Home » Squidoo Community » Lensmaking Tips » Lensmaking Tips for Newbies

The Free Squidoo Guide

Ranked #1,011 in Squidoo Community, #119,109 overall

Squidoo Advice That's Free, Easy And Useful

What I know about Squidoo... I learned at Squidoo! 

I put this lens together to start to make better sense of all the free information I've found for how to use Squidoo and how to build better lenses.  My recommendations are based on what I find easy to understand and what seems to really work for my lenses.

this lens will tell you about...

the free squidoo guide table of contents

  1. My Squidoo Notes
  2. How Much Do You Know About Web Pages?
  3. STOP IN THE NAME OF SQUID! - essential tips for new lensmasters
  4. My Favorite Modules
  5. The free guidebook to Squidoo: Calamari!
  6. Really Useful (and Free) Squidoo Advice
  7. TAKE YOUR LENSES SWIMMING, TAKE THEM SWIMMING - launching a lens for "bouyancy"
  8. ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME - lens creation checklist
  9. The Naysayers
  10. Squid Signposts

My Squidoo Notes

The more I hunt around Squdioo, the more I find info about Squidoo. Some of it is helpful, some of it's not, and all of it is all over the place.

Some stuff I've learned by slowly going backwards through the SquidU section, reading back to the dawn of Squidoo. There's a ton of info in SquidU but you only ever read whatever it is that you happen to come across.

Think of this lens as a bunch of my Squidoo notes in one spot. And you get to share!

P.S. If you find this lens helpful, I'd really appreciate if you'd vote for it, or leave a comment. Those are the two best ways I can tell if anyone else thinks this info works, or not.

P.P.S. The picture here is a plate of pasta, colored with squid ink. I've eaten both pasta and bread sticks tinted with squid ink. It doesn't really change the flavor, but it sure makes for a dark color.

How Much Do You Know About Web Pages?

a simple user poll

There's really wide range of experience levels when you start to look at who is using Squidoo. Please let me know a little bit about how much you understand about web pages, thanks!

Loading poll. Please Wait...

STOP IN THE NAME OF SQUID! - essential tips for new lensmasters

Part of what helps make a lensmaster good here is knowing what you're working with. Understanding how Squidoo works can really give you a boost.

Here are four things I think every lensmaster needs to read before they start building lenses:

1) The Squidoo Terms of Service - It's surprising how many people agree to accept legal conditions for internet services and then wonder what they are later, or why something happened to their account. Don't just click and move on, really read the terms of service for the Squidoo site. It truly explains how this strange creature works.

2) Understand Your Dashboard - If you go to your Dashboard, you'll see the phrase "find out what this stuff means!" in the top left-hand corner, right above the lens title column. Click that link and read the paragraph that unfolds. It will make all the stats that start to show up once you have a bunch of lenses a lot more clear. The biggest thing new lensmasters seem to miss is that the traffic numbers shown on the dashboard are a 7-day rolling total. This means the figures will go up AND down as daily traffic fluctuates. The true sign of a newbie is when they post a thread saying something like "help, my traffic is reversing!"

3) Squidoo's Frequently Asked Questions - This list gets into the nitty-gritty of how Squidoo works, especially how they calculate the money that we earn and how we get paid, and EVERYONE wants to know about that! Read the Frequently Asked Questions list for some great information.

4) Squidoo's Spam Policy - There are many threads in SquidU where lensmaster are posting about how they had a lens get suddenly locked for review. Read the Spam Policy before you get started as it will help you avoid this. Some lens topics are taboo and can get you locked up from the get-go. Also, you'll know how to report bad lenses if you come across them.

squidoo swag

Loading

My Favorite Modules

the building blocks of a lens

I put this list here as I saw some postings recently from new lensmasters wondering about what to add to a new lens. Since I started in June '06, Squidoo sure has added a lot more module options for lensmasters. Here are ones that are some of my favorites. I use them a lot because I can get them to do just what I want with them.
  • Amazon Standard or Spotlight - Great for adding books, movies, or other products you might want to recommend. I often do my searching on Amazon where the seach features are better and then add products individually to get the exact selection I want. The Spotlight version is great for highlighting that one extra-special item you just know your readers need to know about.
  • Countdown - this one is one of the most recently added, and is GREAT for counting down to birthdays, events or holidays.
  • Ebay - another great module for adding a touch of retail to a lens. I find it helps to search on eBay and figure out the best keywords or categories for auctions when I use the "let eBay pick" option.
  • Featured Lenses - this is one of the newer ones, brought over after being only available in a Squidoo group. It lets you have a module that shows a rotating selection of lenses you pick to be included.
  • Flickr Pictures - Awesome for adding pictures to lenses. Only thing I'd change about it is I wish how it lined up the images in the workshop really looked like how they line up on a published lens in live view.
  • Link List - Squidoo was't kidding when they said this was the backbone of a lens. Put some of these together with the Firefox Plug-In and you'll have lenses coming out of your ears in no time.
  • Poll - I get way more votes from people using a regular Poll module than one of the newer Plexos, although I'm still playing with those. I try and think of a question that seems interesting but easy to answer for the average person.
  • Table of Contents - this one is brand-new and for those really long lenses, a nice addition. You can show every module on your lens, or edit the list to just hit the modules you'd really like people to read. I prefer it over the built-in TOC in the intro module as you have more control over what it shows and I prefer the single column layout. Squidoo has reported the lenses with TOCs get more internal clicks than those without so having one is a pretty good idea.
  • Text/Write - this one lets you write up to 10,000 characters of text and add a small picture. You can do a lot with these and they accept more HTML coding than other modules.
  • Wikipedia - I don't often use modules that were meant to pull info from just one site, preferring the RSS module which I can customize, but I like this one a lot.
  • YouTube - adding a little video can be fantastic with some lenses and this module makes it really easy.

The free guidebook to Squidoo: Calamari!

Really Useful (and Free) Squidoo Advice

I'm one of those people who thinks that paying for Squidoo advice is just giving money to hucksters who don't really know anything special. Mostly they are marketing a ton of the free info they've taken from everyone else. And why pay for something that's ordinarily given way for nothing?

Here are some great Squidoo resources that will help you become a better lensmaster and they're all for free!
Addicted to Squidoo! Headquarters
A Squidoo group for lenses all about Squidoo. There are lenses on all different parts of how to build lenses, stuff on traffic, etc. This is one of my most heavily used and useful resources.

Squidoo: Bugs & Feedback
This is the page where you report bugs or submit feedback. I check SquidU to see if there are threads about system problems before I report them. If there's a temporary system problem, there's usually a thread talking about what's going on and when it's going to be fixed posted by the time I realize something seems wrong.

SquidU | Where lensmasters know best!
The live community part of the Squidoo community. Articles on just about everything, profiles of other lensmasters, and a forum packed to the tentacles with other users. Answers to questions tend to come really quickly if you post them too.

How to Value a Squidoo Lens
As Squidoo Grows and develops, the marketplace for buying and selling lenses is also bound to grow. The question is, how much is a lens really worth?? Let's explore a couple of classic ways for valuing assets and apply them to the Squidoo economy.

SquidBlog
This is sort of a general blog from the Squid Team. Official announcements get posted here. So do new big projects and developments.
Squidoo Lens of the Day
You never know when you might look here and suddenly find one of your own lenses. It happened to me, it can happen to you.

TAKE YOUR LENSES SWIMMING, TAKE THEM SWIMMING - launching a lens for "bouyancy"

When I think about Squidoo, I think of it as sort of organic, so I like to use oceanic metaphors. Squidoo is a an ocean (a website) and all the lenses are... well, they're Squid! So, when a lens is first made, it's a Squid being born in the depths of the ocean (lenrank), and you want it to swim (rise up) closer to the surface, where the fishermen (web audience) can catch it!

As I've built my lenses, I've tried different things when publishing them and I have a way of doing it that seems to give it a good boost without having a really sharp dip after. I think it's possible to do too much too fast when you first grow a lens.

Day 1 - hit publish, re-read for typos and grammar (there's always something I find *after* I publish that's off), let the lens go from WIP (grey minus sign on the dashboard) to Featured (green checkmark)
Day 2 - see where it turns up now that it's "live," add new lens to lensrolls on related lenses of my own and select lenses (mine and others) for lensroll on the new lens
Day 3 - pick about a dozen people I know who will all like the lens for similar reasons and write a note appropriate for them, emailing this core of fans about the lens.
Day 5-6 - based on feedback from my emailing, do any tweaks on the lens.

Week 1 - post to 1-2 social bookmark sites and join 3-6 groups
Week 2 - repeat social bookmarking and group joining

One Month - review tags from stats and possibly adjust lens tags, possibly adjust content based on any clickouts or sales

I have lenses that get reviewed and refreshed anywhere from once a week to once every two months. Lenses that related to current events or happenings are updated "as necessary." Some lenses are updated for seasonal events and left more dormant in the off-season. At present, I'm able to maintain most of my lenses in the top 50,000 of the Squdioo lens pool with regular but not obsessive attention. The top 50,000 may not seem like much, but in the scheme of the overall lens pool, that segment is the top 10% of Squidoo.

squid mugs

just the thing to accompany your Squidoo surfing experience

Loading

ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME - lens creation checklist

suggestions for making better lenses

The trick to making a Squidoo lens that is successful (draws traffic, earns money, etc) is to make more than a minimal effort. Squidoo has made it really easy to get started building lenses, but it's going to take some effort on your part to make great lenses instead of just average ones.

Here's a short checklist of tips and tricks to help you make great lenses:

1) Give your lens a title that's short and to the point.

2) Customize the primary tag for the lens so that it's the best keyword or keyword phrase (two or three words) about your lens topic.

3) Make sure you have a variety of written content, media and links that are the best info and resources you have for your topic.

4) Be sure to customize module titles so that they aren't the default entries.

5) Add relevant tags for your lens. You are limited to 40, so make sure to use the best words and phrases but leave out stuff that's really redundant.

6) Check your spelling! This is one of those simple things that can get overlooked but it really helps make for a better lens and visitor experience.

7) Make sure to customize the selections for any retail or photo modules. You really get better content when you pick it yourself instead of letting it be automatically chosen.

8) Don't be afraid to make a lens on a subject that is already represented on Squidoo. "There can be only one" only applies to immortals in those Highlander movies.

9) Try the different settings and options built into your lens. There are different layouts and lots of modules. Feel free to play around with a lens for a week or two before you announce it to the Squidoo community.

10) Lather, rinse, repeat. - Revisit lenses from time to time to make sure they are fresh and updated.

The Naysayers

rants and blogs that are anti-Squidoo

It often can help to hear the good as well as the bad. So, for a change of perspective here are some Squidoo naysayers. It's sort of interesting how many people decided to dump on Squidoo right from the get-go.

A second wave of anti-Squidoo sentiment came in the summer of 2007, when the site experienced some really bad behavior by some spammers. Google also made an adjustment to their algorithem, and some lensmasters have felt ever since that Google is somehow out to "get" Squidoo, even though those changes have an effect on Google's entire database and all websites.
Squidoo? Why?? %uFFFD DRM - Daniel’s Random Mutterings
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 - After an initial pointer from Bob Walsh, over at the Joel On Software discussion board, and a follow-up blog posting from him I recently went and checked out Squidoo and played around with it a bit.
Squidoo: Seth Godin’s Purple Albatross?
May 9 2006 - Seth Godin is an exceptional marketing consultant. I've read all his books - my favorite is Purple Cow. I routinely bring up his ...
Squidoo to Be Renamed Spamdoo
October 24, 2006 - Well, not really - but it might as well be. Squidoo is Seth Godin's web 2.0 redheaded stepchild. It's a user-generated experiment gone bad. The basic premise is that anyone can create a "lens" and become a "lensmaster" of a page about anything they want or are passionate about.
Passing Interest: Does Squidoo Suck?
Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - Today's new interest: I googled "squidoo sucks". Found a bunch of articles and even a Squidoo lens on this.So. Does it or does it not? I dunno...
Google Slaps Squidoo | Web 2.0
July 13, 2007 - Google, the God of Internet Marketing, has chosen a new recipient for it's infamous Google Slap. Quite honestly, it's not totally unexpected either.
NET MONETIZATION: Make Money Online with Squidoo!
Friday, 14 December 2007 - A few months ago I wrote a couple of posts about Squidoo, the site created by the highly successful serial entrepreneur Seth Godin, wondering out loud whether it was possible to make money online through Squidoo...

Squid Signposts

comments and feedback (all submissions are moderated)

Thanks for visiting my lens! For more great lens-building help, you might also like the other lenses in the Squid Suite.

  • AprilMonth Jan 11, 2012 @ 4:43 am | delete
    Thanks for sharing. Very informative and useful site to be bookmarked for future reference.
  • WorenMolly Nov 29, 2011 @ 2:55 pm | delete
    Thanks, man! Will definitely use you tips in my SquidLife :)
  • TableTalk Nov 11, 2011 @ 7:43 pm | delete
    Thank you for the tips

    BigK
  • Dreamtrips Oct 1, 2011 @ 3:19 pm | delete
    Thanks for taking the time. Great info...
  • fantasticallyfictional Apr 14, 2011 @ 5:58 am | delete
    Massively useful! Thanks very much.
  • epyans Feb 20, 2011 @ 8:59 am | delete
    thanks for the info.
  • DaveStone13 Dec 27, 2010 @ 6:43 pm | delete
    I've been developing my own systematic approach, and this will help polish it. Two and a half months and still learning tons from contributions like this one. Thanks.
  • Load More
Show All

by

Euryale

In myth, Euryale was an immortal Gorgon. I'm a gardener and Giant Squid, growing things via Lenses. I have a wide range of interests including playing... more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Squid Advice Central 

aka The Squidoo Blog

Loading

Related Tags