How to Screw it UP with Squidoo.com

  Written by Francisco Arache on Aug 1, 2008 4:00 pm

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We all know the power of squidoo.com. At the present moment it has a Page Rank of 7. This offers Squidoo a lot of authority and benefits within Google and search engiens. You , The Lenmaster, inherint all this benefits by default.

It is not uncommon for a new lens to be found and indexed by Google without you having to do anything special. However, sometimes Google needs a little encouragement to find your lens.

There are some great ways to accomplish this... and there are ways to really screw it up.

Let's talk about getting your Squidoo lens indexed first.

 
How To set it up
      

Many new lenses on Squidoo are indexed by Google very quickly, and usually without any 'help'. However, there are times a "little push" can make a big difference and speed up the process.

How you can Help A New Lens Get Indexed fast?

If you want to get a new lens indexed, the best way is to...

Blog About It. Plain and simple.Seriously.

A Simple blog post can go a long way to getting your new Squidoo lens off the ground. If you have a blog that is already in Googles index, use that resource to help your Squidoo lenses, too.

When I make a new lens, I will wait about 24 hours for Google to find it on their own. Google is crawling within the Squidoo site a LOT, looking for new content to index.

If Google doesn't get my lens in the index within 24 hours, I will make a blog post about the topic of my lens and link to my lens. This works very well for me. If my lens

is something I want to get in the index ASAP (product launch, etc), I will blog about it as soon as my lens is published.

Tips For Blogging About A Squidoo Lens

1. Make a post about 250-300 words that is on the same topic as your lens. Google likes links to web pages that come FROM web pages on the same topic.

2. Use relevant and targeted keywords as the anchor text. This matters and is very important. For god's sake Do NOT use generic words such as "click here" or "my new lens".You will will nothing more than hurting your Lens.

3. Try to get the link to your lens within the first sentence or two of your blog post. This will help ensure that this is one of the first things Google 'reads'. This also helps with content scraping that is done via RSS feeds. Even if the scraper only takes a summary version of your RSS feed, you can be sure they are at least helping to build links for you.

How to know When/If Google Reads your Blog Post?

Ask Google to TELL you when they are indexing something on your blog! Really! You can go to Google Alerts and set up an alert for your Blog (or your name, or certain keywords, etc etc etc). If you choose 'As Soon As It Happens', Google will email you and tell you what they just indexed. Google alerts are a great little tool. After the alert you can verify if it's index by searching  for the exact url (web address) of your lens. Copy the lens address from the browser window while at your lens. Then, go to Google and paste that address into the Google search field. After clicking 'search', if you see your lens as a search return, your lens is in the index.

 If you Don't HAVE A Blog then..
Get one! There are many sites online that offer free blogs. Blogger.com is one of the best and the easiest to use. (hint: Blogger is owned by Google.) By simply following the simple set-up steps, you can have a blog up and running in no time. If you've never blogged before, try to over-come the intimidation that comes with the thought of taking on this task. Writing a blog post can be as easy as typing an email.

Your Blog does not have to be On The Same Topic As My Squidoo Lens while your POST about your lens needs to be on the same topic, your entire blog does NOT. Remember, Google indexes and ranks web PAGES, not web SITES. Think about ezineArticles.com - they have MANY web pages on MANY topics... How are they doing in the search engines? ok I think you got the point.

Set up a blog that is generic, such as - "My Cool Finds Online" or "Making it Big With Squidoo" or anything like that. Just make sure the post ABOUT your lens is targeting the same keywords as your lens is.

Keep in mind that Google will also index your blog post, too. If your lens AND your blog post about that lens both make Page 1 for a Google search of your keywords, you now have TWO of the TEN top spots covered. This is a very good thing!

How to Screw it up

DO NOT PANIC if you have done this! It is NOT the end of the world nor have you lost all chances of your lenses doing well. With time and some effort, this issue will resolve itself.

How Can you Mess Up Getting your Lens Indexed?

this happens all the time. A new lensmaster makes a new lens. Immediately, they go all over Squidoo dropping keyword optimized anchor text links to their new lens on various guest books. Within a short time, I will get an email saying something along the lines of...

"My lens is not in the index! Its been FOREVER! And when I search for my keywords on Google, some OTHER lens is coming up for my targeted keywords... and their lens isn't even ABOUT my keywords!! Help!"

Here's what happens...

Google has no idea your lens exists. However, they are constantly crawling lenses they DO know exist. They come across a lens that has certain keywords in anchor text within the guestbook. Google takes anchor text seriously and the LINKS IN GUEST BOOKS ARE NO-FOLLOW.

HINT:  On the comments area Links highlighted in blue are 'followed' by Google. Links highlighted in pink are NOT followed by Google. In a nutshell, this means that Google
will go to the links highlighted in blue, but it will NOT go to links highlighted in pink.

Now, the blue links to your lensmaster page are a good thing, and Google very well MIGHT crawl your author page and see your new lens (IF Squidoo has given it a 'green check' already and it shows up on your lensmaster page).

In a nutshell

Do NOT go dropping links to a new lens until AFTER Google has indexed your lens. (I will Cry if you still do this  after i said not to, but hey! it's your lens anyway!!)

  It is fine to promote your lensmaster page in hopes Google will see the new lens....but do not drop anchor text to a new lens in a guestbook until Google knows your lens exists.

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