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Squidoo Plexos : Super Tool or Old and Busted?

Arr... This Be The Captain! Thanks for Stopping by to check out my piratey bag of Squidoo Tricks! If you are new here, you might want to get free updates and squidoo tricks delivered straight to you via RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I think that the ‘Plexo’ modules on Squidoo are probably one of the least understood aspects of Squidoo. I have always been kind of ambivalent towards all of the plexo modules just because I never really saw how they could benefit me. Until Now.

The Real Facts about Plexo Modules:

1. Votes are pooled across all versions of the plexo. If you grab a plexo module from one lens and drop it on another, votes on either lens will add to the vote count on every lens that plexo is on.
2. The Lens Owner earns Plexo Revenue. After checking and double checking the Amazon Associates IDs on the plexos, I’m almost positive that the owner of the lens that the plexo sits on generates the Amazon revenue.
3. Plexo Modules are Evergreen. Plexo Modules are indexable by the Search Engines.

Now, for a long time I thought that Plexos could be useful on Squidoo if you had a really viral list or something but for the average user they just didn’t have the user base to really do anything cool. In fact, I often see Plexo modules out there in Squid Land all by themselves looking lonely. Unless those lonely plexos are on a superstar lens getting thousands of hits a week (and some are) there simply are not enough visitors, much less other squidoo users who are going to come ‘grab’ your plexo. This method of ‘build a plexo and leave’ just doesn’t work that well. Sure, you get some benefit from it, but it’s not super duper cool.

However, unlike most of Squidoo that pulls data from other sources for the visitor to read, Plexos both pull (from Amazon, your list, YouTube, etc.) as well as push (votes, links to your lensmaster page) data around Squidoo.

I can think of a few ways that this can actually be super powerful and has been way under-utilized. I think I’ll save some of my thoughts for my next issue of the Captain Squid Newsletter

Plexos: Love ‘em or Hate ‘em ?

Squidoo Tip of the Day: Squidoo Product Descriptions

If you are building a new lens with any kind of Amazon, CafePress, or other products that Squidoo allows you to add descriptions to, add a short description.

Many people often forget that if the picture is a giant stuffed elephant and the title says ‘plush toy’ or something similar, Google thinks that is a picture of a plush toy, not a stuffed elephant plush toy, which is what you really want the spiders to think.

Do NOT copy/paste the same description on every product.

Write a short unique, keyword rich, description of the item (I usually make ‘em 10 words or less)

Why 90% of the people reading this post won’t go change any of their product descriptions :

1. It’s boring
2. It’s hard
3. They want to come back later and say ‘But I’ve tried…. and I can’t get any more traffic’ Waaa!
4. They might be Ninjas, in which case they shouldn’t change their descriptions..

-The Captain

New Module: Amazon Recommends

There’s a new module on the ‘Interact’ page of the Module picker titled’ Amazon Recomendations’. It’s an interesting twist on the classic Amazon Plexo that’s worth checking out.

It basically pulls a 5 item plexo list from Amazon with items that are ‘related’ to the item you give the module to start with.

Why this is awesome:

• More SE friendly instant generated content.
• Adds a great ‘exit path’ for visitors to your product themed lenses that may want to look at something else.
• They round off the end of a lens well.
• I think they are easier to edit than the classic Amazon Plexo module

Throw some up on your lenses and let me know how they do!

-The Captain