GreekGeek's Squidoo Tips: How to Get Your Lens Found

1. Choose your keywords. Keywords are the words or phrases people type into Google and other search engines to find webpages. In Part III: Squidoo SEO, I'll teach you how to find the best keywords to draw search engine traffic. But for your first lenses, don't stress over keywords; just pick a word or phrase that YOU might search when looking up your topic.

Use your keywords for the URL of your lens, which you pick when you first create a lens. The URL is the one thing you can't change, so choose wisely! Also use keywords for the file name of your lens photo, a few module titles, and a few links.

Keywords Tip: For image filenames and your lens URL, separate multiple words in a phrase with hyphens. For example, "golden-retriever-puppies".

2. Give your Squidoo lens an appealing and informative title.

The title needs to: a) sound catchy and memorable rather than generic b) tell HUMAN visitors what your webpage is about and c) tell SEARCH ENGINES what your lens is about using your keyword(s).

For example, Yes, I Love My Hybrid Car! grabs the reader more than "hybrid car review," and tells search engines your lens is about hybrid cars.*

*Keywords Tip: Now that I know more than when I created that lens, I try to use plurals instead of singular keywords. A search engine can find the word "car" in "cars," but not vice versa.

3. Write a brief introduction, telling visitors what the lens is about and what they'll get out of reading the rest of the page.

To help you figure out what your lens is about, you might write a "lens mission statement" on a post-it note, telling what questions your lens should answer, or what visitors should get out of your lens. Adapt this mission statement for your introduction!

The introduction is like a television episode teaser. You've got to "hook" your audience; don't waste time on anything that doesn't achieve that goal! At the same time, use text that contains keywords/search terms for Google. For example, I packed several keywords into the first sentence of my introduction module, and told people what they'll get out of visiting the lens:

So, you want to learn how to build appealing Squidoo lenses (or any kind of webpage), attract web traffic, and get your Squidoo lens found by Google! This three-part tutorial covers...

4. Research your content. If you don't know what you're talking about, how will your visitors know? And why would they stick around?

Pick a subject you know, and share your enthusiasm and knowledge! Keep in mind the "questions to answer" or "mission statement" you chose in step 3. Do the necessary research to answer those questions or satisfy that goal. As you write, keep checking: did what you just write answer one of those questions, or contribute to the mission of your lens?

Tip: Be brief, but make sure you cover the most important things to know about your topic. Remember the famous "And Then a Miracle Occurs" cartoon. Your readers don't know what you've left out!

5. Add links to related content, videos and images. This includes webpages you consulted for your research! Clickthroughs boost lensrank. And links to "relevant" pages help your lens rank better in search engines for the words and phrases you use as the link.

For example, if you're writing about potatoes, say "For more info, check out this website on Potatoes and Tubers" not "Click here for a website about potatoes and tubers."

One way of adding links to related content is to bookmark lenses related to your topic in a lensroll in your sidebar.

6. Proofread. Grammar and spelling still matter, even if people don't consciously realize why some pages seem sloppy. Obama won the last election largely because he sounded smart and polished -- use the same trick to "put the best face" on your lenses. At least run your text through a spellchecker.

7. Make pretty graphics. I added title graphics and dividers like this to my Greece page:


Tip: See my Where to Get Graphics (Legally!) tutorial, or my Fancy Table of Contents tutorial for all sorts of slick-looking HTML code special effects like my inset paragraph with the rounded corners!

8. Vary your content. Huge blocks of text lose your reader's attention; so do masses of ads, icons or images. Unless you're extremely good at holding people's attention, you should shape your lens more like a variety show than a four-hour documentary.

9. Be interactive. Guestbooks and polls invite people to participate and come back. Clicks help boost your lensrank. Updated or changing content boosts your page's placement in some search engines.

10. Tag your lens (see "Tags" in the sidebar), classifying your lens with general topics like "cooking" and "lord of the rings" rather than "brownie recipes" and "Boromir family tree." Outside of Squidoo, tags can (again) help search engines figure out what to file your lens under. Inside Squidoo, tags are used by visitors using the search box and by the Discovery Tool (see below) to create links between lenses on the same topic. Crosslinking between lenses attracts traffic in two ways: by bringing you visitors from other Squidoo lenses, and by boosting your Squidoo lens in search engine results (only a little, but every bit helps).

Squidoo Tags Tip: Have you seen that blue "Explore related lenses" section near the top of many lenses? You turn it on in the "Discovery Tool" section of your Introduction module, which simultaneously adds your lens to the "Explore..." section of other lenses! It works by looking for lenses with the same tags as yours. If you find it's recommending unrelated lenses or ones that are just plain lousy, go find Squidoo lenses you think belong there, and use their tags!