First up on this weeks’ Lens of the Week Competition:

Rubiks Cubes as Art by Mosaic -

First off, I was super impressed by the topic choice of this lens, I am a total Rubiks cube nut and this is a truly unique topic for a lens. I’m contemplating trying my hand at some myself if I can find a cheap ‘cube’ supplier around here…

A few technical thoughts that jumped to mind that might help this lens get even more attention (which it definitely deserves!):

Nix the Polaroid Modules – instead of the polaroid modules, use plain text/write modules with classic HTML to insert the image. That way you can link to the original image (or wherever else you want) as well as add search engine friendly ‘alt’ text to the images. I’ve found this is a huge help in getting into google’s image search.

Change up the Lens Title just a bit – I might use a title for the lens like Rubikcubism – Rubiks Cube Art or something instead of the current ‘RubikCubism / Rubikubism – Unique Art’. That way it might all fit on one line and look cleaner as well as having more ’searchable’ terms in the title of the page.

More Descriptive Module Titles – The Photoshop tutorial you give for rubikscubism is fantastic, but the title doesn’t even say that it’s a how-to or tutorial. I think something like ‘Rubikcubism photoshop tutorial’ or something might be more descriptive.

Overall, a great lens!

Next, I want to review a lens from one of the highest quality lensmasters on Squidoo – Spirituality – called Spirituality Quotes.

If any lensmaster knows what they are doing, Spirituality is definitely one of them. The lenses produced by Sprituality are super high quality, pleasing to the eye and usually have fantastic information. I don’t have a huge pile of advice for on page things (except for some minor title optimization which is probably more preference than anything) so I decided to look off-site and see what kind of link profile the lens has.

After running a ‘link:http://www.squidoo.com/spirituality-quotes‘   query in yahoo (this is a very rough gauge of links to a page and in no way reflects what google knows about the site, just yahoo. Still, it’s a place to start.) you can see that there are links to the lens from the following places (that yahoo knows about):

SquidU
Isle of Squid
Spirituality’s blog
this blog
Squidtop
Digital Point
Yahoo Groups

and a few others…

 Not too bad of a start at all! However, there are some other easy links sources that I was able to find in about 3 minutes that might help a lot.

For example, what about adding some of the quotes to WikiQuote and quoting your lens as a reference?

if you do a search for ‘wiki quotes’ and similar phrases you should be able to find a ton of wiki-style resources you can add a few of your quotes to and quote your lens as a reference. Take that and expand on it with lots of different search terms .

okay, There’s a few others that deserve a review as well, I’ll get to them in the next few days. If you want to throw your name in the pot, add it to the Lens of the Week lens plexo. Hint: the more votes you have, the more tempted I am to review it .

Contest Changes : After some thought, I’m not going to offer the spots in the profile for rent after all. The only way to get on the profile will be to submit your lens to Lens of the Week and win.

Since there were only 4 contestents this week, and I happen to have 4 open slots so everyone’s a winner this week!

Here’s a brief ‘technical’ review of each. I’m not going to comment on subject matter in these reviews because that is totally subjective. If you don’t like baseball cards you probably will never like baseball cards. However, if I can point out a few things that might make the lens read better or rank better then we’ve all learned something useful.

Lens 1 – Tour of St. George Utah – Submitted by Damon

Good:

Damon uses the new(ish) SquidZipper format which has been recently revamped and is looking quite slick. If you haven’t tried it out yet, do.

Tons of awesome pictures, good use of various picture sizes through out. This keeps the eyes ‘busy’ and you never feel ‘bored’ right off the bat. Alt text is also used in the HTML of all the images outside of polaroid modules, which is good.

There are very useful links spread through the content of the lens pointing to other lenses, official sites, etc. These natural ‘jumping off points can add some good value.

Ideas for improvement:

I kind of guessed that St. George was in Utah but outside of the Lens Title itself, you don’t see ‘Utah’ used in the copy anywhere until quite a ways down the lens. In a geographic lens, I’ve found including the state name reasonably often helps google ‘associate’ a zip or city with a particular state.

The Titles of some of the modules aren’t quite as descriptive as I personally like in some cases. For example, instead of ‘Hotels’ it could be ‘The Best Hotels in St. George, Utah’.

I think this lens could really use a google map module well that shows the town, gorge, and national park as destinations on it. I (being a farm boy from kansas who now lives in the south) have never been to utah and am not too familiar with the geography. I think a maps module could help a ton to show all these cool places that are being showcased.

Lens 2 – 60 Day Squidoo Challenge – Submitted by I.C. Jackson

Good:

This lens has a very cool concept behind it and it is presented very well as a whole. A lens a Day for 60 days and a support network behind it – excellent.

The ‘updates’ area is really nice as a ‘journal’ of your 60 day experience so far. It’s probably due for an update but I think it really helps to keep the reader engaged.

Liberal links to other lenses and sites that provide information and re-inforce your ideas is very good.

Ideas for Improvement:

I would move the ‘goal’ module (most important thing module) up closer to the top of the lens. It is well written and makes an impact. It should be near the top.

More descriptive module titles and a little bit better organization would really help me find my way around the lens. For example, having the Goal, then recent updates (cool use of CSS on those by the way), then the rules/regs, then the personal journal and guest books etc would make it easier to find what you wanted. In a lens with this many modules, a full table of contents module right at the top could help also.

How about a link plexo with all the participants (or people that have completed the challenge) that links to their bios?

Lens 3 – Resources for Enlightenment – by Alban

Good:

Good use of different modules to break the lens up a bit.

The individual modules are very well formatted with good use of bold text and smaller paragraphs.

There is a lot of information presented and a bunch of links to other resources including videos etc.

Ideas for improvement:

While packed full of information, there is so much information presented in one place that a casual visitor could be a little overwhelmed. Whenever the table of contents is an entire screen long, it becomes a little tough to find what you need.

It might be worth considering turning all of the information on specific people (eckard, Toll, Oprah, etc.) into their own lenses that are linked to from this lens (i.e. Oprah on enlightenment).

A few of the modules towards the end of the lens lose focus a bit. Why is there a module of e-book readers at the end of the lens?

Lens 4 - Legally Blind Golfer by Joan

Good:

Exceptionally cool and unique story. There are a ton of legally blind people out there and a lot of people don’t realize it.

Good Resources for both golfers and legally blind people. Links are also used pretty well in the content of the lens.

Modules are broken up into unique ideas and presented well.

ideas for improvement:

Remove the ‘google cache date’ and the Jelly Belly banner at the bottom of the lens. They aren’t really on-topic. The other ‘family’ lenses are a good touch but I’d move them down a bit. The twitter module isn’t just about golf and a little off topic so I’d probably think about dropping that as well.

Your tags are off to a pretty good start but could use some more general tags to get you more exposure. I’d probably throw in ones like ‘inspiration’ ‘hero’ ’sports’ ‘athlete’ etc.

Does he use any special equipment or clubs? He used to be a club professional, what kind of golfing equipmment does he use and why? You could add a bunch of subtle sales items in the lens that would improve the content even more.

Conclusion

Overall, I was incredibly impressed by the quality of this first weeks entrants. There really were no major shortfalls in any of the lenses and at times I had to stretch a bit to come up with ideas for improvement.

Make sure and leave a comment on this post with your lens if you want to be in the running for next week’s Lens of the Week!

If you check out mine, you’ll notice that you can add some websites about you on the left (including up to 3 of your personal sites), your favorited  lenses are shown that you have marked as ’shared’, your fans, and your lens list in alphabetical order. The lens list can also be sorted by lensrank, which is a nice touch.

The lensmaster profiles on Squidoo also display the ‘Real’ name for you that you have on your account. Hrmm… not sure how a few people are going to feel about that, especially the more private types. Although you can easily go into your profile information and change your name.

I’m almost positive your tax info is stored separately so you wouldn’t have to worry about getting a 1099 for Maniac McGee at the end of the year or anything.

One interesting feature is the ‘Featured Lens’ area below the lensmaster bio. It works like a Featured Lens module and allows you to feature any of your lenses you would like (or anyone elses). The idea being that if the lens is at the top with a thumbnail then it is more likely to be clicked on.

I think this is pretty cool, but I have plenty of my lenses listed on my lensmaster page already. Combined with the fact that I am woefully behind on starring and giving angel love to well deserved lenses, I’ve decided to do something creative with my Squidoo Lensmaster Profile page.

What I’m Going to Do with My Profile

The Five Featured lens spots on my profile page are currently for rent as part of a lens review by yours truly. For $25 bucks a month right now (going up when there is a waitlist, of course ) You can have your lens featured front and center on my profile page.

There are a few caveats to this deal:

I reserve the right to say no and give you your money back if the lens rubs me the wrong way. I don’t forsee this happening often but it’s got to be said.

If you like, I will also write a review of the lens on Captain Squid. I think this is a great way to see how different lenses are put together. In these reviews, I’ll provide thoughtful, constructive criticism with ideas for monetization and promotion. If for some reason you don’t want me to write your lens up, you have to tell me.(duh)

I’ve got some other little caveats, rules, and such over at ‘Your Lens Here‘. Check it out.

But for Today (or just while) Only:

If you leave a comment with 2 sentences or so about why your lens should be seen by 10,000 people a month or so (The link to my lensmaster profile ‘gets around’ as we say…) then I’ll throw it in the running for being a free featured lens for this next week (Aug 20 – 27 ).

3 lenses of my choosing will be chosen each week for as long as I want to run this little game. ( or as long as there are spaces available) No, you can’t whine if you don’t get picked one week, polish it up and re-submit it or submit something else.

On Tuesday I’ll post a reminder for the week and on Wednesday I’ll announce the winners and give a short review/critique of each.

Each lens is only going to be able to win once.

The one thing I’ll ask is that if you do win you wouldn’t mind letting me know what kind of traffic you get for the time your lens is up ( a little ‘testamonial’ if you will). Doesn’t have to be glowing, just has to be the truth.

Okay, I’m tired of writing rules, if I missed something, ask me in the comments. Otherwise, throw your lens in the ring for a little free promotion!