Squidoo SEO: Help Search Engines Send Traffic to You

You can't control most of the factors that determine where your Squidoo page appears on a Google search, such as what people are searching for, what other webpages in your topic are doing, and how many links point to their pages versus yours. You can control what search terms and phrases -- keywords -- Google files your page under as "relevant." Here's how.

1. Choose your keywords.

Think carefully. What word or words would you be most likely to type when searching for a page like yours? Here's a free Keyword Tracker Tool tracking how often terms get searched each day. Note that this is only a daily snapshot; the best data collects over months or years. But we don't all have access to such data (unless you have an old website which keeps detailed traffic stats, which can be a gold mine of search terms).

2. Consider the "Long Tail".



Here's what I got when I typed "hot dog" in that Keyword Tracker Tool, then flung the results into Excel. Y is number of searches, X is searches using the words "hot dog". In fact the graph is scrunched horizontally; it tails waaaay off to the right. Most people search for one or two popular phrases, but the obscure phrases, the "long tail" of the graph, collectively outnumber the popular search terms. "Chasing the Long Tail" means targeting less-popular but still widely-searched keywords, products, or opportunities that competitors are missing. (In this example, "what's in a hot dog" is a good bet, because there's two phrases close enough to share search results.)

3. Check the Competition For Your Keywords

Real SEO experts used advanced and expensive tools and spend a lot of time measuring the competition's backlinks and keyword optimization. Most of us Squidoo members don't have such resources. But Google can help us get a basic idea of who's optimized their pages for a given search term.

intitle:"your keyword or phrase"
inanchor:"your keyword or phrase"
inurl:"your keyword or phrase"

What sites are optimized for all three of those? If 100+ sites are all optimized for your keyword(s) in their links, URL, and especially their title, try something else. 10-20? Yeah, you can beat that! But note that if there are already two Squidoo lenses optimized for a keyword phrase, it's harder to break past them, since Google usually only lists two pages per domain name.

4. Embed keywords in a subtle but strategic way on your lens.

Google and other search engines determine the most relevant keywords for your page by giving special weight to words and phrases in the title, the URL, page title, headers (that's why Squidoo encourages you to break your page into several modules with titles and subtitles), image filenames, image filenames, and clickable text ("anchor text") within links both on your page and and links from other pages pointing to yours. Also, to a certain extent, they note words in the body of your text.

MSN and Yahoo give extra weight to the words in the Introduction Module, because (if you know web design, this makes sense), your introduction module gets fed into the hidden "Description" tag for the lens.

Here's my favorite Squidoo SEO resource to tell which parts of my lens are most important for keywords and search engine optimization: 15 Minute SEO Tutorial.

Warning: Most search engines penalize a page if you appear to be keyword stuffing -- repeating keywords too often just to trick search engines.

(Note: I am talking about Squidoo Tags, which are labels used to categorize pages built on Squidoo. But most blogging software, as well as associated content sites like Gather, use "tags" too. They all work pretty much the same way. You file your page under a handful of tags like "pets, dogs, animals," and each "tag" is a clickable link that leads you to a page listing all the other pages filed under that "tag").

Tags are labels you put on your webpages to explain what to file them under. They're like the labels on your file folders, except you can file a page under more than one tag.

Keywords are labels that a SEARCH ENGINE puts on your webpages, based on its own analysis of your page's content and the links pointing to it.

So What Can Tags Do For Squidoo SEO?

In addition to your human audience, which is the most important one, you've got three "robot" audiences to consider. Each treats Tags in a slightly different way. That means several different approaches work, but the different methods aren't quite compatible, so you gotta choose your angle.

1) Google will NOT take your word for it that your Tags are your most relevant or important keywords. Google treats Squidoo tags exactly as it would any other link/anchor text-- a small tick on the "keywords" meter but not a large one. Headers, URL, and above all the Page Title are much more important in determining what your keywords are.

2) A few search engines, including Yahoo and MSN, do take your word for it that your tags are your most important keywords (if you understand webpage design, Squidoo tags are stored as META keywords). So as an alternative to getting Google traffic, you can use the "long tail" approach with Squidoo Tags to scoop up traffic from less-popular but still widely-used earch engines.

3) Squidoo (and blogs that list "related posts" at the bottom) uses its tags for a special purpose: to decide which lenses to link to yours and vice versa. That works only if you turn on the "Discovery" tool in the Introduction Module, which activates the "Explore Related..." blue box found near the top of many lenses, which you can turn on/off in the Introduction module. Cross-links help both search engines and people find your lenses. You'll get more cross-links if you use a tag that is used by more lenses. So if you want to target Squidoo cross-traffic, you want Squidoo Tags that are broad, general categories: "breakfast" not the Long Tail "whole grain waffles."

I'm guessing this tactic is best for popular Web 2.0 topics that have flooded search engines. For example, I can't get my "Squidoo Tips" page to rank ahead of every "search engine optimization" guide on the web, because there's gazillions of them, many written by highly-paid experts with 5-10 years of experience. But it gets a ton of cross-traffic from other Squidoo lenses. Whereas my lenses on slightly more obscure topics like kitebuilding, volcanoes and ancient Greece get great search engine traffic, since those are more "long tail" topics, and most websites on those topics are not built by people who know much (or anything) about SEO.

While writing a lens, I target Google keywords. I use the tools I mentioned above to find a keyword phrase and check the competition. Then I weave my keyword into my title, URL, headers, graphics filenames and alt-tags, and body text in a subtle way.

I keep most of my Squidoo tags broad to build Squidoo cross-links (I also do this when I write Wordpress blog posts). On Squidoo, I pay attention to which lenses show up in the Discovery Tool. If they're quality lenses, good. If they're popular, and my lens shows in their "Explore Related" box, even better. If they've got my keywords in their title or at least headers and links, that's best, since anchor text is what actually boosts SEO. If they're awful lenses, I'll change my tags to avoid overlap unless it's a tag I can't afford to lose.

I start with 10-20 tags, rather than confusing Squidoo with too many (on blog posts I'd stick to 2-5). However, if I discover a juicy-looking long tail phrase during keyword research, I'll add a few long-tail Squidoo tags for Yahoo and MSN. Over time, I'll add long-tail phrases that show up often in the Traffic stats on my dashboard. There is debate about this, but I can't see how 20-30 tags hurts unless you're "keyword stuffing" -- "hot dog, hot dogs, hot dogs with mustard, hot dogs with relish, hot dogs with mustard and relish" all the way down the tags list -- which could trip a search engine penalty.

A day or two after my lens is built, I'll add my lens to closely-related groups and lensroll other lenses on my topic, looking for those that have my keywords in their titles and links.

Yes, I'll do some link building using Lensroll.com, Squoogle, my personal blog or website, and one or two forums and social networking sites. This gets my lens picked up by search engine crawlers and starts the visitor stream.

However, I don't engage in building links for SEO. Guestbooks and many social media sites' links are nofollow, many "free link directories" (and more paid ones) are "bad neighborhoods" penalized by Google, and some SEO experts say it takes hundreds or even thousands of links to see a noticeable shift in search engine ranking. Plus there's the dreaded BLOOP (Backlink Over Optimization Penalty) which kicks in if a flurry of links to a webpage all appear at once. Mind you, I'm only giving you secondhand wisdom I've read on SEOmoz, Seo Theory, and other widely-respected SEO sites; it's not something I've tested.

But for a random example, I just checked the 9-month-old Squidoo lens with the URL seo-squidoo against this one (squidoo-seo), which is a month old. That lens has 1000+ backlinks. Mine has 10 links, all on the SquidU forum or my lensmaster page. Result? His lens gets 60 visitors a week -- some of those from my lens, since I recommend his! -- whereas mine gets 110. Not great results yet -- mabe you shouldn't listen to me! (Although trying to optimize a page for "SEO" is like trying to out-Einstein Einstein; my lenses on other topics net hundreds). My point, though, is that backlinks are not the best SEO strategy, although they may attract people -- a different target audience from search engines -- as I discussed in part II on social outreach.

So I, personally, prefer to keyword optimize while writing a page rather than sink all my time into promoting a page. If you want to work the linkbuilding angle to improve SEO, I suggest that you build links (using your keywords as anchor text) on related Squidoo lenses, your blog, or Associated Content articles that pay you!

Here's a technique I've only begun to tap. When someone searches for a word or phrase on Google, the listing returns TWO important pieces of your lens: (1) the lens title and (2) an excerpt showing the first place where the keywords appear on your lens.

Guess what? That's your billboard! That search engine listing is your one chance to get people to click on your link! Make it sexy!

So when you use keywords for SEO, make the text around them informative and engaging, especially the first time your keywords show up. This is often your lens title or introduction, so that's where you should apply spit and polish. You need to do three things: inform, saying exactly what your lens is about, grab the search engine by the throat, i.e. give the keywords that will drag the search engine to that part of your lens, and be sexy, making your writing appeal to your audience. (If you're aiming for stuffy academics or serious businesspeople, you probably shouldn't do a pole dance, just use the kind of language they love).

After your lens shows Google referrals in its stats, try Googling the same keywords your visitors used. One, you'll see how far back your lens is in Google searches, and two, you'll see the blurb that your visitors saw. Tweak as needed! (As a bonus, updates give your lensrank a wee boost.)

Finally -- this is something I'm still working on -- be brief. Use as few words as possible, to get as much of your message as possible into the excerpt.