Greekgeek's Top Ten Squidoo Tips

My Top Ten Squidoo Tips

The PT Barnum "This Way to the Egress" School of Lensbuilding

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  1Write what you know and love, letting your passion shine through. Keep asking yourself, "Would I really read this lens -- ALL of it -- if I found it on a random website? Or would I click away from it?" Be honest with yourself.

• 2Divide "potbound" lenses that have gotten too long, "fertilizing" spin-off lenses with fresh content so each can stand alone. See my Graphics Tutorials Suite for an example; originally that was all one lens! Note the navigation bar of links passing traffic between them. Or see my Volcanoes lens using the Page Break module.

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  3"Don't let them get away!" Most visitors don't read a whole lens, or even scroll past the first screen. Provide a juicy "clickout" link in your introduction for those with short attention spans, so they leave via a link, not the "Back" button. Clickouts boost lensrank!

• 4Tell your visitors on the first screen what your lens covers. Newspaper Layout 101: "Above the Fold" is gold. The introduction module is your 10-second job interview showing your visitors you know what you're talking about, you have something they want, and you're going to present it to them clearly and effectively. Be sure to embed keywords for SEO purposes.

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  5Name your graphics specifically. You never know when someone searching for a picture of a "man playing tuba" (man-playing-tuba.jpg) will find your page. For added search juice, give images alt-names, too.

• 6Dress your lenses for success! Avoid "Impenetrable Wall o' Text" syndrome with variety: great graphics, horizontal dividers, colors, the Black Box and Most Important Thing Module, CSS, Web 2.0 glossy buttons, Amazon Spotlights, and/or shaded paragraphs matching the lens header.

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  7Show your visitors the door. I've already mentioned the juicy link up top for Sam the 10-Second Surfer. Provide interesting exit ramps throughout your lens. At the end, point your visitors to another lens, a book on Amazon, your blog, or something else you'd like them to see on the way out. (Clickouts are one factor in lensrank!)

• 8Don't do everything right the first time! Have good content, filled-in module titles and working links for your first visitors, of course: there's no do-over for first impressions. Also make sure you've picked the best URL, since you can't change it later. Anything else? That's what the edit button is for! Squidoo wants you to publish fast and loose, update later for lensrank boost!

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  9Click your own Amazon modules when you need to shop. Amazon affiliates may not buy from their own affiliate links; that's against theirToS. But Squidoo is the Amazon Associate. Amazon cannot dictate what Squidoo does with the income it's earned (pay us half).

• 10Write a lens mission statement on a BlackBox, which you may later incorporate into your introduction. What is the goal of your lens? What should your visitors to get out of it? Check each finished module against your mission statement. Do they match, or do you have content for another lens?