Alright all you squids and squidettes hold on to your tentacles.

The first lens by the good ole Captain for the Ebay – Squidoo 10 Day Challenge is live and ready for action.

The first topic I chose to cover was eBay shipping and postage scales.  I chose it for several reasons:

  1. I know the topic – I’ve got an eBay feedback rating in the 300 range and so I’ve shipped my fair share of items. Getting a shipping scale helped so much I can’t even begin to describe it. Therefore, it was an easy write.
  2. It’s got a built in audience – People in the competition are ebay sellers. By providing valuable information to them it creates a win win for everyone.

Key design points:

  1. Use keyword rich and descriptive module titles – no default module titles…ever. NO, not even the guestbook. And taking the time to fill out the subtitles can really help.
  2. Relevant Products – Instead of a long list of products, use multiple product modules with only a few listings in each that are more targeted.
  3. Images in text areas – on the text/write modules I used images I uploaded myself, NOT through the upload utility. this allows me to add in relevant ALT text in the HTML which helps with indexing and ranking.
  4. Multiple Interactive Modules – The Guestbook and Poll get users used to clicking on your lens and makes them less afraid to check out a listing.
  5. Thoughtful tagging - every tag used is used on at least 10 other lenses giving me maximum discovery tool exposure.

Please feel free to check out the eBay shipping tips lens and let me know what you think or ask any questions.