What do GE and Lensbuilding Have in common?
GE or General Electric is one of the largest conglomerates in the world from building nuclear power plants to lightbulbs and owning NBC their companies stretch across the world.
What can actions a giant like GE takes teach a tiny lensmaster like you? Well… probably a lot but here’s what I thought of today.
If you aren’t going to be #1 or #2 in your (micro)niche on squidoo, try a different (micro)niche.
The reasoning is simple, at most the large search engines will usually only show 2 listings from a single domain. If your lens can’t even compete with the other lenses on Squidoo, you might be dead in the water before ever leaving the gate. (whoa, just mixed like 3 metaphors there..)
I think that this is probably one of the single biggest reason that many lenses don’t get indexed by anyone. You simply are typing something that has already been done.
For example there are 342 lenses that use ‘The Secret DVD’ (that enlightenment thing I guess? Didn’t one of the biggest promotors of that just get sued or something?) as a Tag. Seriously? Why?
I’m not saying that if there are some great lenses on Nintendo Wii (and there are a bunch!) that you shouldn’t make a wii-related lens. What I’m saying is if there are 50 lenses on Blue Waterproof Wiimotes (or whatever) then pick another kind of Wiimote!
If you strive to be the best lens on Underwater Ping Pong Paddles then you probably will also be one of the best pages anywhere on Underwater Ping Pong Paddles.
Get the idea?
Don’t forget that the Lens of the Week Competition is Tommorrow ! Add your entry to the Lens of the Week Lens by Tomorrow morning for consideration!
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Comments
So true. This is the thing I didn’t get when I first started out at Squidoo. I didn’t know anything about internet marketing and certainly didn’t start out planning to make a business effort of it all. Just lucked up that my first couple of topics didn’t have any competition at the time and I eventually quit stumbling around in the dark with this. But it was a hard lesson learned along the way.
Thanks so much for this extremely important reminder. This is the key really to properly using all these free online website builders. That’s why I and so many people have been frustrated with not appearing on “G” for major keywords from these sites. Only two domains can appear for any keyword from these sites. Mui Importante! You can build a great site and virutally never have it seen. Great tip-I’m going to put this reminder into action right away. Thanks again.
This was a great post.
I instinctively search Squidoo before I create a lens to check out my competition and to see if it will be redundant. I also try to make it a practice to write about things others are not.
That’s part of the reason why my lens, Our Deepest Fear - Poem by Marianne Williamson, is number 14 on Google after being in existence for only 10 days 
That’s a very useful reminder. Come to think of it, I often start a lens as soon as the idea for it comes to my mind, without doing any research first.
Thanks!
I usually do research first to see how many competitors i have.
I would like to ask how much you earn from Squidoo and how much traffic it drives to your site?
charles of Money Making and Blogging Tips
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I have this problem with my The Tales of Beedle the Bard lens. I tried to make mine ASAP when the news was announced to try to get first mover advantage, but that didn’t work. At first, Google seemed to pick the worst two lenses but now it seems okay. Still, my page must not be as optimized as their pages…. And one lens is ranked much lower than mine!