Top Tips for New Squidoo Lenses

Hold it! Don't start yet - READ FIRST!

What might seem like a comprehensive overview of one subject to you is actually too much information for someone else. Split it up into smaller, manageable pieces and make a lens for each piece. Then make a master lens for the series and link them all together.

Think smaller!

There are plenty of Squidoo guides for choosing your keywords. These will also become your tags. Pay attention to at least one or two guides before you choose yours!

Quick tips for keywords

• Squidoo Keyword Research
  
• Squidoo Research For Lenses
  
• How to choose your primary tag
  

Note: Many SEO professionals on Squidoo suggest that choosing 10-20 tags per lens is sufficient. Any more than that and you will look spammy. You may also be penalised for not having enough instances of those tags in your text or for having more than 5 instances of a word in your keywords. So, stick to deciding on 10-20 keywords.

You need to choose your URL for your Squidoo lenses carefully - you can't change it. Using your keywords in your title is good for SEO (so people will find your lens when they search). So, it's wise to remember that you need to choose your keywords effectively.

Also, it's worthwhile to hyphenate your URL to separate the words.

For instance, choose "Harry-Potter-Fan-Club" rather than "HarryPotterFanClub".

See this Squidoo Lens on Squidoo Tricks for more info on how to choose your keywords and why hyphenating between words in the URL is important.

Okay - You're ready to make your lens!

This is a Squidoo lens revelation to people who know HTML and CSS. Don't mess around with the link modules and picture uploaders (unless you want Squidoo to host the picture). Use the Text Module and and a good sprinkling of HTML and CSS to make it to your liking.

HTML tags you can use with Squidoo:
  <strong>   <b>   <em>
  <i>   <a>   <p>
  <br>   <img>   <ul>
  <ol>   <li>

If you're familiar with CSS, you can easily spot how you can use style="" to do just about anything using these tags. Enjoy!

Tip: When using <li>, either don't use the end tags (</li>) or put the end tag on the start of the next line (which is what Squidoo does for you if you don't put them in). This will avoid double line-spacing added in by Squidoo auto-formatting.

HTML & CSS lensmaster tips and tutorials

If you don't know much about HTML and CSS (or you just want ideas or quick code snippets), try these lenses:

• Basic HTML
  
• Advanced HTML
  
• Super HTML
  
• HTML Squidoo Tips
  
• Bulleted and Ordered Lists (Shows how to do the picture-bullet lists)
  
• Squidoo CSS
  
• CSS Tricks
  
• Advanced CSS
  

Start collecting your favourite CSS code for Squidoo in a text file. Maybe later you can use it to write a new lens! (Here's My CSS snippets collection)

Note: If all of this has been gobbledigook to you, try reading this useful lens on how to make your first lens. Don't fret - just keep it simple. :)

Now that you know you can style things however you like, you're still going to need pictures. There are plenty of ideas where you can find them on this lens: Free Squidoo Images and Graphics.

My favourite idea is to simply use the Creative Commons search in Firefox (if you're using Firefox you already have this enabled - take a look at the search box in the top right).

Picture tip: Name the picture with keywords related to your text... And remember to attribute your photos!

When you think your lens looks right...

You probably thought about this when you were choosing your keywords, but now is the time to ensure your Lens is primed for SEO and tagged well.

SEO Squidoo How-To

Squidoo Taggings Tricks will help you to make some good choices.

Also check out guides on SEO. Watch where your keywords go - It's important to use them in headings and emphasised text.

Use your keywords

It's also important to use all of your keywords in your lens. If you've added every tag under the sun and not all of them appear in your lens you may be penalised by the search engine for looking spammy. This is a good reason to limit your tags/keywords to 10-20.

Check your tags

Your primary tag is important. thefluffanutta (who is a Squidoo guru) suggests that you make your primary tag one of the more popular relevant tags. Note that there are very different SEO suggestions made for ranking high in Google results. My personal opinion is that you should work on getting your page seen on Squidoo first (to get ratings and lensrank up - and to get suggestions!), then consider changing tags down the track for high Google exposure.

If you've added a few tags and you're not sure if they're good, take a look at the "Related Topics" section next to your lens (after you publish). This will show tags you've chosen. Click on a few and see how many other people are using that tag. If you're the only person it's not going to drive any traffic to you. If the answer is 20-40 people then it's likely to be a great tag for getting traffic (within Squidoo and for for Google rank). If the answer is 400 then it's probably an appropriate tag, but won't get you any extra traffic from people browsing tags unless you're in the top 20 for that tag. Take a look at the tag cloud on these tag pages for other ideas of what might be a good tag for you. Look at both the largest and the smaller tags!

If you're not sure what you're doing, add them all in (for now), publish, wait a few days (so your lens is associated with that tag) and then click on each "related topic" and see how you perform. If you can't find your lens then it's possibly worth leaving that tag off to begin with (add it back when your lens is more popular). Choose carefully!

Squidoo tips for SEO

• SEO Squidoo
  
• SEO Squidoo Lens
  
• SEO Mentor
  
• Squidoo Tags Mentor
  

Note: Change ALL of your titles. No-one likes to see a module called "New Text/Write Module". Change it to something else even if it's not the perfect title or SEO friendly. Change it again later if need be.

Use Squidoo Tools and Squidutils

Get this unofficial module called "Love this Lens" which allows people to rate your lens when they get to the bottom (or middle) or your lens.

Get the lens workshop Greasemonkey extension which will colour code your tags according to popularity (makes it easier to choose good ones), give you a ping link after publishing, promote new Squidutils to you and give you extra stats. Check out all the other great SquidUtils Lensmaster Tools.

Get the Squidoo DE Firefox extension for extra stats in your dashboard and other cool tricks.

Add a table of contents

Turn on your table of contents by going to your intro and clicking "Edit". The next tab across is the "Table of Contents". The third tab here is also useful - Find three Squidoo lenses similar to your own (that you like) and add their details here so that Squidoo notes the similarities and sends traffic accordingly.

Note: If you don't like the way the standard table of contents looks, either use the "Table of Contents" module to create one or copy the links to your modules from that table of contents (they'll all have random numbers assigned) and create your own styled list to function as a table of contents.

Add to your lensroll

While you're out finding similar lenses to yours, add a few to your lensroll (by clicking the smiley face next to the Facebook, Delicious and Twitter share links on their lens). See the picture in this module? There's one of those at the top and bottom of all Squidoo lenses - use that!

Add fun Squidoo modules

Do something fun to your lens, like adding a YouTube module with a clip of your favourite song so people have something to listen to while they read your lens! (Originally I suggested getting a playlist with Grooveshark, but the Clearspring widgets are being phased out as of Feb 2010 and things just aren't working - Stick with YouTube for now!)

Try out the Photo Gallery and Polaroid modules for pictures. Get people arguing with the Duel module. Try the Blackbox module for separating and highlighting small bits of text. Or try the Google Buzz module!

Add a module which will keep your lens current like an RSS feed module, Twitter feed, Google Buzz module, guestbook comments or poll. Polls are the quickest way for a guest to your lens to interact - and they don't need to be logged in. Make it relevant to your lens!

Edit your work

Spellcheck, proofread and cast a critical eye over the layout. Make sure you've written quality prose. Change as you see fit.

• Red Hot Writing Tips
  
• Newbie Squidoo Mistakes
  
• Writing for Squidoo
  
• How to write a feature article
  

Back up your lens if it makes you feel safer. Even just cut-and-paste into a Word Document will keep the words you wrote safe. Run a spellcheck while you're there. Make sure you're saving drafts of your lens too.

Squidoo help and Squidoo secrets

• Read tips for Squidoo newbies.
  
• Read Squidoo tips. And more Squidoo tips.
  
• Pay attention to tips from Giant Squids.
  
• Read Squidoo tips and tricks headquarters.
  
• Look over some Squidoo newbie guides.
  
• Check out The Answer Deck.
  

Socialise with Squidoo chat and SquidU

• Visit SquidU and the Lensmaster Lounge (visit Squid Lounge Help too).
  
• Visit the Squidoo Chat Room.
  

Learn from other Squidoo lensmasters
... and don't forget to rate lenses, favourite (both lens and lensmaster), lensroll and comment!

• Look at some of the best Squidoo lenses.
  
• Pick a hot topic and browse the featured lenses.
  
• See what the Giant squids do.
  
• See the best lenses created by Giant Squids (make sure you look at their formatting, layout and content).
  
• See who the current top lensmasters are and check out their work.
  
• Look at the Giant Squid showcase of featured lenses.
  
• See what sorts of lenses have become lens of the day.
  
• Find out what Squidoo Squid Angels look for in a lens (and more ideas from Angels).
  

Learn advanced Squidoo tricks and Squidoo marketing

• Explore the different modules.
  
• Learn more about good Squidcasting
  
• Read about the best ways to get traffic to your lens.
  
• Read what the Squidoo promotion mentor says about lens promotion.
  
• Learn about the easiest ways to use RSS feeds to get backlinks.
  

Have fun with your networking too!

Check out these group lenses Squidoo Book Club & Squidoo Movie Club.

Submit your lenses to directories and forums
This is good for Google love.

• See the SquidUtils list of the best directories to submit Squidoo lenses.
  
• Try a few of the Google Rank guide's suggestions on good places to submit your Squidoo link.
  
• See the list of forum ideas and advice for forum etiquette.
  

Advice about promoting your lenses
Repeating something I wrote on the SquidU forum:

All links make for good traffic on a basic level. But the trick is to diversify and to make sure that you're promoting the right things for the right places and a variety of things overall.

• Set forum signatures to have relevant blogs or lenses (to that forum) in the signature.
  
• When making blog comments, only mention the one most relevant link.
  
• Always write an article/blog post (or find old relevant articles/blog posts of yours) where you can link to your new lenses. But make sure the article/blog post is a worthwhile read too - not just a "Hi, I wrote this lens" post.
  
• Make sure relevant lenses are linked to in the sidebar of your related blogs.
  
• Use your lenses to link to relevant blogs or relevant articles on those blogs (not just yours!).
  
• When bookmarking your lenses and blog posts (eg in delicious), do it just for your absolute favourites (ie sparingly) and make sure you explain what it is and why it is useful.
  

Don't do all of this at once. Spread it out. Don't go crazy promoting one lens or blog post over two days. Just keep an open eye for opportunities. Whenever you're reading a forum post/blog post where you're inspired to reply, take an extra minute to think if any of your lenses, articles or blog posts would actually be of use to anyone reading that thread/post. If it is, then link it. If not then don't. No-one likes a spammer. :)

Browse Squidoo for ideas

• Get more ideas for lenses.
  
• Use creative writing prompts.
  
• Think up top 10 lists.
  
• Consider what article you would write if you were an author on Cracked.com. :)
  
• Open up an affiliate module and let it inspire an appropriate lens.
  
• Be inventive.
  

You're only going to get better with practise. Do it over again! Make a new lens!