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!
Some fun new developments this week.
BDKZ has started a blog devoted to Hey! Monkeybrain called Cowabunga!. I think it’s a great and original concept that allows blogging about hot issues (Like Pirates Vs. Ninjas) while incorporating Squidoo at the same time. Very fun and very cool. Great job BDKZ ! (Psst… Ive got a few debates going on Chickens and Eggs, Star Trek and Star Wars, and Paper or Plastic ;))
Duel Modules now� load when a page loads making them Evergreen! More evergreen modules is good for search engines and by extension, good for lensmasters!
Fluffanutta has released the latest version of his Advanced Squidoo Dashboard Utility on SquidUtils.com . It allows some cool new organization methods such as sorting by lens category and lens type, which are both really really useful.
Meanwhile Back at SquidU:
There’s the beginnings of a good thread on Directories and Blog Submission sites for Squidoo Lenses. Look for some of these to get added to the Squidoo Training Center this week.
Sneaky Observation of the week:
There’s only 153 Squid Lit lenses… have you read a book or 20 lately?
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.
- 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.
- 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’.
- 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.
- 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.
- Gil’s Pony is the Secret to Lensrank - Actually, This one may be true…
-The Captain
One of the keys to having the Big G or Yahoo! or MSN come back to your lens over and over again is having unique content on your lens that also updates regularly. Contrary to popular belief, several modules do NOT help you with spiders when they crawl your site.
Here’s a rundown of the most common:
eBay search :� NOT evergreen - The eBay Module loads after the lens loads, so google only sees javascript, which it can’t interpret.
Amazon search: Evergreen� - the Amazon module picks load with the lens, which means google sees these changing over time.
RSS Feeds - Not Evergreen - Again, this uses Java and loads after the lens so no google love.
Google Blog Search - Evergreen - Loads with the lens, just like the Amazon Module.
Youtube - Evergreen (I think) -� The comments for the video load instantly, which is what google can see.
What does this mean?
Every lens you make should have either a Google Blog Search, Amazon module with search enabled, or a youtube video with search enabled in order to give you that ‘evergreen’ look that google loves so much.
What other modules do you swabbies want the Captain to check for evergreen content?
-The Captain
