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Squidoo Tips

Five Lens Boost Tips: Beginning of the Month

Oct 4th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

Okay, I admit it. I like my lenses to be in the best payout tier they can be, and I like traffic, two related but separate goals.

So at the beginning of the month, I find myself reviewing my dashboard. In particular, I look for lenses that are starting out near a tier cutoff. I look for lenses with over a hundred visitors per week, yet they're tier 3. And I look for lenses whose fortunes have recently improved, like, say, my Squidquizzes which you all suddenly discovered last month even though I made them over a year ago. ;)

How can I help them begin the month on good footing, or, much more importantly, help them stay where they are now and not drop?

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My Squidoo Lensrank Has Dropped: and That's a Good Thing!

Aug 4th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet

Doot de dooo. Time to check the dashboard and see how the lenses are doing. Hm hm hm, good good, hey, that's one's back in the second tier, and...

WHAT? 300 visits + recent sales = THIRD TIER? Oh, Squidoo, I am WOUNDED TO THE QUICK!

You're picking on me! No, wait, you've changed the lens algorithm to cheat me out of my rightful lensrank! It's a conspiracy! It's a bug! It's inconceivable!

And it's been happening with that particular lens a lot lately.

In fact, this is a VERY good thing.

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Updating Squidoo Lenses: Staying Fresh

Jun 3rd, 2010
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

After 60 (?) days, a lens loses lensrank because it's not fresh.

Also, Google rewards frequently updated content.

These are two separate things, but they go together.

What are your techniques for keeping lenses fresh?

Here's some of mine.

Quick Fix -- do one of the following

  • While watching TV, I'll sort my dashboard by date (click the date column at top), then edit and re-publish. Don't do all of them on the same day -- stagger them so you're doing 10 or so on different days.
  • (more...)

Squidoo Graphics: Colors, Themes, Black Box Tips

Jun 1st, 2010
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet

I've been thinking. Try as I might, I'm a journeyman when it comes to Squidoo SEO: I have the basic techniques down, I know what I'm doing, but I've got the online equivalent of an undergraduate college degree rather than a PhD. Whereas I've been doing computer graphics and layout since 1980, HTML since 1993, and CSS since--well, whenever it first came out.

So I should share more of my tips on graphics and webpage design. Here's a few!

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Updates to Squidoo Modules List

Jan 13th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet

There have been a few recent modules added to the Squidoo module browser. They're listed under "new" at the bottom, but haven't been filed under any category, so the only way to find them is to click "Browse all modules" and then search for them by name. They are:

  • iTunes - earn commission, feature iTunes tracks
  • My Lenses - show your lenses filed under a certain category or topic.
  • RSS Mashup - show recent posts from several RSS or blog feeds.

Click links above to see them demonstrated on my "Secret Squidoo Modules" lens!

NOTE: All of these have NoFollow links, so "My Lenses" isn't the best way to get link juice from a lensography. But the content is crawled/indexed/seen by search engines.

Also, did you know? The Netflix module is commission-earning too!

I've been adding and updating my complete list of all Squidoo modules, so you might want to stop by and browse the list or download a new, updated version.

Quickly Check Your Webpage for Broken Links

Jan 7th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet

Here's a handy tip! Squidoo lensmaster carriewhite asked in the SquidU forums for a feature to check for dead links on lenses, and thefluffanutta of SquidUtils said there's a number of free online tools for that.

I tried the W3 Link Checker as Fluff suggested, but its interface is a little intimidating and hard to understand for Jane Average Web User.

After poking around, I would like to recommend the following free tool: iwebtool's Broken Link Checker.

It limits you to 5 checks an hour unless you're a paid subscriber. That seems fair enough! The interface is simple: a check means a link is working, a red x means it's broken.

"You Have No Right to Traffic"

Jan 3rd, 2010
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet

I was just rereading Seth Godin's The Nine Free Things Every Site (Or Lens!) Should Do, which is the link SquidU's Answer Deck gives you if you click "How do I get more traffic?"

As usual, Seth is simple and short, whereas my own 3-part Squidoo tips tutorial on how to build web traffic is in-depth and too long.

One of Seth's points jumped out at me:

You have no right to traffic. If you're lucky, and GOOD, you earn some.

You'll earn it when you do something daring, interesting, useful, provocative, free, compelling, emotional or urgent.

Hurry.

I've said this in other ways, but never quite so bluntly: YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO [WEB] TRAFFIC.

There are millions of fascinating, useful, incredible, wonderful, exactly-what-people-want web pages out there. A web user will never see more than a tiny fraction of them. So why should anyone pick your page, out of all those pages, to visit? Why stay there? Why read it?

It's up to you to make it worth their time.

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Students: Untapped Web Traffic Source

Dec 27th, 2009
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet

An awful lot of my Squidoo lenses get queries from students.

How to Make a Pyramid Kite gets kids trying to build pyramids for a school project.

Ancient Greece Odyssey, my travel diary, gets kids needing maps of Greece or information about Greek history and art.

My California Sea Hare page gets medical students trying to track down neurological research using sea slugs!

How do I know? I watch the Traffic Stats tab on my lenses and monitor for phrases like "Roman names for Greek gods" or "How to make a pyramid school project".

This suggests a powerful untapped strategy for web traffic.

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How Your Squidoo Bio Builds Backlinks

Dec 2nd, 2009
by Greekgeek.
3 comments

Ooo! Everyone's always wondering where to get backlinks. One thing people often forget about is that inter-linking counts. That is, links from the same domain as your page count as a backlink! That's why Squidoo cross-links lenses in so many ways.

There is a powerful backlink source hidden right in plain sight: your Squidoo lensmaster bio.

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Add Tasty Bait to Search Engine Results!

Nov 30th, 2009
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

People find things on the web by searching. SEO helps you get your page in front of people searching for it. SEO is like throwing fishing hooks into a sea full of hungry fish. The more SEO you know, the better you'll be able to ensure your hook gets seen by lots of fish.

But a fishing hook isn't enough to catch a fish. Even if you get to page one of search engine results, you still need your "hook" to stand out from all the rest. What kind of bait should you use to attract a click on your link?

Look at this example:

search-engine-results

Something jumps out when you compare these search results.

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