Make a Reader Friendly Lens

First read the introduction featured above. It was from a lens written by A_Willow, leader of the Wiwon Team.

Do you notice how she outlines the main points of her lens on body language?

Take a look at your favourite website or newspaper. You will probably see that the content of the page or a news item is summed up in the first paragraph or the introduction.

Here is an introductory paragraph from the UK's Guardian newspaper:

"Investigators decided there was no evidence of police wrongdoing in the death of Ian Tomlinson just three days after he collapsed at the G20 protests, it has emerged tonight."

Even though many of you won't know the news story featured, now you have the gist of the article. This is what we should all aim to do in an introduction to a lens or web page. It is a way of inviting or enticing a casual browser to read on, maybe even to the end of what you have written.

Buy at AllPosters.com

If you get an invitation to a party or wedding, you don't expect to receive a closely typed sheet of A4 paper. You expect something that is short and to the point.

Bear this in mind when you write your introductions. Don't give a lot of detail, just enough to interest somebody to read on.

It's easy to think that your ideas are far more important than trivialities like spelling, punctuation and grammar. You are wrong.

You might be a very intelligent person with fascinating ideas or a mine of information but you need to communicate with other people. The rules of punctuation, spelling and grammar allow us to do this more easily.

Do you know the difference between its and it's? No? Well, use the wrong one and it could confuse your reader because its means belonging to 'it', while it's means 'it is'.

Spelling is another problem especially with words that sound the same but have different meanings: sea and see, scene and seen, ewe and you, there and their. Then there are the words that are often spelled wrongly: seperate instead of separate for example.

Grammar is an even thornier issue. Perhaps the most common mistakes are not keeping the tense of the verb consistent. To explain: "They went down the road to the station and catch the train." They went happened in the past but catch is in the present tense.

These kinds of mistakes can really irritate some people to the extent that they will bounce away from your lens. Even if they read to the end, they might not put as much trust in you as they would have done if your punctuation, spelling and grammar were correct.

If you are writing a straightforward narrative, perhaps on personal experience, a vacation, a biography or even how to do something or a recipe, then the structure of the lens or web page is easy.

Start at the beginning and progress through time. Cover each point or event in order of it occurring.

Use Squidoo's modules effectively. They help to break up a text heavy appearance which many people find off putting online. Use the picture gallery or Polaroid modules to separate text modules.

Pictures brighten up a page as well as adding information. Even if they aren't very informative, like the one in this module, it should at least hold a message - the picture here illustrates structure, of ricin in this case, from Wikipedia.

The whole purpose of a Duel lens is to engage readers in a discussion but you might need to provoke or encourage them to join in with their own thoughts.

Don't use a Hey Monkeybrain or other Duel lens as a quick way to get another lens done. Give it as much thought as you would give to any other. Even if it is about a subject you have strong opinions, try to present both sides of the arguments with equal strength although I believe it is perfectly legitimate to begin the duel with your own firmly held opinions.

If your duel deals with a subject where a few concrete facts or perhaps statistics would help, provide them in clearly titled modules although don't bury your duel in facts either. Keep a balance between providing enough information and contrasting arguments to encourage people to take part and providing so little content that people come away feeling shortchanged.

There are sales pages all over the web and it's hard to compete with them. You have to make your lens or web page stand out from the crowd but how can you do that?

Personalize Your Sales Lens
One good way is to give personal advice and opinions on products you hope to sell. Squidoo's Amazon Spotlight module is a good way to do this. You can put your personal recommendation in the module alongside a picture automatically pulled from Amazon.com. The beauty of these modules is that, used properly, they look like text modules when published.

Don't Do a Hard Sell
We've all seen web pages that scream at us to buy and to buy now. They are usually festooned with exclamation marks too!!!!

Personally, I'm allergic to pages like these and wonder what is wrong with their products if they have to try so hard to sell them. As I said in the Introduction, I'm not unique in the way I react to many things. I am certain other people have a similar reaction to the hard sell. Remember you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and that you can persuade people more easily with soft words than you can by shouting at them.

There really are some things you should never do on a lens or web page unless you have a very good excuse - and that excuse should be obvious to every visitor.

Outgoing Links
1. Never put an outgoing link in your introduction. Are you crazy? Do you really want to send your visitors away before they've had a chance to read more than one or two of your carefully crafted sentences?

Position of Advertising
2. Don't put affiliate advertising very close to the top of a lens. Get visitors interested in what you have to say before trying to sell them something. I would say the first ad should appear at about the bottom of the second text module.

Multiple Links to the Same URL
3. Remember that Clickbank equals spam in some visitors' eyes. If you do want to link to a Clickbank product, only put in one link to it. There are lensmasters who sprinkle the same link like confetti right across their lenses. Not only does this look spammy but nine or more links to the same URL could get your lens banned. This applies to all affiliate and other links except those on Squidoo's White List.

Text Heavy Appearance
4. Don't have long areas of text on your lens. Break it up with pictures.

Unlike the list of Don'ts above, this list is not mandatory whereas, in my opinion, the other list is.

Picture for Introduction
1. Always try to find a good picture to represent your lens for your Introduction.

Explore Modules
2. Explore the modules on Squidoo and use them. Separate text modules with Polaroids, Blackboxes, Stickynotes, and any of the other great modules provided.

Amazon Spotlight
3. Don't forget the Amazon Spotlight module. It's brilliant for writing your own recommendation for an Amazon product because you automatically get the picture from Amazon. It's another module that's good for separating text modules.

Let Your Personality Show
4. Put as much of your own writing style and personality into your lens as you can. If you want people to click through and buy from affiliates, remember that everybody prefers to buy from people they like. Visitors are also more likely to look at more of your lenses if they like you and your writing style.