What will get your higher up in the search results? Backlinks.

A backlink is when another webpage or blog or lens links to your lens. They ‘link back’ to you, as if they are voting for you by linking to you. They trust you, and are willing to link to you.

A backlink is also known as an Inbound link, or an Incoming link.

When Google determines how high in the results to put your lens they look at how many backlinks it has, as it helps determine what is worth looking at.

In an ideal world every lens and blog post you write would be so utterly fantastic and groundbreaking that hundreds of people would be compelled to link to you. But this isn’t the case, because in an effort to compete in different niches you will target the keywords people are searching for.

So you will need to be proactive and generate as many backlinks as you can yourself.  As the old saying suggests: “If you want anything done, do it yourself”

Over the next few weeks I will be posting some great ways to build your backlinks. I will review some sites, recommend actions for you to take, and we’ll work on getting ranked higher in Google.

The one thing every lens will benefit from is more traffic. It’s funny - where else but in Internet Marketing is ‘TRAFFIC’ a good thing?!

Lewis

I’ve written about the importance of blogging before, and like in any good friendship I feel like I can talk about the same topics again and again.

So here it is.

Blog About Your Topic and Your Lenses!

If you are making Lenses on Squidoo to earn yourself any kind of money, you need a blog too. If only to blog about every new lens you make.

I have put together a few lenses lately to push you to get started if you haven’t already.

They are:

• 13 Reasons Why You Need a Blog (the stats I put in one of the modules on this lens are DEFINITELY worth reading)

• Should you start a BLOG or a WEBSITE?

• How to set up a blog in 5 minutes or less

Set up a blog. Make it your christmas gift to yourself. All you need is to invest some time. It will pay off.

Lewis

If I had a dollar every time an internet marketer asked me if they can put an opt in form on their lens… I would have, well, a lot of dollars.

It is probably the most requested Squidoo feature from internet marketers. They want to use their lenses to build mailing lists.

Ever since Squidoo blocked the i-frame code we have been unable to get this working on lenses.

Until now.

You can now put a live opt in form on your Squidoo lenses!

Not an image of the opt in form like like normal, and not a link to your opt in page.

An actual opt in form live in a module on your lens.

I put it all into a guide to take you through step by step, so you can’t fail at it.

You can read more and download it at SquidooTricks.com

Lewis

Finally! My post about Squidoo Tags is ready. There has been a LOT going on in my life since I wrote that last post, but bit by bit I’ve been chipping away at this beast.

So here goes

Why Squidoo Tags Are Useless

Things change. Goal posts move. And it is our job to keep up with the moves and revaluate what is working and what is not, what brings results and what does not, and what is worth our time and what is not.

Tags used to be marvellous traffic pullers. You could add a bunch of tags to our lenses and Google would discover your lens twice as fast. You could plug into an already ranked network of pages to push your lens into the Google Limelight.

Your lens would get some pagerank leaking over from the high ranking tags pages (high quality by association), and it was the quickest way to get other pages in the Squidoo eco-system to link to you.

In short, it was the lazy way to short term lens success! And there was nothing wrong with the lazy way. Squidoo built it in to the system, and it worked fantastically.

But now it doesn’t. Like I said. Goal posts move.

So, we need new ways to replace what tags previously did for us. Here is why tags are now useless.

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1. Google does not see tags pages anymore.

Squidoo had thousands upon thousands of tags pages ranked in Google. We created them, Google found them. The tags pages connected every single lens to every other lens on the site. Like a giant sitemap, but more specific. Your lens about ‘transformers talking action figures’ would be linked to my lens about the very same thing, just because we both tagged our lenses with the same thing. The entire site was connected. Google recognized this and we got a nice helping hand in the rankings.

But now, Squidoo blocks Google from seeing the tags pages.

Squidoo has added a line to it’s Robots.txt file telling Google not to look at any pages that begin with http://www.squidoo.com/tags. Which of course, all tags pages do. So Google faithfully ignores all tags pages. Which means the links in the sidebar of your lens linking your lens to all the tags pages are ignored. Squidoo is effectively saying “Nothing to see here Google! Move along!”

You can see the robots.txt file by going to http://www.squidoo.com/robots.txt

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2. Squidoo tags WILL affect how your lens does in Squidoo search results.

You know that little search box in the sidebar of a lens? That’s the Squidoo Search box.

One reason you may think tags are still worth your time is because how you tag your lens will affect how well your lens ranks in Squidoo’s own Search Results.

I am convinced that the only people searching Squidoo using the Squidoo search box are lensmasters. Why? Because who would search Squidoo using it?! You search Google, or Yahoo, or wherever you came from to find Squidoo in the first place.

I honestly don’t think the casual surfer who arrives on a Squidoo lens who doesn’t find what they’re looking for will choose to search the rest of Squidoo instead of just hit ‘back’ from the lens and continue searching Google or Yahoo.

Squidoo HQ must have the stats for these ideas, and they make changes to Squidoo.com based on statistical evidence, so I may be wrong about this.

I really can’t see the casual surfer, who isn’t a lensmaster and who doesn’t participate in other content-publishing communities like HubPages or Gather, searching Squidoo just for the fun of it.

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3. Some people have claimed in the comments here that Google still indexes tags pages and that they’ve seen recently indexed tags pages.

Here is a google search results page for all Squidoo tags pages Google has indexed:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=site%3Asquidoo.com%2Ftags%2F&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

A total of 11.

And these are only still being shown because they have yet to drop from the index. It doesn’t give any weight to any tags pages. Squidoo’s Robots.txt ‘disallows’ google from counting them. So any others Google find and records don’t count for anything.

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4. The Discovery Tool

The tags you choose will determine which lenses show up in the Discovery tool on your lens. Likewise your tags will determine which lenses your lens will appear on.

The Discovery Tool is a noticeable blue box underneath your introduction containing links to 5 related lenses. You are allowed to choose up to 3 of those lenses.

Some people love the Discovery Tool, other people don’t. I don’t. So I disable it on all of my lenses.

Squidoo implemented the Discovery Tool because they value some lenses more than other lenses. This is right of them to do, of course, because a huge amount of lenses are rubbish. So Squidoo needs a way to get people from rubbish lenses to the good lenses.

But here’s the problem.

If someone arrives at one of my lenses I want them to keep reading. If they like the lens they will read. They will skip over the Discovery Tool and keep reading, they won’t bother with it.

If they land on one of Squidoo’s many rubbish lenses they aren’t likely to think ‘Hey. Let’s explore more rubbish pages like this’. They will just click BACK.

The Discovery Tool is great for linking all lenses together, but I will only start using it if it’s pushed into the sidebar instead of the most ridiculous place Squidoo HQ could find - directly under the introduction!

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I still add a good Primary Tag to my lenses and maybe about 5 other relevent tags in case things change in future, but long gone are the days of spending time to perform proper keyword research beyond what I do to make a lens to begin with.

As I said at the start of this post, there are things you can do to replace the effectiveness of the tags pages.

These include:

1. Start a group! Squidoo dissolved the usefulness of groups a while ago when they stopped featuring them in places (like your Lensmaster Profile), but Google still notices group pages and will give weight to lenses featured on your Group Homepage.

2. Bookmark your lenses on sites like digg.com and delicious.com. It’s easy and quick.

3. Build lenses that are related to each other. This gives you a much greater advantage than when compared with someone who builds just one lens on a particular topic. Joe does this brilliantly. Check out his lenses here.

4. Link your related lenses together. Use the Lensroll feature. Use the secret ‘Featured Lenses’ module. Use a Link Plexo module and embed it onto your lenses. Use text links throughout your text. Make a Recommended Resource module and link away!

5. Do more keyword research before you start building your lens. Choose what keywords and phrases you want to rank for, then go after them with relevent text and links and titles.

There are more. Always more. Let’s hear them in the comments.

Now share your thoughts!

Lewis

www.squidoocool.com

Exciting times.

Squidoo has just created 10 new categories for us to play with.

They have added a couple that probably could/should have been added from the beginning (like Home & Garden!) and they added a couple that are more of an experiment than anything else (like Duel and the potentially-troublesome Work at Home).

Here is the list of new categories:

* Books
* About me
* Humor
* Home & Garden
* Religion & Spirituality
* Work at Home
* Green Living
* Pop Culture & Celebs
* Squidoo How To
* Duels

Books is interesting, because squidoo lensmasters sell a LOT of books (a LOT!).

Also, the fact that ‘Squidoo How To’ needs it’s own category is a nice testament to the whole bunch of great people helping others on squidoo.

And Green Living - that should draw a lot of traffic.

Thanks Squidoo!

I’m still hoping for a Christmas category (which would make the lens itself go all Christmassy and tinsel covered), and a few people are still hoping for a History category, but we can dream on

Lewis