Since LindaJM started the Tier One Challenge on Oct 10, the challenge thread has grown to 15 pages. Way back at the start, Fluffanutta said:
People in this challenge need to think about how they are going to get their lenses to the top.
It won’t be enough to simply drop a link in the forum – you need to work on the content of the lens: update it and add some fresh quality text. Add plenty of clickout opportunities and sale modules where relevant. Also, check the tags and build some new links from other related and authoritative websites.
That is an excellent, succinct summary of lens improvement and promotion. Take about 30 seconds to ponder it!
Besides that nugget of distilled wisdom, the thread has become a compendium of brief or not-so-brief notes on techniques we’re using to improve and promote lenses. Here’s a quick survey / summary of tips from all fifteen pages of the thread so far:
- Write on-topic blog posts featuring a link to the lens.
- Linda asked us to consider Three Key Questions in tweaking our lens.
- Work on Keyword research, SEO, and Squidoo tags.
- Add more interactivity (Polls, Duels, Plexos).
- Add Amazon Spotlights, Zazzle, eBay, etc. (See my “Selling Stuff” Module list for which are commission-earning, and which simply invite clickthroughs).
- Cross-link with one’s other lenses via Featured Lenses module, Squidoo tags, or links in the body of the lens. Links from Squidoo’s ever.com co-brand may be treated as backlinks from a different domain.
- Post article on your topic, with link to lens, on Hubpages, Gather, Ezine, or other article submission sites.
- Alex is pinging “reader services” with (I assume) the RSS feeds of lenses, and I need to know what he means by a “bookmark drip” (perhaps bookmarking on places like del.ici.ous and Tagfoot?)
Another Fluffanugget:
Send a SquidCast. Write a good paragraph or two telling people what the lens is about, and why it they might be interested in it. Something juicy that grabs them. If you’ve syndicated your SquidCast feed properly, then this message will go out across the blogosphere and social networks giving your lens more exposure and backlinks.
- Promote lens with social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc). [Remember: social media is usually more effective as a way to reach people, not search engines.]
- Look for places to post backlinks (comments on related blogs, but be careful to be a good contributor not a spammer), related subject directories.
- Hard-core backlink building.
- Modify module subtitles to target keywords, or alternate keywords (related searches).
- Utilize Sidebar Widgets, especially Amazon Spotlight.
- Tidy/tweak appearance, graphics, content!
- See Jollyvillechick’s Lens Promotion Followup Checklist and a whole slew of good ideas and another slew.
- Join a discussion forum related to topic, participate meaningfully, include link in profile.
- Add outbound links from the lens to excellent, relevant blog posts, or lensroll related lenses (says Fluff: these links add keyword-rich anchor text AND invite clickouts).
- Twitter Search module to get updated, related content on lens (NOT Twitter Follow, which is not indexed by search engines).
- Use Ping.fm to promote across all your social media accounts quickly.
- Break lens into multiple, more focused pages using Page Break Module.
- Add more clickable, specifically-named images for clickouts and image search traffic.
Finally, CCGAL has created a lensography for the challenge featuring all the challenge lenses.
And in fact, this post was GOING to be a survey of all those lenses, but I got distracted. So stay tuned!
Great post! Thanks for the summary, saving me lots of time with the best of the best suggestions.
Absolutely brilliant advice… and lots of work for me this weekend.. thanks
Thanks for the page break module, a week ago I looked 1 nice lens and it has some pages on lens. I wonder how to make it, and now I find that tutorial