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updating-lenses

When Squidoo (or any) website is glitching...

Aug 8th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
3 comments

We've endured about two weeks of connection timeouts and edits that refuse to take. You may want to give up entirely and work on some other site. But if you've got work on Squidoo that can't wait, get in the habit of this simple, VITAL technique:

Right before hitting the "Save" or "Post" button on a field of text, ALWAYS click Control-A (Command-A on Mac) to Select All, then Control-C (Command-C) to copy the contents to the clipboard.

That way, no matter what, you've saved what you just wrote and can copy it to a text document or try again. It's an imperfect solution -- and I advise working in a text document for longer chunks of text and pasting them across -- but it will save you at least a little screaming.

Oh No, Should I Update More Often?

Feb 13th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
3 comments

Ugh. There's a part of the Squidoo lensrank algorithm I've been ignoring, because it's not what I want to be doing. From the Squidoo FAQ:

Wikipedia has a system with one entry per topic. We don't. Instead, we encourage multiple lenses on a topic. Then, we use an automated algorithm-LensRank-to rank the lenses. We look at community ratings, lensmaster reputation, clickthrough rates, frequency of updates, inbound and outbound links, revenue generated, and lots of other factors and give the lens a number.

Fine and dandy. But I have over 200 lenses! I generally don't update unless I've heard some news, discovered a product, or found some interesting tidbit to add to an existing lens. Only rarely do I go back and substantially tweak/improve lenses. A photo here, a caption there, adding a new featured lens or widget, sure, but most of my updates are cosmetic. I republish each lens every sixty days, since lenses sitting longer than that appear under the "needs to be updated" label, but beyond that, it's ad hoc.

However, I'm beginning to suspect that republishing lenses once a week really does give a lensrank boost, especially to bottom-of-the-heap lenses. Check out this week's lensrank on Sunday, two days after I actually did republish all my lenses:

Most of the tiers haven't changed that much, which is good: they're holding position through performance. However tier 4 ("dud") shows a distinct improvement between last week and this week.

IS it worth it? Republishing every lens takes a lot of time, and updates are meaningless unless one looks at every lens and edits/improves each one. I'm sure most of those updated tier 4s are just going to earn 25 to 30 more cents as tier 3 lenses, at best. Whoopie.

I don't want to just republish for the sake of republishing. It's time consuming and perhaps not as valuable as making another lens. However, I may be doing it more often than every sixty days, now.

Fooey. I honestly hope the results turn out to be "it doesn't make much difference," but that uptick is troubling me.

And in more cheery news, my 2011 goals are on track so far. Can't wait for the next payout.

A Small Update on that Tier Three Marathon

Dec 18th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

I cut short that Tier 3 Lens Marathon abruptly because of real life ickiness hitting the fan right after I signed off. I alluded to it in a Tweet and won't rehash, but suffice it to say I was in no mood to work on Squidoo for a few days, and when I came back, I had other things to work on.

So the question is, did 20-30 minutes of work on my bottom-dwelling lenses lift them up enough that they would at least earn pennies a month, which isn't much but adds up long-term?

That was...let's see, 15 lenses:

  1. moved from rank 224,041 to 97259. NO.
  2. moved from lensrank 223,022 to 115,816. NO.
  3. moved from LR 223,021 to 86,437. MAYBE.
  4. moved from LR 223,020 to 176,095. NO.
  5. moved from LR 210,838 to 113,621. NO.
  6. moved from 202,803 to 176,092. NO.
  7. moved from LR 184,469 to 96,551. NO.
  8. moved from LR 180,666 to 91,101. MAYBE.
  9. moved from LR 178,986 to 173,659. NO.
  10. moved from LR 161,985 to 115,814. NO.
  11. moved from LR 161,336 to 142,165. NO.
  12. moved from LR 160,519 to 101,840. NO.
  13. moved from LR 158,377 to 126,461. NO.
  14. moved from LR 126,461 to 90,548. MAYBE.
  15. moved from LR 123,718 to 71,414. YES - BY PAGE BREAK.

Conclusion: it's not worth updating lenses below tier 3 hoping they'll get to tier 3, unless you've really got some new material.

However, I did learn one thing! With #15, I took two related lenses that were getting tiny bits of traffic, but both were in the LR 100K range. I deleted lens B and copied its contents into a Page Break page for Lens A. That combined the amount of traffic, clicks, etc that two lenses were getting enough to create a single tier 3 lens.

NOTE: Frequent updates can continue to lift lensrank a little more each time. I know some lensmasters improve their chances by republishing all their lenses frequently. But that is time-consuming for the amount of return you're getting. I was looking for simple ways to improve lenses so they would earn at least a few pennies AND maintain themselves.

I think it is better to sink most of one's time onto more successful lenses. I was simply willing to try to sink a day into least-successful lenses, if it meant that long-term, they'd pay more. It looks like they don't.

It might be worth doing this not on the bottommost lenses in your dashboard, but on the lenses that over in the 70,000-90,000 range. It's possible that with minimal improvements,they could consistently pull in a tier 3 payment (all of a quarter).I may try that as an experiment at some point.

Tier Three Lens Marathon, Part 2

Dec 4th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
No comments yet
  • In my last post, I got inspired to take all my dud Squidoo lenses at the bottom of the dashboard and see how many I can improve enough for them to earn a tier three payout.

I quickly rediscovered why each lens was doing so poorly. They weren't on very popular search topics, so trying to earn visits to them is quite challenging. Many will remain duds.

Nonetheless, I have set myself this challenge, because even when I fail, I often learn something. In this case, I'm learning what one can do QUICKLY but meaningfully to update a lens, when you don't have time to do lots of keyword research and SEO, beautiful graphics and CSS, hours of researching/improving content, or tens of minutes doing self-promotion in places that probably won't give much (or any) longterm traffic anyway.

Once again, I'll be slowing myself down by spending 5 minutes telling YOU what I did for 20 minutes to improve each lens. I'm trying to share tips you can adapt for your own lens updates, although, of course, part of the reason for these posts is to create some (very low-quality) backlinks.

BACK TO WORK! Next lens up is...

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Tier Three Lens Update Marathon: Ready, Set, Go!

Dec 4th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

In a SquidU post, Timewarp asks if Tier Three lenses, with their piddling 20 cents a month income, are really worth it. My short answer is that (a) yes, they're worth it, because if ten Squidoo lenses are earning you $2 a month, you're $12 wealthier at years' end, and (b) yes, it would be better if tier one was capped at $25 (or $20) and the excess distributed to lensrank tiers two and three.

However, that got me to thinking. If tier three lenses really are worth something -- and they are to me, since my 100 tier three lenses are earning me over $200 a year -- then I should kick those lenses below tier three into tier 3!

To my dismay, I discovered that out of 159 lenses in my main account, I now have OVER FORTY LENSES below Tier Three. Inconceivable! Intolerable!

Some lenses are duds. They just aren't going to earn payouts. Our time is better spent improving our GOOD lenses, the ones that are successful, rather than wasting time on duds. But still. I look at my dashboard and see many lenses with less than 10 visitors a week, no sales, and few clickouts in tier 3. Surely I can get half of those 40 dud lenses up to tier 3 with one day of improvements. At least, I'm going to try. So here's what I'm doing to improve each lens.

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How I Got an Old Squidoo Lens from Lensrank 100,000+ to 2000

Nov 11th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

After nearly a year of lensrank 100,000+, my Tier One Challenge Lens has climbed to lensrank 1,872 today,

a month and a day after I entered it in the Tier One Challenge. Of course, getting there is step one. Holding it there for a month is the actual challenge. But I'm encouraged by the fact that it's been hanging around in the 2000 range for over a week now, and has not dipped below 3900 in 3 weeks.

Here's a quick overview of the before-and-after stats, and the chief things I did to improve it.

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Thad Has a Thought

Nov 4th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

(Yes, I am Thad)

I've avoided posting this because I'm afraid it might set off a kerfluffle.

But ostrich mode is boring, so.

It has always been true that a lens published mid-month will probably not earn until the next month, because however strong its launch, its average lensrank for all the days it didn't exist should be estimated as...what...? two million?  Lower than any lens that had a single visitor However, I think it was once possible to get a payout for a lens' first month of existence, if it did phenomenally well.

However, if I'm understanding Fluffanutta right -- and he knows Squidoo's guts as well as anybody -- a lens now earns nothing from the Ad Pool during its first partial month of existence, full stop. (It is eligible for affiliate sales through modules like Amazon from day one.)

This raises a question.

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Great Ideas from the Tier One Challenge Thread

Oct 22nd, 2010
by Greekgeek.
3 comments

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!

Responding to Traffic Stats and Visitor Searches

Oct 20th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

LisaAuch asked a good question in SquidU on how we update lenses (which could apply to any kind of webpage). My answer got longwinded, so I'm posting it here!

95% of the time, I confess, I assume I made a good page and don't update much. I'll just skim titles and images to see if anything jumps out at me that I could tweak. I'll trim a word or two since I tend to be longwinded. Then I hit publish.

During the 5% of the time when I decide to make a significant update, it's for one of four reasons:

  1. I have new content to add
  2. I've decided to improve the graphics and appearance,
  3. I've decided to improve the on-page optimization to increase traffic, or
  4. I want to add things people are more likely to want to click on (which boosts lensrank).

With 3, it's often because I've learned a new SEO method I didn't know before. For example, using words and phrases from searches related to my main keyword, rewriting titles so that the most significant keywords are at the start, or reviewing images to make sure their filenames and alt-names are concrete words and phrases like "pictures of the statue of liberty" that people are more likely to search for (as opposed to, "liberty").

One time consuming but powerful method is to

use traffic stats as clues on how to improve a lens

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Getting a Lens to Tier One: Action Plan

Oct 13th, 2010
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

Not every lens has content that can achieve Squidoo tier one. I have some lenses that aren't going to get above tier 3, or if they do, it would take tons of social promotion, and they'd drop back down as soon as I stopped.

So when I selected a lens to submit to the Tier One Challenge, I looked carefully for one with the potential to do better. I needed a lens where I knew why it wasn't succeeding, so I knew how to improve it.

Why it wasn't succeeding: quiz module content is not indexed by search engines, and it had little else besides pictures, so it was getting no search traffic.

Why it might succeed: Its topic satisfies 5 separate, overlapping searches/audiences: mythology, trivia quizzes, Athena, pictures, and paganism. The topic had the potential for clickthroughs and interaction, and maybe the odd sale. Also, it's in my primary niche. I have other lenses, blogs, a messy collection of sites and nodes I've scattered across the web that can be tapped for traffic and promotion.

Squidoo ratings and social promotion are great, but they are not enough to keep a lens in tier 1. A lens must be self-sustaining.

So now comes work. LOTS OF WORK. What have I done so far to improve my test lens' chances?

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