Write Quality Content

Back in the days, when the concepts of SEO and key word research were new, quite a few marketers figured out how to cheat the system without writing quality content. They would find the right key words, follow a set of SEO rules, and write short articles with little useful information but a very obvious link that would send the reader to the site they were promoting. Since they cracked the Google search engine algorithm, their articles would show up  at the top of the search results - exactly where you want to be in order to make money. There are still plenty of people seeing outstanding results because of their ability to meet the market demand by going after the right keywords, but Google has become a lot stricter and is more selective as to who it sends traffic to. At this time, Google wants to see if you have a good following. Are you being informative and engaging the readers, do you have Google +, Facebook, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter followers, do people come back to your site on a regular basis to see what's new? If Google search engine runs into a topic that can be found on a site with little to no reputation and on a site of a blogger who put a lot of effort into building the blog and establishing online presence, chances are that it's the blogger who is going to get the priority spot at the top of the search results. And you really can't argue with that, the blogger did put a lot of time and effort into writing quality content and engaging readers on a regular basis.

If you write for Squidoo, I am sure you know that Squidoo has always been pro unique, useful, updated  - UUU content. But, with the recent updates in Search Engine algorithms, the UUU concept is more important than ever. Squidoo HQ has been stressing out the importance of sharing personal stories and creating "rich" content that only You can produce. Cheating the system no longer works - write quality content, if you want to stay on Squidoo. No wonder that we are hearing this message loud and clear. Squidoo is competing against many established bloggers with a great following. The bloggers attract attention by sharing very personal stories and photos, by being real, and building relationships with their readers. So Squidoo has to stay competitive in order to keep the top spot on the web.

Writing high quality content on a regular basis may be easier said than done. But if you follow these tips on how to Write High Quality Content fast, manage your time wisely, and put a lot of effort into building your presence on Squidoo in your niche, you are very likely to get a good return on time invested.

Update July 19, 2013: got these tips from Ezinearticles by Email and thought they are worth sharing: create quality content in 7 steps.

Squidoo tip #17. Keep your lenses fresh, but don't overdo it.

How often should I update my Squidoo lenses? Some Squidoo lensmasters put a lot of effort into updating their lenses on a daily basis. They have come up with great techniques on how to update a dozen lenses in minutes. Although I believe it's important to keep your lenses fresh, I also know you can seriously overdo it. Yes, you may pick up some extra traffic on Squidoo from being moved up in the search results, if a reader uses the "Recently Updated" filter. You can also ping all recently updated lenses in Squidutils. But I recently read that Google may view republishing your posts (lenses) without making any big changes as an attempt to cheat the system, and, therefore, penalize the publisher for it. Also, I would advise against any drastic changes to a lens that gets a steady traffic from Google. A small change may cost you some visitors. A good example is my Best Gifts for 2 year old girls lens that was getting a steady 100 to 150 visitors per day until I made a few changes. The daily traffic dropped to under 50 visitors a day. And, since I didn't backup the lens in any way, I haven't been able to revert the revisions I made earlier.
So what's a good rule for keeping lenses fresh without overdoing it? I think that adding new content frequently is extremely important the first few months after you publish your lens. Add new modules, new links, improve your lens, establish your authority on the topic. By frequently, I don't mean every day. Maybe a couple times a week? Then, once you are seeing good traffic, I think it's a good idea to slow down with the updates and only update lenses a couple times a month. The technique seems to be working for me, but you might see different results if you are working with a different niche. Please do tell me what you think. How often do you update your lenses?

Have a productive day on Squidoo! Happy Tuesday :)

Squidoo Tip #16. Use YouTube videos to promote your Squidoo lenses.

Have you tried using YouTube to promote your Squidoo lenses? I have heard that many people are very successful in driving traffic from YouTube to their websites, so I decided to give it a try. In my newest Squidoo lens How to get rid of fleas on a kitten I featured a YouTube video of my kitten taking a bath in a bathtub. If you click out to watch the video on YouTube, you will also notice that I posted a link to my Squidoo lens in the description of the video. I am happy to see that I already have had a few lens views from the YouTube video, and, as of today, the YouTube video has only had around 30 views. If a video you post goes viral, imagine how many lens views you are going to end up with. Also, it's an extra link to your Squidoo lens, and that's a good thing when it comes to SEO. Here's the Youtube video of Tiger:

Do you have any experience of promoting Squidoo lens with a YouTube video? I would love to hear from you!

Squidoo Tip # 15

Public Domain Image (CCO) from  Pixabay.com

The Squidoo success tip I am sharing today is the best advice I can give new lensmasters who have fewer than 25 lenses. Join RocketSquids! I promise, you won't regret it. The program is designed for new lensmasters who want to learn the basics of Squidoo and get help and advice from experienced lensmasters. Every week, RocketSquids  are given a challenge to create a lens on a certain topic, like "Something I Love". If the lens is submitted by the weekly challenge deadline, it will be featured on RocketSquids bootcamp page. That's when RocketSquid Greeters along with Robin (Community Organizer), Susan (Squidoo Greeter), Kab (RocketSquid Coordinator), and Bonnie (Community organizer and head of the Giant Squid Club) will have an opportunity to visit your lenses and give you suggestions on how to improve them. If you run into any problems or need advice on how to properly credit photos, use HTML in your lenses, or use Squidoo modules, you will be able to ask questions and get answers at RocketSquids forum.

In my opinion, the Bootcamp is the best place to learn "How to Squidoo".  Plus, you get plenty of visits to your lenses, comments, feedback, and you may even get noticed and later featured on Squidoo blog as a new and promising lensmaster with UUU lenses. If you are the type of person who is afraid of commitments due to your overloaded work schedule, no worries. There is no penalty for not turning your lenses in by the deadline. Of course, I wouldn't recommend making it a habit. But if you think you can publish a lens per week at least twice a month, join in!

As always, Happy Squidooing! Please do let me know you stopped by. I will be happy to approve relevant comments with links to quality Squidoo lenses or your blog :)

Squidoo Tip #13. Own Your Topic on Google

When it comes to getting a permanent spot on the 1st page of Google, Expertise is your key to Success. A combination of Squidoo's high PR (Search Engine popularity) and Topic Expertise is a perfect recipe for owning your Topic on Google. What do I mean by "Own Your Topic on Google"? Make your Squidoo Lens the best resource on your topic available online. If you are sharing "best mac & cheese" recipes, make sure that you have the best collection of  mac & cheese recipes available online. It is great to have 50-100 or more lenses on Squidoo, but it is even better to have 25 well-researched lenses that can answer just about any question about the topic. Google likes aged content - webpages that have been around for a while and have been getting content updates on a regular basis. Don't stop adding content to your lens after you publish it. Add relevant information at least a couple times per month, and you have a good shot at getting Google's attention. Learn everything you can about your niche and the topics you choose to cover, and you will be well on your way to making a steady monthly income on Squidoo.

Squidoo Tip #5 - The easiest ways to build backlinks to your Squidoo lenses.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Backlinks are very important in optimizing your Squidoo lenses for the Search Engines. What is a backlink? Basically, it's a clickable phrase that points to a webpage. For example, if I wanted to point to this blog, I would want to select something like "Squidoo Tips" or "Squidoo SEO" and place href attribute with the links' destination (my blog).   In HTML, the backlink would look like this:

<a href="http://squidtips.blogspot.com/">Squidoo Tips</a> ,

 and it would look like this to my readers: Squidoo Tips. By the way, if you do decide to comment on this blog and backlink to your Squidoo lens, <a href... > format is what you would need to use.

So what is the easiest way to build backlinks to your Squidoo lenses? How about another Squidoo lens? For example, let's take my Google Adwords Tips and Tricks Lens. In this lens, I mention that it would be smart to use a Google Adwords Coupon when experimenting with Google Adwords campaigns. I also have a Google Adwords Coupons lens. So why not create a backlink to the lens and make the "Google Adwords Coupons" lens more attractive to Google?

This backlinking strategy works really well if you have several lenses covering related topics. By building links between your Squidoo lenses, you will not only create more content views, but will also make Google think that your content is popular, since other webpages are pointing to it. I recommend using your key words for the anchor text of the backlink.

Also, I recommend that you checkout this Squidoo lens by Squidoo Lensmaster Emonanam: Best Do Follow Forums and this Squidoo lens by LisaAuch: How to get my lens found

Hope you are making some money on Squidoo! As always, comments are very welcome. How do you build backlinks to your lenses?

Squidoo Tip #4 - Do include YouTube modules in your lenses



Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net  

Why would you want to include YouTube Video Module in a Squidoo lens? Not only will you add great relevant content to your lens and bring more value to your readers, you will also optimize your content for Google. One of the things that Google takes in consideration when figuring out where your lens should be in the Google rankings is how much time your readers spend on your site and whether they click back to Google Search results. By displaying the right YouTube Videos on your lens, you answer the readers questions, keep the reader on your Squidoo page for a couple extra minutes, prove to Google that your content is relevant to the key words, and therefore, your Squidoo lens gets a better ranking in the Search Engine Results. Squidoo is a big authority on Google. So if you use the right key words throughout your content, display YouTube Videos, engage your reader, and provide the information the reader is searching for, you will have good chances of landing on Google's 1st page. As always, please feel free to leave your comments and link to your Squidoo lenses.

Squdoo Tips. Tip # 1 - Pick a niche for your Squidoo lenses.

What is a marketing niche? Why would you want to pick a niche for your Squidoo lenses?
I love writing on a variety of topics. And that's what I initially started out doing on Squidoo - I had a lens about my dog, a lens about Christmas gifts, a lens about a steam mop I use, and so on. My lenses weren't supporting each other and the few views I was accidentally getting here and there didn't result in any additional traffic to the other lenses.

Image: Naito8 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When compared to mass marketing, niche marketing can be described as "targeted to a certain group of people". The best way to make money on Squidoo is to build a lens around a product or one very specific topic that people are searching for. Then build more lenses in the same niche. What would be a good niche? Recipes lenses do really well on Squidoo. Let's take "Casserole Recipes" - you can build lenses "Beef Casserole Recipes", "Chicken Casserole Recipes", "Potato Casserole Recipes", and so on. You can feature your other casserole recipes in Squidoo lens' Sidebar or at the bottom of each lens. You can make one lens that includes links to all the recipes. With recipe lenses, picking a product to promote is not very difficult. But like Seth Godin suggests in one of his books, make sure you have a banana you are selling, and that banana is very obvious. When given too many options, consumers get lost  and end up leaving without making a purchase - and that's the one thing you want to avoid.
So if you are interested in making money on Squidoo, my tip today is to pick a niche for your Squidoo lenses and write, write, and write some more. Connect your lenses to each other and get several lens' views out of every visitor that comes to your Squidoo lens. Looking forward to hearing about your Squidoo experiences. Please feel free to leave me a comment and a backlink to one of your lenses :)