Spruce Up Your Squidoo Lens: What Every Lens Needs

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 20 people | Log in to rate

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Want to Make Better Squidoo Lenses?

Do you want to make your Squidoo lens the best that it can be?

Do you want people to give it five star ratings?

Do you want your lens to at least get noticed?

Here are some tips to help you spruce up your lens and make it look as good as possible! 

Great Content 

Think about the kind of websites and lenses you like to read. I'm especially talking about the ones that were like goldmines when you found them. What do most of them have in common?

Great content!

The people who made these sites probably had a passion for whatever they were writing about. They tried to give you as much information as possible. They really know their stuff. Wow.

When you create lenses, try to focus on subjects that truly interest and excite you. Use lots of text modules. Try to give your readers as much information as you possible can. Don't be lukewarm when you write about your subject, or it'll show.

Easy to Scan 

While you want plenty of good content, you also want to present it in bite-sized chunks. People don't usually like to see giant paragraphs when they're browsing the web. It's hard on the eyes.

If a text module gets really long, you may want to divide it up. If a module contains twenty-something paragraphs describing everything from the history, development, and usage of doodywiggets, you could get away with chopping it up into three distinct modules.

Make each module focus on a single subject like a laser beam. This will make your content easier to read.

Your Lens Needs Pictures 

Content may be king, but even a king needs to dress the part. Squidoo lenses with no pictures are practically naked, and as Mark Twain said, naked Squidoo lenses have little or no influence on society.

... all right, so Twain wasn't referring to Squidoo lenses, but my point remains the same!

Try to have a picture for at least the introduction. Better yet, try to have at least one picture or image for every text module you add. It's good if the pictures are directly related to the content, but it's especially important that they be interesting.

If you're reviewing a product, you should especially include pictures of the item. You want to show your readers exactly what the thing looks like.

Careful, though: In most cases, you don't want to snag just any picture you found online. You could eventually get in trouble over copyright issues. Try to use stock and public domain pictures.

If you're doing a review of a product, however, you're in safer territory. This usage typically falls under fair use.

Where to Find Free Pictures for Your Lens 

featured lens Royalty-free photos

I've been sorting through digital photos that I've been taking since 2001. The only problem being is while I had a good camera for a number of years, it was a film camera. The digital camera I was using was a dinky little one. Just for fun. Had I wan...

featured lens Free Web Page Graphics: Free and Almost-Free Graphics for Webpages, MySpace or Blogs

Nothing brings a web page to life faster than pictures.   That's why the Squidoo planners made it easy to add pictures to lenses.  And "MySpace Graphics" and "MySpace Free Graphics" are searched on about 1000 times...

Lots of Modules 

If your lens has less than three modules (not including a guestbook or the introduction), it is considered "unimproved." That means it's not going to rank very well, and it's probably not going to be as interesting for your visitors. It just doesn't have much content.

Make your lens interesting with a variety of modules. If you're promoting a book, for instance, don't just write a brief blurb about it and toss up an Amazon module. Convince us that this book is so good that we just have to read it.

Add a poll, include a list of relevant links, write a long review and bust it up into multiple Text/Write modules, talk about the author, mention other works by the author, talk about a film that will be made about the book, add a list of memorable quotes from the book-- you get the idea.

More is better!

More About Unimproved Lenses 

featured lens Unimproved Lenses

Whoops! Looks like you have too many "unimproved" lenses right now (this means lenses that are probably empty, unpublished, or have fewer than 3 modules). Please work on your existing lenses before starting a new one. Thanks for helping us...

Lots of Tags 

Keywords Bring Traffic to Your Lens

This is something that many new lensmasters overlook, because it just isn't obvious. For the longest I thought that you were only allowed three tags! As it happens, you can have up to 40 tags.

What's so important about tags, anyway? They help people and search engines find your lenses. This means more traffic for your lens.

The thing is, you want to use a lot of different variations. You want to think like someone who might be searching for the information you have on your lens.

If your lens is about goldfish, it's not enough to settle on goldfish and fish as your tags; you're competing with tons of other websites about goldfish. Do a search on Google for goldfish, and you'll get well over 8,800,000 results. So, you need to cast your net much further. Consider adding goldfish care, fancy goldfish, pet goldfish, how to care for goldfish, how to take care of goldfish-- you get the idea.

Learn More About Tagging Your Squidoo Lenses 

featured lens Squidoo Traffic Tricks: (how to get more visitors and a better search engine ranking for your Squidoo lens)

Do you have some lenses that don't get as many visitors as they deserve? Would you like to learn how to get more people reading your lenses? Wanna know how to make people come back to your lenses again and again? Would you like to rank higher in G...

Interactive Modules (Polls, Plexos, etc.) 

Inviting feedback and participation from your readers is another good tactic for getting their attention. These days, it's something that web users are starting to expect. It gives your lens a little extra polish.

Be sure to add some of the following interactive modules to your lens:


  • Poll: Ask your readers to vote on their favorite character from a movie, how much they would be willing to spend on a video game console, whether or not they own an iPod, etc. Keep it relevant to your lens, of course!

  • Links Plexo: Invite your readers to add their personal website, lens, or favorite resource to a list of links. Or just let them vote on their favorite links. Or let them use the links list on their own site (more traffic for you).

  • Amazon Plexo: Let your visitors add their favorite books, CDs, or other products to your Amazon list.

  • Duel: Let your visitors debate! They can choose from one viewpoint or another, and leave a comment.

Informative Lenses about Interactive Modules 

featured lens How (and why) To Add a Poll To Your Lens

Adding a poll to your lens will take you about 30 seconds. There is a module specially made for it. Here are some reasons why you'd want to use a poll, and how to add one to your lens. Enjoy, and start polling  your visitors!  - Lewis :-) ...

Featured Lenses Module 

Why on earth would you add a module that will take visitors away from your lens?

Because people are going to leave your lens anyway. That's unavoidable. Adding a list of relevant lenses that your readers might be interested in is a nice thing to do-- not just for them, but for other lensmasters on Squidoo.

This is a networking tool. It's a good idea to link to other lenses and let the lensmasters know about it. Who knows, they just might return the favor! Everyone wins.

Fresh Content and Touch-ups 

A Squidoo lens doesn't have to be perfect, especially since you can always go back and tweak it. Even the worst lenses can be polished up and turned into great lenses.

That, and periodically adding new content to your lenses will give people a reason to come back.

Try to think of each lens as a work in progress. Even if you believe your lens is perfect, surely it could be just a tiny bit better?

Let's consider Tiger Woods for a minute. Even those of us who don't care for golf can learn a lot from him. He practices all the time. He doesn't practice to stay as good as he is now, he practices to improve. He's probably the best golf player who's ever lived, and yet he still practices.

You don't need to obsess over your lenses, and there may come a point where doing anything more for a lens would be superfluous. But for the most part, there's always room for improvement.

So every so often, go back and give your lenses a little shine. Post new content, add some new pictures, add a nifty new Squidoo feature, or whatever.

Keep it fresh.

Add a Guestbook (or at Least a Contact Link!) 

I get a little bummed out when I see a great lens that doesn't have a guestbook. It's even worse if there's no other way to contact the lensmaster.

Someone could come along, think your lens is fantastic, and decide to link to it. But since you don't have a guestbook or a contact link, they can't tell you about their nice gesture! Or they might even get annoyed and change their mind.

You might be thinking, "Yeah, right, who'd link to my lens?" Well, actually, a lot of people link to other lenses. I do!

Newest Posts from Little Squid that Could 

The Little Squid that Could is a blog where I post Squidoo-related tips, advice, and other tidbits. Here are some of the latest posts:

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All Pictures Here Came from Flickr! 

Most of the pictures you see here were snagged from Flickr. Click on one of the pictures below to learn about the photographer.

Rubber Ducks with Sunglasses by DavidDennisPhotos.com

Novinky - The News by Johny hanging head down from the tree

Open Book by smellyknee

Brushes by john_a_ward

m&ms by Lin Pernille ♥ Photography

Origami stellated octahedron by endolith

curated content from Flickr

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