10 Tips for Creating a Squidoo Lens

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, I'm gonna give you ten tips for creating a great Squidoo lens. If you remember, Tuesday is lens creation day on the Social Networking Schedule. But you don't just want to create a lens that sits there with no activity, right? So grab your pens and notebooks and let's get going!

First off, let me abide by their request on their Squidoo Logo page and say, "I am not affiliated with or endorsed by Squidoo LLC."

Not that I'm selling you anything, see, but they politely ask that you state this if you use their logo. On to the good stuff!!


They have their own lens making tips that can be found here: http://hq.squidoo.com/tips/



Jo's top ten tips for creating a Squidoo lens:

1. Be sure you're creating original content and that you have the rights to publish/share said content. If you don't, your lens will be locked and (eventually) deleted.
2. Decide on a snappy title, give your lens a good number of tags, and flesh out the description well.
3. Use photos to make your lens aesthetically pleasing. Make sure your images are related to your topic. You don't want a photo of flowers in a post about the apocalypse (unless they're dead, maybe).
4. Give your readers plenty of sections to peruse by using the add module button on the right hand side of your lens.
5. Pay attention to the progress bar on the top right hand side and be sure you're fleshing out your lens with enough content to get to 100%.
6. When/if you recommend products on your lens, make sure they're relevant to your content.
7. If there's a YouTube video out there related to your topic, add it.
8. Know what you're creating before you begin to create.
9. If your ultimate goal is to sell something to the reader, make sure you're easing them into the sale rather than shoving it in their faces.
10. Above all else, have fun. Create something folks can't (or don't want to) look up elsewhere. Squidoo is all about discussion and creating a community full of information with your own POV. Be original and have original thoughts.

A couple of my lenses:
Book Formatting
Using Flipboard to Manage Social Media
Things I Learned from My Editor

Have you used Squidoo yet? Why/why not?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Squids! Ewwww - Day Eleven WABC

Happy Monday, good people of the blogosphere! Today, we discuss Squidoo. A site a know a little about, but haven't really poked around until today. Still rolling with the Winter Author Blog Challenge (four days left), here's the prompt:

Do you have a Squidoo lens? Founded by Seth Godin, Squidoo is a popular free site that enables users to create single webpages (known as lenses) about their interests and recommendations. Users can even earn money for charity or themselves. The credibility-building potential rivals Quora, but unlike question-answering sites, Squidoo users are free to create content of their choosing. The SEO rankings are quite high – but it remains incumbent upon the site’s users to double-check the veracity of information provided. Challenge questions: What are the benefits to using sites like Quora and Squidoo for building credibility? What can they offer that your website or blog doesn’t already do? How could this help you sell more books? If you are on Squidoo, remember share the link to your favorite lens.

I now have a profile there. I created a lens there this morning. You can find it here: Formatting Your Book for Print.

Okay, how did I just use Squidoo? I created a lens with an excerpt from my book on self-publishing. This gives folks a look inside, some information, and a buy link. I also included URLs from my two sites: Jo Michaels ~ Author Blog and Indie Books Gone Wild.

By creating that lens, I gave folks a peek into what my book can do for them. If I wanted to create a lens to drive people to buy Yassa, my book on Genghis Khan's coming-of-age, I would talk about the man himself and what kind of things he went through to get to where he was when he died.

I can see the usefulness of Squidoo and I've been meaning to do what I did this morning for a while. Thank you, Laura, for pushing me to get it done. I think, unlike Quora, Squidoo can be a bigger help because you don't have to start with a question from someone else to get the ball rolling. You can answer a question you know lingers in the world wide web with your expertise and go from there. No prompting needed beyond your own drive.

I have a ton of work calling my name today. I hope you all enjoy the lens and take your own steps to creating one today! I look forward to seeing what others can do with Squidoo.

That's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo