Squidoo Blog by Captain Squid - Tips and Tricks for Lensmasters

5 Common Misconceptions about Squidoo

Posted by Captain Squid
January 23, 2008

I’m constantly amazed at the people I find on forums that are still stuck in last summer and convinced that Squidoo is worthless as a tool for promotion or for making money. Their loss, my gain I suppose..

However, there are some common lensbuilding and squidoo techniques that many people use that are just plain wrong. So, I thought that I’d debunk a few of those for you piratey squids this morning.

  1. Squidoo RSS Feeds show google new information everytime someone visits - False -� the RSS feed is run on Javascript (AJAX), not php. Technospeak aside, this means that google can see your module title, description, and subtitle of RSS feeds. However, there are some Squidoo modules that will show different content to google every visit.
  2. Excessive keyword tagging can hurt - Sometimes - I always recommend starting a lens with 8-15 keywords and then adding long tail terms as they are discovered. This is more about relevancy than number. I’ve got a lens with the full 40 keywords being used that is getting over 1k hits a week. I’ve got others where I’ve gone back and found I did a terrible job tagging them and only have a few tags that could be more relevant. worry about good relevant tags, not about having ‘too many good tags’.
  3. You can’t make any money with Squidoo - If you believe this one you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog.. and whatever you do, don’t look here.
  4. Google has Slapped Squidoo - Ahh the infamous ‘Google Slap’. Yes, a penalty was applied to Squidoo pages last July. Squidoo and Seth immediately set about beating up on some spam that had snuck into the system. They addressed the problem and traffic has been on the rise ever since August. Google is constantly changing its algorithm to rank on many different factors. I have some lenses that do great with google and some that don’t. Google is going to show what they think the most relevant search results are at the top of the pages. So, provide relevant content to your topic and Google will find your lens.
  5. Gil’s Pony is the Secret to Lensrank - Actually, This one may be true…

-The Captain

Captains Picks, Squidoo Education, Squidoo Tips, , , , , , ,

Did you enjoy today's Squidoo related post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to the Captain Squid RSS Feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader or email inbox for free.

Comments

Thanks for the info! I was just wondering about tags this week and if I have too many, too few, etc.

Comment by Tiffany on January 23, 2008 @ 9:12 am

I would just like to say this post has been a great help to me as I’m just building my first lens.

Comment by Graham Williams on February 26, 2008 @ 5:36 am

I guess I knew most of that already, but I still want to win Gil’s pony… ;)

Thanks for all you do, Captain!

Bette

Comment by badmsm on February 27, 2008 @ 2:35 pm

“the RSS feed is run on Javascript (AJAX), not php”

Ah, that’s nice to know. But why does it use JavaScript? I’m using a PHP-based RSS aggregator on my website. I’m sure Squidoo could do the same - unless, of course, it’s due to some technical reasons that I don’t understand.

Comment by Andrew on August 31, 2008 @ 1:24 am

Gotta agree, I felt the google slap also. It is past and Goggle keeps sending more visitors. Thanks again, Cap’n

Comment by Allan Wallace on August 31, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
Leave a comment

(required)

(required)