Looking at our current top Mall on Squidoo lens, the Dooney & Bourke handbag lens, by thestyleguru, I see that the lensroll was probably chosen by Squidoo based on designer handbag tags alone.
In that lensroll are 5 directly competing Squidoo lenses, two with ugly placeholders.
The first one is Coach Handbags by KC.
Next Wholesale Designer Handbags by pspdownloads. This lens has no avatar or intro module picture and so it looks very ugly on this page.
The third lens in that lensroll is the Brahmin Handbags by athomesource. This one has a beautiful picture of a crocodile handbag in their intro module.
Next is a very clever take on a designer handbag lens by jaguarjulie, called Bag Lady on Squidoo.
The last one in that lensroll is "I found this great website to buy handbags at up to 75% off," by tonyt. This lens has no pictures, so our lensmaster has ANOTHER ugly placeholder, but it also has no product, only a link to an unknown website that promises amazing savings for new handbags.
Now, if you add to that the 4 paid Google ads for Dooney & Bourke handbags, including a discount ad, you can see that it is a formidable amount of competition for this lensmaster to overcome.
Thestyleguru also says in their bio: "I'll save you loads of time by helping you find information on all of MY interests. Free or at the most affordable prices for You. Whether it be fashion, books, the hottest trends, or just helpful tips on info we all look for and want to know. Let me be of service to you... Enjoy!! -thestyleguru".
From this we get the impression that everything, including the lensrolled pages, are all condoned or recommended by this lensmaster!
The power of Squidoo has been, at least up to now, THE POWER OF PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION. In this case, and in the case of all other lenses with serious competition, that personal recommendation has been DISEMPOWERED.
You can say, 'this is a performing lens, otherwise it wouldn't be so high in Squidoo Lensrank.'
I say, yes, it peformed BEFORE the layout change, and BEFORE the lensroll became so prominent. The old layout ignored it if you had no lensroll. The Google ads were much less prominent, and your intro module was larger and more striking to the attention. Now, it puts a lensroll in place FOR YOU if you haven't done so already, maximizes the Google ads and diminishes the introduction module in every way.
Tomorrow I will discuss options for this particular lensmaster to help save their lens from obscurity.
I hope that you will look at this lens, compare it with the others, and offer your own suggestions. We will all benefit from improving our lenses, and this lensmaster isn't the only one having this difficulty.
2 comments:
I may be wrong but it looks like Squidoo only picks lenses for that section when you do not have any in your lensroll. I just lensrolled my other lenses and replaced what Squidoo picked.
Thanks Randy, that was the point of the entire post.
When Squidoo picks lensroll by tags, you will get lenses that use the same tags as you do. In the case of a commerce lens, you will get your competitors lenses.
Post a Comment