SquidU

Howdy lensmasters!

January 24th was National Compliment Day in the US. A little known holiday, this symbolizes a conscious effort to acknowledge and reward the work of others. Everyone loves getting compliments on their lens, but did you know there are some specific things you can do to “complement,” as in “add things to make complete,” your current lens content, which can lead to more compliments? Read on to find out how.

Compliment: an expression of praise
Complement: to complete

First things first
Before you can complement something, you need to have it. By that we mean the basics. It’s tempting to get excited about building lenses and skip to the interesting and exotic parts, and often the most important foundations get left behind. Squidoo is built to help lensmasters do what most webmasters forget, which is to include those hundred little things that attract search engine attention, give readers value, and give the author rapport.

There’s a great list already started in the Critique Me forum at our SquidU Learning Center: http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7887

Picking the right monetizers
Oooh. Money. I’m often asked, “How can I have so many clickouts (500, 1000, 3500) but no sales?” Ninety percent of the time the lens is not designed to sell products that further support the reader’s goal. Readers WANT to take action after reading your lens, and selling products can help you do that. Choosing which products to sell can be tricky.

We’ve all seen lenses that plop together some content and add a bunch of money-making modules in a last-ditch effort to make a quick dollar. (Enter buzzer noise here.) We also know how we feel when we see this happen, but too often, we do it ourselves. If you can’t logically relate what you’re selling to what you’re talking about, you’re doing a disservice to your readers and to your reputation.

If you’re having a hard time deciding what to add to your lens, consider three points: the main event, accessories, and the unobvious. If you have a lens on Crocs, a recently popular shoe brand and style, of course you’ll want to sell Crocs (your main event). Your readers might also be interested in the various laces and buttons that can be affixed to Crocs (accessories). For the unobvious addition, did you know that Crocs are very popular in the nursing profession? Add a few links to additional nursing footwear or uniform resources, and you’ve completed a full circle of shopping resources for your niche topic.

Expanding your comfort zones
Many lensmasters limit their suggested books, links, and lenses to what they already know. This can seem like a lot of information to you, but to your readers it’s just scraping the surface. Part of growing your own knowledge and becoming an expert, and helping your visitors find what they’re looking for includes branching out into the unknown. Make a commitment each month to finding one totally new piece of information to add to your lens. You’ll learn something, your visitors will learn something, and you might get a nice LensRank boost. Triple bonus!

Time has shown and top lensmasters agree: great lenses create great results. Part of building a great lens involves adding content that fits together and makes the reader feel whole. By complementing your current lenses with new and improved additions, we’re sure you’ll enjoy lots of compliments on your results for the years to come.

BTW - if you do an awesome job this year, you might just be able to claim this prize for your own next year: Best.Lens.Ever.com

Happy lensmastering!
Kimberly
YOUR Community Organizer

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 9:31 pm and is filed under SquidU Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.