)

The first question I ask myself is WHY am I building this lens. Myself I really enjoy learning, in high school I was a very unhappy student. It was not until I went into the military that I recognized the importance of education. Education equated to Rank. The higher your rank the more money you make. Ever since then I have loved learning about new things.

This is the reason I have so many lenses. My suggestion to new lensmasters is DO NOT do what I did and create 20-30 lenses. Take one topic at a time and write a good description and title. The next step is to write a 300-600-word article or essay (kind of like this article) about your lens topic. You can use this essay for the content in your write modules. The key is to create a lens about subjects you really enjoy. Take them one at a time, or you will have to do what I am doing now which is going back to each lens and adding additional modules, content, and links.
The moral of the story create lenses about subjects you are really interested in, this will make the creation and update process much more enjoyable.

The whole key of this first step is to identify what you really want to design the lens about. The keyword tool mention is to get you thinking for step two the Lens name and title selection.

Above all write about what you love this will show through and people will feel it through your words.

Make sure to include your keywords in your lens name, title and description. Do not go crazy and put your keywords everywhere, remember you are writing for people not the Search Engines. If you write naturally your keyword density will be fine. If you stuff keywords in everywhere you have the chance of being perceived as a keyword spa.mer.
Try to put your keywords towards the beginning of your title. In your description make sure to include your keyword in the first and last sentences. Write for the reader, when in doubt leave the keyword out.

Before you build your lens take a few minutes and do a search on the subject you are creating a lens about. This search feature is excellent to see if your keywords are already being used. Name your lens the same as your primary keywords, if not choose a close variation. While doing this search pay attention to what categories the same topic lenses are listed in. As an example of what NOT to do, when I was first starting out building lenses I created a lens for the Food for Everyone Foundation.

I was not experienced and I put the lens into the Recreation category. This lens should have gone in the Non-Profit or Philanthropy. While doing my search I also take a look at the top 100 within the main category I will be placing the lens in. Please take a few minutes Prior to building your lens this will save you some time when you create your first lens. If you are creating a few lenses based around the same topic you should keep them all in the same category.

The key is making sure you choose the right one in the first place. To the best of my knowledge there is no way to switch categories once you have created and published the lens.

When you first create your lens you will be asked to create your primary tags. Please make sure you include your primary keywords in the secondary tags. For instance if my primary tag was "sustainable gardening" I will also include this in my secondary tags. I would also include my number two and three keyword phrases.

You can also add additional tags in the future simply by hitting the edit button above the tags section of your lens. One very cool feature is that Squidoo will actually suggest a list of related keywords and keyword phrases. Once you have your lens complete it is wise to go in and add some of these "suggested tags". These suggested tags are based on what people actually search for on Squidoo so maximize your use of them.

Modules I use in every lens I create
I am going to do a short write up for each but please add the following.

Guest book:

This module allows people to sign and communicate with you via your lens. This is also a good way for you to meet people interested in the same topic.

Write Module:

This is your bread and butter for future development of your site, the write module can hold up to 2500 characters this is larger then you might think. You can create a nice 300-550-word article in that space. I try to update my lenses atleast once every two weeks a majority of the time I will add something to a write module.

Link List
This is your chance to show everyone what other websites you enjoy looking at. If the site is highly relevant add it. To make thing a bit more open you can add the Links Plexo instead. My suggestion is to screen the sharing or you might have filthy spammers posting sites which are crap.

Super Stores

You can add affiliate links to any lens you have. I checked out Overstock.com and there were no grow lights, however there were some great books people could order to learn even more. Cool beans.

External links
One important technique to get your lenses more traffic and potentially more lens rank is to link to your lenses from other site you own or have access to. Once key thing to remember is you want to link from a page that is relevant. For instance I could link from my Mittleider Garden Blog to the main Food For Everyone lens.

Links are the "queen" of the Internet the Search engines count the number of links you have pointed to your website as part of the ranking calculation. The anchor text, which is used to point to your web sites or lens, is also important. As an Example I can use the Keyword Phrase "Sustainable gardening" as the anchor text when I link from the Blog to the lens. Do not go crazy with keywords in your anchor text; the goal is to make the linking appear natural. This means you want to alternate your anchor text with every few new links. Even if you do all linking manually if you have the same anchor text for all your incoming links it COULD appear to the search engines that you used a software program to create all these new links. Build links to your lenses or web pages over time and make sure you only link from highly relevant websites or blogs.

One really cool feature of Squidoo is the ability to refine your lens subjects to very specific niches. For example I have created a lens for each vegetable I am growing this year. (Example www.Squidoo.com/yellowpeartomatoes from each of these lenses I will link to the main Foundation lens and vise versa. In the old school of thought this cross-linking was frowned on because the Search Engines could identify your "Network". Because we aren't ever going to be doing any shifty or quick fix types of SEO we do not need to worry about it. Every link you point to one of your lenses is a marketing opportunity.