this lens will tell you about... 

the free squidoo guide table of contents

• My Squidoo Notes
• How Much Do You Know About Web Pages?
• STOP IN THE NAME OF SQUID! - essential tips for new lensmasters
• My Favorite Modules
• Really Useful (and Free) Squidoo Advice
• TAKE YOUR LENSES SWIMMING, TAKE THEM SWIMMING - launching a lens for "bouyancy"
• Thinking Outside The Squid
• WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, SQUIDOO? - Squidoo blogs
• The Naysayers
• ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE TO REMIND ME - lens creation checklist
• 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

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 

Baseball Jersey

Baseball Jersey

Price: 19.99

Squidoo Mini Button (10 pack)

Button up your Squid.

Mini Button (10 pack)

Price: 9.99

Squidoo Mug

Our project was borne by coffee. Get your SquidMug too.

Mug

Price: 12.99

My Favorite Modules 

the building blocks of a lens

• 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.

Really Useful (and Free) Squidoo Advice 

Everyone Is An Expert PDF

This is the PDF that Seth Godin wrote, which gives the basis for the ideas behind Squidoo and how Seth imagines people might use it. If I have to check something against "Squid Theory" I often re-read this.

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.

Thinking Outside The Squid 

Squidoo-related websites and blogs

Here are a variety of blogs and websites that have been started with the idea of helping people use Squidoo. Each one is as different as the author behind them.

Update late May '08: I reviewed all the sites again and deleted several due to not being updated in several months. As Seth Godin says, unique, useful and UPDATED! It's interesting how many people start Squidoo blogs and then abandon them.

Which do YOU think is the most helpful? You may vote for as many as you wish.

Add to this list

Grab this list

Get the RSS feed: Keep an eye on this Plexo list. See who wins. And who's left in the dirt.

Get the widget: Add this Plexo list as a widget on your blog, site, forum, whatever. Be an influential. Show off your great find.

Get this on my lens: Attack of the clones! Grab this Plexo module for your own lens. Get YOUR readers to vote for their favorites.

• Add to Bloglines
• Add to My Yahoo
• Add to Google
• Add to Technorati
• Add to NewsGator
• Add to My MSN
• Grab the XML

Please pick your widget size and display. Then click "Make the Widget" to get the code that's just right for you.

Pick your widget size:

Small size: Best for blog sidebars, and areas 250 pixels or less
Standard size: Best for blog posts, and areas greater than 250 pixels wide

How many list items to show? 5 10 15 All

Make the Widget!

Voila: Just copy and paste this code into your own site. Have fun!

Oopsey! Please login to Squidoo in order to add this module to your lens.

Add more links    Submit

Type or paste links below (one per line):
(Ex: http://www.cuteoverload.com) Help me find links

Done Adding

Cancel

squid mugs 

just the thing to accompany your Squidoo surfing experience

Blue Squid - Mug

from Natasha's FairyTail

Mug

Price: 11.99

Squiddy Mug

from Squiddy and Friends

Mug

Price: 11.99

Squid Mug

from stealingsouls: Photos by Jess Ex

Mug

Price: 11.50

WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY, SQUIDOO? - Squidoo blogs 

Julia Nagy: Grandmother, namesake and Superhero!

Just like a grandmother would do. With a cherry on top. http://www.squidoo.com/julia-nagy. PS Happy Birthday JaguarJulie! Congrats on winning the superhero contest and $500 for First Coast No More Homeless Pets.

Squidoo Update

I have wrote allot about Squidoo as I really like the platform and it has significantly increased traffic to my websites. Two weeks ago I updated one of my most popular Squidoo Lens and noticed it told me I may be spamming I may need to ...

New Squidoo Lens

I've published my latest lens, Ancient Somerset Levels. I've got more stuff to put on it but I think there's enough to be OK but I won't join any groups just yet. I've had some of my lenses featured on the All Things Travel group page ...

Your Favorite Squidoo SuperHero Lenses Have been Chosen

The Favorite SuperHero Lenses are the lenses created for the SuperHero Project, submitted to the SuperHero group and voted for by visitors and lensmasters to the Squidoo SuperHero Project lens. There were so many great Superhero lenses ...

The Naysayers 

rants and blogs that are anti-Squidoo

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...

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.

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.

beachbum_gabby very helpful guide, everything you need to know about Squidoo. Come back again to see more from you. Thanks! Posted July 01, 2008

The_Homeopath These are great tips! I keep a paper (shocking, I know, with a pencil and all) graph of all my lenses to remember what needs to be done, what I've added it to, and so forth. It just makes it easier for me so I can see them all with just a glance down whichever column I need. Posted June 28, 2008

beeobrien Just stopping in to review. Lensrolling you. Posted June 23, 2008

kingkurt2001 This lens is full of useful links. Thanks. Posted June 17, 2008

ImproveMeU Great 5* lens, I have featured you in my group Posted June 03, 2008

thrivingmom I just published my first lens. I'm still pretty confused about how to be successful with a lens, etc. Your lens helped clear a few things up for me. Thanks. You have a very relaxed and easy to read writing stule. Posted June 02, 2008

SquidWords Excellent Lens. Only wish I would have found it sooner. Keep on Squidooing. Posted May 28, 2008

 

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