How to make a quality lens in 20 minutes or less.

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 35 people | Log in to rate

Ranked #2,189 in How-To, #23,814 overall

But there's no time!

Being a great lensmaster is way easier than it looks, unlike riding a unicycle or juggling badgers, or juggling unicycling badgers while unicycling on a juggling badger.

Um, don't worry about the comparison. Just take my word for it.

The trick is to make it a gradual process. I'll show you how (gradually). You can favorite this lens to get squidcasts about my additions to the content.

1. Focus focus focus! 

(Not your brain, stupid)

Well, okay, focus your brain.

But more importantly, focus your lens. Don't, say, write a lens about all the fine mammals in the animal kingdom (unless you plan to just hit the high points).

Instead, write one about just one mammal. And the next day, make another lens about another mammal.

Later, on your Mammals of the World lens, you can link to all your various mammalian lenses.

2. Leave room for improvement 

Don't do it all at once.

A great lens is one that has been developed for days, or even weeks. It can't happen all in one day (unless you have a whole day and you're bored).

Rome wasn't built in a day-- so don't build a lens about Rome in a day and expect it to conquer the known world (or give us anything as great as caesar salad).

Instead, build in just the basics, and realize that quality lenses develop over time.

3. Design your lens for interaction 

First, get the ball rolling with some excellent links, insights, and media. Then engage your reader by asking for feedback. Everyone's got an opinion, many of your readers will have excellent ideas, and Squidoo makes room for them both.

What are some ways you've found of easily making great lenses?

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Linkouts

Instead of writing all the text myself, I'll just include links to someone who's said it better. It tends to make my lenses a great jumping-off point to find great content on a given subject.5 points

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Yaeger CPA Review - Pass your CPA Exams now

I am not really sure about CPA courses but this one caught my eye. I went through the profile of the
company and was astonished by the sincereity in which the whole thing was put in and well%u20263 points

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Let Michaelmas House Make Your Home Look Beautiful

Choose from Titchmarsh and Goodwin English Oak furniture, Lloyd Loom furniture, Penny Pine hand made plate racks, shelves,
wine racks, mirrors, book cases, DVD racks and more, bespoke painted and waxed solid wood furniture, and a lovely selection of beautiful home accessories and gifts.2 points

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SBMCT

Acceptance certificate to be used in conjunction with a conditional sale agreement or an equipment lease.
The certificate states that the goods have been installed or delivered as required and or satisfactory.1 point

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Add your own.

That's a challenge! What would you add to this lens?0 points

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All-out Brawls

I added a Duel module to one of my lenses and started a fight. People keep coming back just to draw more blood. It's almost too much (but then, who doesn't love a good fight).0 points

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Rewrite an Article

Find an article that you found very interesting, rewrite it, and add some links to add some pizazz!0 points

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0 points

4. Avoid walls of text 

They're time consuming, and boring to read.

Ever read a 4,000-word essay for fun?

Me too. Pretty often, in fact.

Of course, only in books. But people don't use the internet for that-- they're online for something quick, interactive, and compelling.

Like pictures, which make a great addition to many lenses. Just make sure they're relevant, unlike these randomly chosen pictures tagged "random":

#6 insects by romana klee

#6 insects

An alternate poison by ConfusedSam

An alternate poison

A different view by ConfusedSam

A different view

musical spider. by highwaycharlie

musical spider.

From East Village with Love / 20100102.SD850IS.03602 / SML by See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

From East Village wi...

ferrari store 1 by alamez

ferrari store 1

boy scouts by romana klee

boy scouts

DSC03176 by ConfusedSam

DSC03176

Rock N' Rolla II by Adrian Miles ©

Rock N' Rolla II

Rock N' Rolla by Adrian Miles ©

Rock N' Rolla

automatically generated by Flickr

6. Keep a SquiDiary 

I'd call it a Squid-Do list, but that's just confusing.

Use a Google Notebook, keep a text file handy on your desktop, or just make a lens about lenses you're going to make (first item: lens about lenses you're going to make).

Then, whenever you browse across something that inspires you, add it to your list.

Once there are a few items on it, you'll be surprised at how often you see new content to add to your lenses. By the time you get back to your dashboard, you won't have to hesitate for a second-- just pull out your list and in a few minutes, you'll be launching yet another lens.

7. More tomorrow! 

Like I said, one of the tricks is daily updates. It's the gradual work, not the cram work, that makes a project worth sharing.

Go start a lens, then come back and tell me about it on the guestbook. And don't forget to keep updating from time to time-- a great lens is a current lens.

What's Your Newest Lens? 

Don't forget the link!

Did it take long?

submit
  • Reply
    Ener-G Ener-G Dec 28, 2009 @ 9:25 pm
    Ummm, when was the last time you updated this lens? It seems to have a lot of spammy entries on those darn plexos...which need regular pruning!
  • Reply
    merilyn merilyn Nov 2, 2009 @ 4:41 am
    Thanks for all these tips. So much to learn but baby steps... One of my latest is http://www.squidoo.com/makingpractisehappy Any tips gladly received!
  • Reply
    BarbRad BarbRad Oct 14, 2009 @ 4:58 am
    I have been figuring out some of this on my own. My first lenses were way too long, I think, because I thought I had to put it all in one lens. Now I'm wondering whether I should break up some of those early lenses and move some modules out. Now I've begun to think in terms of a group of related lenses rather than one lens that covers a lot of different facets of a topic. I wish I'd know that when I started. But I didn't know this lens was here when I started.
  • Reply
    srpatterosn srpatterosn Jul 8, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
    How do you get the link lovin going, what's the module name?
  • Reply
    spaghetti spaghetti May 24, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
    Excellent info for a very very new newbie! Thank you,
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by berthart

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