Posts tagged spotlight on Eurosquid

 Today we turn the SPOTLIGHT on brand new 100 Club Member Eurosquid.   Eurosquid answers questions about successful lens creation,  shares some really great tips and information about his favorite Squidoo lenses.

1. What is your best Squidoo lens making tip?

After making a lens, get feedback from other Squids and improve it. I frequently submit lenses to the “Critique Me” section of Squidu. I get lots of great feedback there. Some have said that this forum should be only for newbies. I strongly disagree. We can all use constructive feedback. I wish more Squids would participate there.

2. What is the very first thing you do AFTER you’ve published a new lens? What is the second thing you do? And why?

The first and most important thing is to get the new lens a few “do follow” (recognized by Google) links from sites outside of Squidoo with high Google Page Rank Status (PR 3 or above). Getting quality links is the best way to get a lens discovered by the search engines such as Google. But many links you can easily get are poor quality or are not recognized by Google. Every Squid should have several places where they can reliably and easily get “do follow” links.

One of my favorites is Lensroll.com. If you are a Giant Squid you can become a contributing author on Valley of the Giants Blog. This is a Blog I have started together with some other Giant Squids which now has Google Page Rank 3. All Giant Squids are invited to join and post there. It is a great way to get free quality links to your Squidoo lens. We now have 10 contributing Giant Squid authors.

3. List 5 things you faithfully do before publishing every new lens.

I can not think of 1 thing that I do faithfully before publishing a new lens. Each lens is a new project.

4. What do you think makes a great lens really great? Is it the design style? The amount of pictures? The writing style? Or is it something else?

A great lens should inform and entertain. It should be a good balance of helpful new, interesting information and “fun factor”. The types of lenses that I and most people usually make can be divided into “Informative Lenses” and “Shopping Lenses”, but I apply this rule to both.

Informative lenses usually have lots of text, but the danger is that they can be overloaded, heavy and boring. To counter this, I never put two text modules adjacent to each other. After a text module I put a photo (the Polaroid modules are great) or a video (don’t use the Youtube modules, use the new video modules they are bigger and look nicer) or an Amazon module or a poll or duel module. I try to include a variety of modules, but I always keep it relevant to the subject matter.

Shopping lenses usually have lots of information about products, but the danger is that they may become too “hard sell”. Never put affiliate links in the introduction module. Avoid having a string of Amazon modules. After every Amazon or selling module, put a photo or a video, etc. I admit to having created lenses which are mostly Amazon modules. But doing many of these kinds of lenses will never get you Giant status.

Then add some HTML to make the lens attractive. For example, putting a colored frame around all of your text is very easy to do. If it is color coordinated to a theme, it can add style to your lens.

My best example of this is my lens Footed Pajamas for Adults. When I first created that lens in February 2008, it did not achieve much success, as it was very basic with several Amazon modules, a few photos and a duel module. Then in October 2008, I went to the “Critique Me” forum in Squidu and requested ideas. Some very smart Squids told me to add more interesting content and gave some great suggestions. I followed their advice. Then I went to the Angels forum and requested blessings which I received. After that the lens rank increased and the lens got a great deal of attention. On 14 November it was selected for the Giant Squid Community Showcase Award. Then 5 December it was selected as Lens of the Day. On 29 December it was selected as Best Shopping Lens of 2008.

What is the secret behind the success of that lens? It has a lot of variety breaking up the shopping modules. For example:

* There are cool fun videos and photos, such as celebrities in footed pajamas.

* There are short bits of information about pajamas sprinkled throughout the lens with the title “Pajama Facts”.

* There is a duel module where many people have expressed their thoughts about adults wearing footed pajamas.

* There is a voting module where people can express what they find interesting about footed pajamas.

* There is a relevant color theme through-out the lens in the text modules and framing many of the photos. Pink and light-blue are traditional pajama colors.

I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a controversial and interesting subject like Footed Pajamas for Adults. Most people do not even realize that they exist, so it was a fun topic to work on. But adding the variety of content, together with the fun visuals is what made this lens successful.

5. When starting a new lens, how much research do you do? Do you follow any type of plan? Or do you just wing it?

This depends on the topic and how complex it is.

One of the challenges when creating a shopping lens is to find a product that will sell. I use several sources to get great ideas for shopping lenses. I wrote a detailed post in Valley of the Giants Blog called “Sources for Successful Squidoo Sales Sites“.

For informative lenses such as my lens about Marilyn Monroe, I do a great deal of research. Wikipedia is the best place to start. But the mistake many people make is to simply copy, or repeat the information in Wikipedia, or they use the Wikipedia module. For my tribute to Marilyn, I read FBI files, watched movies, sorted through Youtube Videos and read through lists of her quotes.

Again, you will notice that, while this is an informative lens, there are never two text modules next to each other. The text is broken up with photos, videos, interactivity, etc. And there is HTML added, to emphasize the first letter of every text module. The mix of information and “fun factor” keeps this lens interesting and not tedious.

6. What is your best advice for SEO?

Get good quality links, as discussed above. This is crucial. Have several sources outside of Squidoo you can reliably turn to in order to get links. This will get your lens quickly found by the search engine and bring targeted traffic to your lens.

7.  What is yur best tip for monetizing a Squidoo lens?

Here is a simple trick most people overlook. Update your highest traffic lenses at least once per month. Why? An up-to-date lens with good traffic has the best chances of earning money due to its lensrank. Currently we are getting paid more than $10 for lenses with lensrank above 2000, and more than $2 for lenses with lensrank above 10,000. If you have several of those, they add up. You can find more information about that in a blog post I wrote on how to earn a few extra dollars from Squidoo.

When creating a lens, research the products you are linking to. After creating a lens, find out what is not working and ask why. Once, in addition to my Amazon modules, I placed several affiliate links to some great looking, relevant products. After a few months, I noticed that, although I had sent a great deal of traffic I had made no sales and earned no commissions. I wrote to the affiliate manager and asked why. She wrote “The problem that I am seeing is that… our price is much higher than the Amazon pricing (we are priced at $82 and they are priced at $74 max with many choices much lower). You are probably getting traffic that is checking out (our products) than back tracking and checking out Amazon“. That probably should have been obvious, but it did not dawn on me until I asked.

8. Please tell us about your favorite and newest lenses. 

I enjoyed creating an informative lens about The Broadway Revival of the musical ”Hair“.  It was fun to research it and the songs brought back great memories. The story behind the lens is that I was creating a series of shopping lenses related to hair (electrolysis vs. laser hair removal, Silk’n home laser system, baldness, etc). I was doing the research for the next “hair” related lens when I learned about the ”Hair” Broadway revival. I loved making that lens. I just wish it got more traffic.

My newest fun lens is about Home Hair Removal.

My favorite Squidoo lens that I created is “Footed Pajamas for Adults“.  It is a controversial, fun subject. I enjoy the comments that people leave. And of course it was fun to get the Lens of the Day.

But my all time favorite Squidoo Lens, is not mine. It is dc64’s touching lens “Life as a Foster Child“. Deborah had the courage to reveal her deepest memories and her innermost feelings about her tragic childhood. She has taken a very difficult subject and written it with such a gripping style that I have returned to reread it several times. I think that Deborah is one of the most talented writers in Squidoo. Notice the excellent choice of photos, which not only highlight her story but also balance the lens and give the reader a much needed break from a difficult subject. I think that this lens could probably be developed into a book. Any literary agents out there?