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The Best Lens Directories

May 30th, 2009

Some of the best places to get backlinks to your lenses are directories. These are websites that collect and categorize links to other websites, and there are a growing number of directories specifically tailored to Squidoo Lenses.

I have been assessing the relative merits of these Squidoo directories, and I have put together this review of the best ones for your lenses. The ones I’ve listed here have been proven to provide backlinks, and will pass PageRank and maybe even a little traffic.

Squoogle
This is a traditional directory run by Lensmaster N376 that accepts links to Squidoo, HubPages, Gather, Associated Content and LaunchTags. You can pick up to 3 categories as well as a number of keywords (tags). All submissions are moderated, so check the submission guidelines before you add yours.

IsleOfSquid
This is a moderated directory by Captain Squid. Lenses can be submited to one of a huge list of categories, plus you can write reviews for other peoples lenses. Reciprocal links are optional, but using the link provided could get your submission ranked higher when your visitors click on it. Related to this is the SquidPedia directory, also run by Captain Squid, which works in a similar way and will grow to be just as good.

Lensroll
Another lens directory run by N376, but this one is more like Digg, and is probably the oldest and biggest of all Squidoo directories. You submit a story about your lens, and other members can vote for it. If enough people like vote for your story, it will become ‘Published’, though this is not neccessary for getting backlinks.

SquidUtils Directory
Hosted here at SquidUtils, this directory automatically categorizes lenses by their Primary Tag. There is actually no way to submit a lens to it – just make sure it has a good Primary Tag. There are a couple caveats though: a tag must appear on 3 or more lenses before it will be included, and lenses must have at least 1 star rating. Newly created lenses will also make a brief appearence within their chosen category.

Honorable Mentions:

SquiDirectory - Recently revamped, this is moderated directory has plenty of categories to choose from.

Squidoo Kingdom – Based on a Digg-style social site like Lensroll, and has the same categories that Squidoo has.

LensMasterWorld – Basic moderated directory with a good selection of categories.

There are a few other directories that are specifically for Squidoo lenses, but they are not yet up to standards of these ones. There are, of course, many hundreds of non-Squidoo directories out there on the Internet – it’s worth submitting your lenses to some of those as well, if you can find a suitable category.

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Spreading the Social Butter

May 30th, 2009

A couple months ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post about critical mass, and how it applies to social networking. There was this particular paragraph that resonated with me:

“If you have a presence on twitter, squidoo, blogs, facebook, myspace, linkedin and 20 other sites, the chances of finding critical mass at any of them is close to zero. But if you dominate, if you’re the goto person, the king of your hill, magical things happen. One follower in each of twenty places is worthless. Twenty connected followers in one place is a tribe. It’s the foundation for building something that matters.”

With every new social network that crops up on the Internet, there comes yet another opportunity to register your name (or pseudonym) and go hunting for your ‘friends’. Yet another user interface to master. One more platform to learn. Subtly different netiquette from the other sites. Is it really worth it?

Joining a new network just to connect to the same friends you already have is pointless, and spreading your followers across different sites is equally futile. Either you’re sharing your message repeatedly to the same people again and again, or you’re having to log on to many different sites just reach each individual. On top of all this, you have regular blog, email and instant messenger as well?

This is why you should concentrate on just a few networks, and take the time learn how they work, and how to master them. Pick one of the networks you already use, and really get to know it. This could be a forum, a bookmarking site, a community on Ning, or something else. Even your local pub. Make friends with those that share you interests, and build relationships. Participate and contribute. If it doesn’t work out, or it’s too much work, go find a different one.

Top of the list for me is Twitter (after Squidoo and the forum of course). I’ve integrated it into my desktop, so that it is always there – keeping me continuously up-to-date with everything people are saying, and allowing me to join in their conversations. I’m now connected with people from all over the world and Twitter has subsequently become my primary source of world news. There are some great tools out there that extend the functionality too.

I do have accounts on many other social sites, but I don’t spend as much time on them. I also reserve some networks for certain purposes, for example my FaceBook profile is almost exclusively limited to family and old school/university friends, and I only use my YouTube account to keep track of my favourite videos.

I try to resist signing up with new social networks – there’s simply too many to keep track of. I do like to hang out in a little chat room though…

Where does your social butter spread to?

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Squidoo Releases New Lens Workshop

May 30th, 2009

Squidoo have overhauled their lens editor, and today released Workshop 2.0! The guys at HQ have done a wonderful job, and have really improved the lens editing experience. (You may need to click on a link in the top corner if you’re still getting the old dashboard.)

The first thing you’ll notice is that your lens looks pretty much the same as it does when it’s published. All the modules are the correct width and have the right font and colors. No more swapping between Edit and View to get your lens just so. Above each module is some subtle text telling you what type it is, and two small buttons to edit or delete it. Editing a module is pretty much as you are used to.

The next great innovations are in the side bar on the right; Add Modules and Reorder Modules. Click on the other sections in the sidebar to open them – the functionality is mostly the same as before (you’ll find the Category under Lens Settings).

To add a new module to your lens, simply click on the green plus icon next to the name, and press the Apply button. To add more than one module, keep clicking on the plus icons until you’ve got the right numbers in the squares. As you would expect, the minus icon will decrement the numbers.

To change the order of your modules, go to the Reorder Modules section and drag them up and down with the mouse. Once you’re happy with the layout, press the Apply button and the Workshop will reload with the new module order.

You’ll also be pleased to know that the Workshop Addon Script for Firefox has been updated to support the new Workshop, giving you quick access to the Ping Lens function as well as some other tools on SquidUtils. I’ve added one or two other surprises to this version too.

Update your script via the link above, or the link on your dashboard.

Enjoy!

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Give Your Squidcasts More Legs

May 30th, 2009

Squidcasts. These are short messages that you can send out from your lens, and they will be seen by anyone who has favorited your lens, or joined your fan club. To see the squidcasts from the lenses and Lensmasters you have subscribed to, you have to visit the Favorites tab on your dashboard.

On their own, this is about as exciting as they get.

But here at SquidUtils, the messages that you cast can do so much more, and reach out many more people (and search engines)…

To begin with, there is this digest of (almost) All the Squidcasts from Squidoo. Here you can get a glimpse of what other Lensmasters are working on, and you’ll get the opportunity to discover new lenses you might not have seen before. (This will also help the search engines to find new lenses too).

These casts used to be posted directly to @squidcasts on Twitter, but I removed this functionality because the tweet rate was too high. All you’ll get now from @squidcasts are the official blog posts from Squidoo, SquidU and Lens of the Day. You might like to follow @squidoonews too.

Next up, you can get your own personal RSS feed containing all of the squidcasts that you have sent out; get this from the Lensmaster Feeds page once you are logged in. You can put this feed on your blog or Lensography, so that your visitors can see all your latest news. You can also syndicate this feed elsewhere too, to get more exposure and links to your lenses.
(Tip: use TwitterFeed turn your casts into tweets).

Last, there is an RSS feed for you with all the squidcasts from your favorite lenses; get this from the Lensmaster Feeds page too. This is not intended for syndication, just for personal use. Subscribe to this feed with your favorite RSS aggregator, such as Google Reader or BlogLines, and keep up-to-date with any news the Lensmasters send out. Unfortunately, you won’t get casts from any fanclubs you’ve joined. Hopefully this will be provided directly by Squidoo one day.

Now that your Squidcasts are being seen by more people, these tips will help you take maximum advantage from them:

Make sure your titles are good ones. The title of each cast will link back to your lens, and search engines will use that as a factor when ranking your lens.
Be News Worthy! You should only sent out a cast when you have some exciting news, or have made a significant change to your lens.
Your message can be up to 500 characters long – make the most of it!
Don’t assume that everyone reading the cast has favorited the lens. People who have joined your fan club will also see it, but might have not ever been to your lens before. Use your cast to invite people to visits your lens, both again and for the first time.
Jazz up your casts with some Basic HTML, using bold, italics and links.
Remember to “Preview your cast” - you can’t edit it once it’s sent.

Finally, here are some lenses with more tips on Squidcasting:

Happy casting!

New: Stats for Amazon Links

May 30th, 2009

I have been sitting on this latest tool for a few months, but only recently have I sorted out the last few issues that prevented me from releasing it.
I think I am now ready to show you what I’ve been working on.

This tool is for anyone who uses the Amazon Links or RSS Feeds provided by SquidUtils (read the introduction to these tools for more info), and it will show you which lenses and products are getting the most views and clicks. In the run up to Christmas, this could be a valuable tool for fine tuning your lenses to maximise your profits.

» Check out these demo stats, featuring real data from actual lenses:

Summary of Features:

see views and clicks for every lens that uses Amazon Links
see views and clicks for each product within a lens
sort the lenses by views, clicks or CTR
the data you see is live and instantenous
includes data for this month and last (retrospectively)

Before you can see the stats for your lenses, you need to claim your lensmaster account. You will be asked to enter new password and your email address, and then add a unique link to your Lensmaster profile. Hopefully, the process will be straightforward and it will prove that you really are the owner of the account.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to login securely. You should see links to do this on the SquidUtils home page once you’ve completed verification, as well as links to the Amazon Stats page. Because you have claimed your lensmaster account, no one else will be able to see your stats – only you have access to them.

While I have tested it as much as I can, there may be some wrinkles left in the system. If you do use this stats package, please can you send me some feedback. I need to know about any problems, questions or suggestions that you may have.

thefluffanutta

PS: Don’t forget to check for broken products links on your lenses too… you could be losing revenue!

Making the Most of Squidoo Tags

May 30th, 2009

After my previous post about how tag pages aren’t indexed, I felt it was time to step back and take a fresh look at tags and what they are good for.

When you create a new lens, the creation wizard asks you for one Primary Tag, and three other tags. When you edit your lens, you can add more tags to the list – up to 40. Knowing what tags do will help you figure out the right ones for your lens.

Tags help Squidoo choose the right lenses whenever someone uses the internal Search facility, but tags aren’t the only it factor uses. Squidoo’s search tool also uses the text from within the lens itself too, so if yours contains a particular phrase then it’ll appear in a search for that phrase.

The Discovery Tool directly connects lenses that share the same tags, which is much better than indirect linking via tag pages. These appear in the blue box immediately after the lens Introduction, with the title ‘Explore related pages’. This can result in a dozen or so links to your lens from other lenses.

Not everyone wants to see links to other lenses just under their introduction, and choose to disable it. This is fine to do as there are many other ways to manually make these connections. Now that the tag pages are hidden from search engines, making these connections is vitally important.

The Primary Tag has more weight than the regular tags for searches and the Discovery Tool, so make sure you use your main keyphrase (not your title!). For more details, see the previous blog post How To Pick Your Primary Tags.

Some Lensmasters like to add Long Tail keywords they find in their traffic stats as tags. Long tail keywords are search queries that are uncommon, but highly targeted. A lens that is getting a lot of long tail searches will generally only see each one a few times.

However, adding long tail phrases to your tag list is a waste of time, because the chance of anyone using that exact query again is very low. This applies to internal and external search traffic. Also, it is unlikely that any other lens will be using the exact same long tail phrase, and so it won’t help with connecting with other lenses either. Instead, pick out the common words and phrases from these queries, and work them into your content and tags.

A lens will display a tag list in the side bar, which adds to the number of occurrences of those words on the lens. They will have more weight if those tags also appear in the content too, otherwise the search engine might penalise the lens for keyword stuffing.

The tags also make an appearance in the Meta Tags part of the header, which as a user you won’t be able to see. Search engines used to use these to rank a page in their results, but stopped doing so years ago because of abuse by webmasters. Instead they look at what your lens is actually about, as well as the links coming in to and out from other pages.

Tags that are wordswithoutspaces are really of no value at all. Words like ‘howtoswim’ or ‘buybluefuzz’ are not likely to appear in your content, and no one will be using them in their search queries (not on Squidoo nor on Google). At the same time, choosing phrases that are just variations on word order are also of little value: ‘fuzz blue’ = ‘blue fuzz’.

In conclusion: I recommend that people choose a dozen or so keywords that are directly related to their content. I personally prefer 2-word phrases, though sometimes 1- and 3-word phrases are also appropriate. Avoid repeating a word more than a few times.