squidoo lenses – Small Business Odyssey

December 22, 2011

Leverage Your Blogging: Create a Small Business Ezine

One of the easiest ways to leverage your blogging, is to create your own small business ezine. An ezine is basically an email newsletter where you share articles, news and blog posts with members of your mailing list (customer list). This approach to small business marketing serves multiple purposes and achieves leverage on a number of levels.

Your regular small business ezine enables you to maintain contact with your customers, educate them about your products and services and offer free information and advice. Most email service providers offer ways to further leverage your ezine via RSS feeds and automatic posts to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

If you are blogging regularly, you are creating the content for your ezine. If you blog daily, you will be able to provide a small business ezine of considerable substance.

How to use your blogging in your small business ezine

If you blog regularly, you can easily create an ezine from your blog posts. Since I blog daily, I send a weekly ezine to my mailing list covering a number of posts around a theme, e.g. Squidoo or LinkedIn. You need to decide the frequency of your small business ezine based on the regularity of your blog posts, the nature of your business and the kind of information you are offering.

Most autoresponders will replace the blog links in your email with their own generated links (if you specify that you want open rates and click-through-rates measured).

Another option is to use the URL shortener bitly.com to shorten your blog links. The advantages of this approach are that you can share each individual shortened link automatically with your Facebook and/or Twitter account and you can also get statistics on click-through-rates on the Bitly link. It is a good idea to add a comment (like a status update) before you share your link on Bitly.

Blogging has lots of benefits, not the least of these is that it provides you with content to share with your mailing list via your small business ezine.

December 21, 2011

Squidoo Has a Special Relationship with Google

Let’s talk about Squidoo and its relationship with Google. Google and Squidoo have some goals in common. For example, they both want original content on websites (lenses) that are frequently updated. They both want quality and not spam. They each want to see the searcher satisfied when they use their respective platforms. One of the goals of the founders of Squidoo, for example, was to create a quality search engine.

Squidoo and Google also have some differences. While both want to generate a profit, one of Seth Godin’s goals in creating Squidoo was to generate $100 Million for charity – hence, the option for Lensmasters to donate their advertising revenue to approved Squidoo charities.

The Professional relationship between Squidoo and Google

Some time past, Seth Godin provided strategic advice on a consultancy basis to Google. As one of the world’s leading Internet marketers, Seth was well placed to do this. He has a million readers a day for his blog, Seth Godin’s Blog. He has also written 10 New York Bestsellers on the topic of Internet Marketing.

However, the relationship is on a professional basis. When Squidoo was attacked by a lot of spammers, Google had no hesitation in downgrading Squidoo to protect their own revenue base derived from quality search results. You can read about this ‘Google Slap’ story on my Squidoo Marketing Strategies lens and see way Squidoo responded to improve its overall quality.

The relationship is back on a sound footing with Google re-establishing Squidoo’s high ranking and value in search results.

How can you help the relationship between Google and Squidoo?

Fundamentally, you contribute positively to this relationship when you create quality lenses that have original content and are updated on a regular basis. When you join Squidoo you effectively sign up to the Originality Pact which I discussed in an earlier post.

The challenge is to maintain the quality and currency of your Squidoo lenses in the face of many other time consuming tasks. This is a tall order if you have a lot of Squidoo lenses. Developing techniques to improve your online productivity can help here. You might like to visit my lens on improving personal productivity for some ideas.

The reward of Squidoo’s relationship with Google

The core benefit from this relationship is that Google values quality Squidoo lenses highly. So once you create a quality lens and update it on a regular basis, you will be rewarded with an improved page rank, higher positioning in search engine results and improved web traffic. I have found that it is much easier to achieve a high page rank from Google with a Squidoo lens than it is with a blog or a website.

It has also been my anecdotal experience too that, since I became a Giant Squid, I have been indexed more quickly by Google.

One of the interesting things is that Google accords each Squidoo lens a page rank different from that of the Squidoo platform itself. Here’s some examples of my lenses:

A. Keyword: squidoo marketing strategies

Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

Google Results: Position 1

Google Page Rank: 4

B. Keyword: improve personal productivity

Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/improve-personal-productivity

Google Results: Position 2

Google Page Rank: 2

C. Keyword: tropical rainforest walk

Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/tropicalrainforest

Google Results: Position 7

Google Page Rank: 3

These results come from screenshots taken of Google search results with the added information provided by SEO Quake – a free plugin & toolbar for use with Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

The quality of the relationship between Squidoo and Google is dependent on the quality and originality of Squidoo lenses – if you create excellent Squidoo lenses you can expect good page rank and high positions in Google’s search results for targeted keywords.

December 20, 2011December 20, 2011

Squidoo is a Marketing Platform

Squidoo was designed for marketers by an Internet marketer, Seth Godin. So Seth Godin’s Internet marketing principles are embedded in the Squidoo platform design.

In this post, I’ll explore some of the characteristics of the Squidoo platform design and how you can best make use of these features to further your small business marketing.

[Image Credit: teamstickergiant]

Inbuilt coding for indexing by search engines

If you know any of the technical jargon about guiding the indexing of your website by the search engines (search engine optimisation), then you will have heard of meta tags – basically signposts for the search engine bots that crawl your website for indexing purposes.

These meta tags tell the search engines what your site is about (site description) and what keywords (search terms) you are focusing on. Normally, you have to create these meta tags yourself. However, with Squidoo, they are built into the Squidoo platform. So to take advantage of this you need to do the following:

ensure that the name of your Squidoo lens (lens URL) contains your targeted keyword
include your primary keyword in the lens description
ensure that your primary tag is the same as the keyword in the lens title and description
use your keyword, or variations of it, in your module headings
ensure your keyword features in your introduction
use tags that are clearly relevant to your primary keyword.

Above all, avoid ‘keyword stuffing’ or overuse of keywords to a point where what you write is meaningless. Primary keywords, and related words, should occur naturally throughout your writing.

Each lens is a single web page enabling deep indexing by the search engines

The way the Squidoo platform is structured means that each lens is seen by the search engines as a single page, even if the lens is more than 45 modules long as is my primary Squidoo lens:

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoomarketingstrategies

The net effect of this is that the Google search engine bots can readily engage in deep indexing of Squidoo lenses – which means that your Squidoo lens gets indexed from top to bottom (including comments). Many webmasters and bloggers engage in all kinds of activities to get Google to index beyond the first page of their websites. With Squidoo this activity is unnecessary as the Squidoo site is designed to facilitate deep indexing by Google and the other search engines.

I have written about this deep indexing in an article on the article directory, Ezinearticles.com, and explained how this takes place:

Squidoo and Search Engine Indexing

In a another article, I elaborated further on how to make the best use of the fact that the search engines index the whole of a Squidoo lens (deep indexing):

Top 10 Tips to Encourage Deep Indexing of Squidoo Lenses

Squidoo lenses are indexed for multiple keywords

One of things that I discovered through building many Squidoo lenses (100+) is that Google indexes Squidoo lenses for multiple keywords. One of my lenses on Digital Storytelling was found through more than 300+ search terms (over a 3 month period) on Google’s search results. This means that Google had indexed my Squidoo lens for more than 300 keywords and searchers were able to find my lens through multiple search terms. The net effect of this for small business marketing is that by creating Squidoo lenses you are increasing the chances of people finding your website/blog because of the way Google indexes the lenses.

This whole process is illustrated in a PDF document I produced as one of the bonuses of my Social Media Training Program. This PDF demonstrates how Google indexes Squidoo lenses, shows you how to check your own lenses for indexing by Google and explains how to maximise the chances of your Squidoo lens being found on Google and other search engines. The core strategy in relation to the last point, is the use of ‘long tail keywords’ (keywords containing three or more words). The PDF can be downloaded here (includes a listing of the 300+ keywords for my digital storytelling lens):

http://www.squidooroo.com/Downloads/DeepIndexingofSquidooLenses.pdf

This multiple indexing of Squidoo lenses is not something to be taken lightly. I have subsequently discovered that another of my lenses, Tropical Rainforest Walk, has been found through Google via more than 600 search terms.

Small business marketing can get a real boost from the fundamental design of Squidoo lenses as the Squidoo platform encourages indexing by search engines, facilitates deep indexing and creates the opportunity for indexing of multiple keywords from the one Squidoo lens.

December 19, 2011December 20, 2011

Linking Your Squidoo Lenses

The key benefit of linking your Squidoo lenses is to demonstrate your expertise in a particular topic or niche. Another benefit is that readers are more inclined to follow links to related lenses than to something that does not relate to their search term. Both of these benefits can provide substantial assistance to your small business marketing.

There are a number of ways to link your Squidoo lenses and I want to concentrate on two particular Squidoo modules that make lens linking very easy – the ‘Featured Lenses’ Module and the “My Lenses” Module.

[Image Credit: John-Morgan]

Featuring your lenses and creating a lens chain

The Featured Lenses Module enables you to highlight up to five (5) lenses that are related to the topic of your lens. You can feature your own lenses or those of other Lensmasters. With this module you specify the URL (web address) of the lenses that you want to feature and identify the number of lenses (up to 5) that you want to display. These options are illustrated below (‘Featured Lenses’ Module shown in edit mode):

One way to make good use of the Featured Lenses Module is to create six (6) lenses on a topic and then on each lens add a Featured Lens Module that highlights the other five (5) related lenses. This effectively creates a Squidoo lens chain and is a powerful option for small business marketing. I have used this approach on my Squidoo lenses about Online Learning as illustrated below:

Another linking option you can use with the Featured Lens Module is to link to lenses created by others. You have to make sure, though, that these lenses cover a topic related to your own. This approach can add value to your own lens because it gives readers ready access to further information on the topic of their search . It is also in line with the collaborative marketing ethos of Squidoo and may result in some form of reciprocal link or “liking”.

Using the My Lenses Module for linking your lenses

The ‘My Lenses’ Module differs in operation from the Featured Lenses Module in that you do not specify the URL of the lenses that you want to link to, but rather choose from a number of criteria that Squidoo then uses to list your lenses. This means, in effect, that you have less control over the specific lenses to be displayed in the module. A further difference is that you can display up to 25 of your own lenses. So if you have lots of lenses related to a topic, you might choose to use the My Lenses Module

As explained, this module works from criteria that you specify. You have two choices, (1) choose by Squidoo topic area from the drop-down menu (e.g. education) or (2) choose from the tags (keywords) you have used in creating your lenses. The My Lenses Module is illustrated (in edit mode) below:

Having chosen the basis for selection (topic or tag) of your lenses, you can then specify on what basis they will be displayed. The choices listed at the bottom of the module (in edit mode) are:

Lens rank
Recently created
Recently updated
Alphabetically by Lens Title

One advantage of both the Featured Lenses Module and the My Lenses Module is that Squidoo completes the details of the chosen lenses for you. So these two modules automatically display the Squidoo lens image, lens title (hyperlinked) and a brief description of the lens (as displayed above in the image – ‘Featured Lenses related to online learning’).

The two Squidoo lenses modules that enable easy linking of your lenses are a real boost for your small business marketing because they both add considerable value to your lenses in the eyes of readers and the search engines.

December 18, 2011

Squidoo is a Search Engine!: Implications for Small Business Marketing

Squidoo is a search engine in its own right with other 2.5 Million lenses focused on key topic areas. Even experienced lensmasters tend to forget this aspect of Squidoo.

As Squidoo grows so does its data base of information. So if you are searching for information on specific topics, you will increasingly find quality, focused information by searching Squidoo.

In fact, one of the reasons that Squidoo exists is to improve search engine results. Often you find that websites that gravitate to the top of the search engines are those that have cleverly manipulated the search engines’ algoriths, including automatic generation of backlinks. You have probably found that you are often disappointed by the information that is first displayed by a search engine.

Squidoo was designed to provide webpages that are windows (lenses) to relevant information on a topic. The concept of the lens is that it is not an end in itself but points to other relevant resources. The lens is intended as a mutimedia index to rich information resources about a topic.

Squidoo is intent on maintaining the quality of lenses and has many mechanisms in place to reward quality and remove spam-type web pages. This is one of the reasons Squidoo has banned certain topic areas that tend to be predominantly spam attractors.

Implications of the Squidoo search engine for small business marketing

The primary implication is that in addition to web traffic via other search engines, your Squidoo lenses can attract traffic from within Squidoo itself, from other Squidoo lensmasters. This not only serves to build exposure to your small business but increases the value of your website with other search engines such as Google.

Squidoo insists on original content and has even created an Originality Pact. One of Squidoo’s endearing features is the constant encouragement to develop your personal creativity and to stand out from the crowd, to show that you have something unique to offer (your Unique Selling Proposition – USP?). As the Squidoo editors explain:

Squidoo is an opportunity for you to share your point of view, your take on a specific topic. That’s why lenses are called lenses — they snap your point of view in to focus.

There are many Squidoo lensmasters who demonstrate by their creativity and commitment that they are able to produce quality lenses providing real value to readers – they pride themselves in the quality that they produce. Squidoo recognises these Lensmasters as Giant Squids, people who have achieved excellence in at least 50 lenses. The Giant Squid status tends to attract more interest and more traffic to your website and I have found that it gives you a real standing with Google and the broader Internet marketing community.

In the Originality Pact, the Squidoo editors encourage you to stretch yourself, create quality lenses and to brand yourself as a person of substance who consistently offers readers real value:

This is an agreement to create, craft, build, bake, innovate, write, opine, talk, storytell, review, recommend, and stand out from the crowd. That’s the magic of Squidoo.

So a key implication for your small business marketing on Squidoo is that you brand yourself by the quality (or poverty) of your Squidoo lenses – your lenses will be found through the Squidoo search engine, so how do you want to be seen?