Squidoo Tagging - Choosing Squidoo Tags

Choosing the Best Squidoo Tags

How to Choose Individual Tags For Your Lens

1. High Search Volume - The best tags are those used as-is as a keyword search in popular search engines. The best keyword combinations are those with a high traffic volume. You can use the Google keyword tool to assess search volume. There is often a tradeoff between search volume and search competition. Ideally you want high volume and low competition, but it's rarely possible to get both. Try for some keywords with high volume, some with low competition, and some that balance the two.
2. Low Search Competition - You want to add tags for which you have a chance of getting on the first page of search results. Do not use the google keyword tool to assess search competition! The "competition" bar in this tool refers to competitiveness of the ad market, not the search results. To assess competition, type the keyword phrase into google and look through the first page or two of results. If the top results are from internet forums, little-known blogs or personal sites, or other low-authority sites, this is a low-competition keyword. If you see pages on Squidoo, EzineArticles, Buzzle, HubPages, and other reputable self-publishing sites, it's a mid-competition keyword. If you find results from major media outlets, large corporate homepages, or other well-established sites, it's probably a high-competition keyword.
3. Occurrence in Lens Text - This point is more important for short tags, such as single words or brief phrases. The best tags are often words or short phrases that occur naturally and frequently in the text of your lens. This means that if you were to write the lens first, and then go back to tag later, the phrases would already be there. If you are going back through your lens to add lots of occurrences of a given tag, this is not natural! However, not all tags need to occur as-is in the text of your lens.
4. Directly-related Squidoo Lenses - Squidoo uses tags to link internally to other lenses through various automated means. You want to tag your lens in such a way that networks it with other closely-related lenses. A good trick to locate good tags is to find the most closely-related lenses and see what tags they use. Also, however, check the tag before adding it. The best tags will return a list of closely-related lenses.
5. Relevance - The best tags are directly relevant to the topic of your lens. Think of the tag as a topic, and ask the question: "Is my lens about that?" If your answer is yes, you probably have a relevant tag. If your answer is "sort-of", be more cautious about adding that tag.
6. Moderate Use of the Tag on Squidoo - On Squidoo, some tags are very popular whereas others are esoteric. The best tags are ones that are used by a moderate number of other lenses. If there are hundreds or thousands of lenses with a tag, it's unlikely that your lens will appear on the ranking lists for this tag. On the other hand, if there are just a few lenses, adding the tag won't network you in with many other lenses. The best tags fall somewhere in the middle.