Adventures in Squidoo, SEO, CSS and Web Design
Some Squidoo modules are built-in affiliate marketing, supplementing Squidoo ad payouts with sales commissions.
For example, Amazon modules send us “royalties” if a visitor makes a purchase through them. We get a commission for any purchase the visitor makes after clicking on that link! (Tip: if you regularly make 7 or more Amazon sales a month, it’s time to get your own Amazon Associates ID. Captain Loyalis explains why.)
Other Squidoo modules, like Zazzle, don’t earn a commission, but members of those online e-commerce sites can can use the appropriate module to show off their products and stores.
What’s in it for the rest of us? Should we, as one member in SquidU said he was doing, rip out non-commercial-earning modules?
There’s four or five reasons why the answer is “Not necessarily!”
Remember how I talked about "making your search results look sexy" in my lens on Squidoo and SEO?
I noted that the two-line blurb that shows up in Google search results is your big chance to "sell" your page to the searching public:
A juicy, "I want to read more!" excerpt is what you want people to see. You can’t necessarily bait every possible “long tail” search phrase with juicy verbal bait, but at least make sure your keywords first appear in a sentence that shows off what your page has to offer.
Did I pay attention to my own advice when making this blog?
Look! Look! It took 1 day to get my Squidbits blog to the top spot on Google, even though there's a surprising number of webpages out there about "Squid bits"!
There's just one... little... problem...
Welcome back to the third and final segment of my “Lensrank secrets” study. In Part I we squeezed the Squidoo FAQ for every scrap of information it could tell us about lensrank. In Part II, we tackled the Squidoo Dashboard stats, on the theory that most of those factor into lensrank (the FAQ showed that many do). Whether or not they are all lensrank factors, they certainly give us a lot of clues about how to improve and promote our Squidoo lenses.
Now I’m going to finish up with an in-depth look at the “individual lens stats” part of the Squidoo Dashboard.
I realize my first few posts on this blog are awfully dense, and the next one promises more of same.
So it’s time to shake things up a little with my first guest blogger, none other than Samhain the Cat!
Samhain is a real pro when it comes to getting noticed, and she’ll be the first to tell you she’s at the top of any meaningful search. Of course, she’s also an expert at NOFOLLOW— you’ll never find her with any search engine on the planet, when she doesn’t want to be found!
So without further ado, let me vacate the keyboard so she can give you:
In my last post I dissected the Squidoo FAQ to squeeze out every bit of official information about lensrank.
There's another possible source of official lensrank information right under our noses: the Squidoo Dashboard. I submit, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that Squidoo is not expending great gobs of computing and hosting power calculating and storing lens stats for our sole benefit. Most of these stats measure factors alluded to in the FAQ. I suspect that most if not all of our Squidoo Dashboard stats are lensrank factors. We don’t know which carry the most weight, and the lensrank algorithm changes from time to time, but dashboard stats tell us a lot about what Squidoo, at least, thinks is important for an effective webpage.
So let’s dig deeper and see what the Squidoo Dashboard has to tell us.
Tier chasing or lensrank chasing is a bit like a dog chasing cars -- there are better moving targets to focus one's energies on, and why does it matter?! But that car bumper is very shiny.”
—Greekgeek, in SimeyC’s SquidU thread “Lensrank Buzz”
Lensrank has been a frequent topic of discussion in SquidU lately — more than usual, I mean.
I feel ambivalent about lensrank. I’ve seen a lot of internet communities in which post count, forum ranks, join date or some other arbitrary system gets used to gauge a member's worth.
Except that lensrank measures something more meaningful than mere post count. It’s an attempt to gauge lens worth, so that low-content lenses get pushed to the back row and exceptional lenses get to shine. That’s a necessary quality control loop on a site where anyone is allowed to submit content. Lensrank also yields benefits worth chasing. The highest-ranked lenses get extra search engine and visitor exposure on Squidoo's multiple “Top 100” lists. Squidoo's search box, almost the only way to navigate the site, returns results by lensrank.
Finally, of course, lensrank determines payout. Even though I want to keep Squidoo as a fun hobby, I can’t help fiddling with my lenses just below a payout tier cutoff! I track my Squidoo lensrank and payout stats each month. Yes, the bumper is shiny.
So let us examine this shiny bumper. Just what is lensrank based on, and... more importantly for you folks, I’m sure... how do I keep 10-20 of my lenses in the Top 2000?
Rather than post my musings about How to Squidoo in the Squidoo member forums (SquidU Lensmaster Lounge), I've decided to start Yet Another Squidoo Blog. It's easier to find entries later, and I can use my own lenses as examples without feeling guilty for self-promoting in the wrong forum.
I'm still getting this blog set up, and the grout isn't yet dry. However, content is king, so I'm just going to launch into one of the Squidoo topics I've been batting about the lounge lately.
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