Who cares about Lensrank, anyway?
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past talking about how Lensrank, while a potentially nice boost, shouldn’t be a cornerstone of your money making plan.
A stepping stone? Yes, definitely. Who doesn’t love a few extra bucks coming in every month? In fact, it’s possible to make several hundred bucks a month this way.
Why is it not worth worrying about using lensrank to earn money? Because the amount you will earn tops out pretty quickly. Getting a lens in the top 10,000 or 15,000 lenses is HARD.
The top payout tiers are competitive. In fact, I would venture to say that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen something where people spend so much time trying to make an extra two dollars.
There are a lot of people out there that try to ‘game’ lensrank with rating swaps or traffic swaps or exchanges or multiple accounts or whatever. I’m not really surprised that people try to game or optimize their rankings. What just shocks me is the amount of time people are willing to put into it.
Think about it. It’s easy for a small item sale from amazon or eBay to add up to more than an entire month’s of effort on gaming lensrank ($2).
Conversely, if you are really worried about lensrank or people trying to ‘game’ it. I wouldn’t be.
Be grateful that they are wasting their time doing incredibly unproductive things.
If you run across one, report them. No need to crow it to the rooftops or go on witch hunts across the interwebs trying to find pepole who are gaming a ranking mechanism on a medium size website…
Instead of responding to them or worrying about them, go build your next lens that’s going to make some real money.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Sound advice Cap’n!
Always amazes me that people attach such importance to lensrank, or get so upset when their lenses drop a rank. So many people seem to think that once they have got a high-ranking lens that it should be nailed in that position for ever and waste so much time trying to ‘prop’ it up.
Much better advice is to include relevant affiliate products and then move on to the next lens to create.
While I do always give a little ‘woop’ when my lenses hit the top tier, I don’t get upset when they drop back down again. It’s kind of like gravity – what goes up, must come down.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Agree! I am finally learning to stop fretting over lensrank or seeing it as a report card of how I am doing. I do still check it every day, but gradually moving my focus to “making money” on Squidoo while I am having fun!
December 15th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I agree with you here. Lensrank is nice, but not the be all that ends all. People should spend more time worrying about the next lens or creating backlinks to get more traffic to their lenses than moving the lens up in lensrank. Those activities will bring more attention to their lens in the long run which will create a much more viable income stream. Lensrank changes so often and is so volatile. New lenses being created every day make it very tough to keep your lenses high on the lensrank spectrum.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
It is all a bit beyond me and frankly I don’t think that there is much money to be made out of this game, but I keep on trying. Sometimes it’s hard to come up with a new lens idea and seeing as it’s been written before and better than I think I can do. Why bother?
December 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
I agree lens rank is not that important since most use Squidoo as a feeder site. I don’t know that you make more money with a higher rank or not but it’s really not anything to throw a hissy about. Good luck to all…
December 15th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I am so over the witch hunt mentality! What no one gets is that time takes care of the “lensrank” swappers, but every time a bunch of people focus on them, it feeds it! Cap’n your sound and well-written advice is well appreciated!
December 16th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Great post, Captain! (as usual!)
The one common misconception I see for those new to Squidoo is that the Squidoo rank of a lens determines how GOOGLE sees the lens.
I think that once this misconception is cleared up, lensmasters will focus more on making a well-optimized lens that brings traffic. And more traffic is a win-win for all of us!
Jennifer
~PotPieGirl
December 16th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Very good points in this one Captain:
“Think about it. It’s easy for a small item sale from amazon or eBay to add up to more than an entire month’s of effort on gaming lensrank ($2).”
“Instead of responding to them or worrying about them, go build your next lens that’s going to make some real money.”
I was reading about the “rank exchanges” on Squidoo’s forum and then I read your post. I’m going to continue making good lenses. Each one might (hopefully), with a little effort, net me a sale here and there. Then I can look at the lens rank as a bonus, which is what it should be.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I am quickly learning that lensranks moves in, shakes things up, and leaves in a few blinks. On to the next lens–that’s the best advice. Fresh topics keep things moving.
Thanks for another good piece of advice.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Excellent Captain, lensrank IS just a bonus as PotPieGirl says – but I personally by far more enjoy making new lens than (ever!) studying the stats…
December 19th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Great point! I’ve worked on refining my new lenses to be more similar to the old lenses that make me money, and the increase in traffic and affiliate sales is more than making up for any drop off in lensrank. The sheer amount of effort it takes to get into the top tiers just isn’t worth it for that alone – I have had lenses get 2-300 visits a week that barely broke 2nd tier, but the affiliate sales were great. Thanks for the great post, cap’n!
December 19th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
It always amazes me to see the lenses float up and down in rank. You really can’t predict where they will be next week. I think it’s more productive to come up with something that people enjoy reading or can interact with and let the lensrank take care of itself.
January 28th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I like this post very much. I was also one of them, who always running behind the rank. I am lucky enough to see this post. Thank you for sharing it here.
March 15th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Lens rank has never bothered me much because I soon realized that it was very short living – and had nothing to do with the real traffic.