Commerce Lens Building Tips #1

A problem: you have a great lens which is performing, but suddenly someone else builds a page and you can see they're doing MUCH better! What happened, and what can you do?

When someone else gets an idea for a page that is similar to yours, it can be very discouraging! The internet marketing focus is to find something good, make your own, and then take DOWN all competitors. It is definitely an effective strategy, but the problem with it is that is doesn't 'live and let live.' Moreover, Squidoo wants LOTS of pages on any given topic, and it has done many things to encourage that, such as all of the co-branding. Therefore, if you can have 50 different lenses on, say, handbags on the main site, you can have 50 more on handbags on Squidvids, ever.com, squidwho, and so on.

It is a REAL challenge to stand out, but it can be done successfully in such a way that it is hard to duplicate.

My suggestion is that you make your page PERSONAL.

P: pertinent to YOU.
E: experiences. Share your experience of the product, service etc.
R: relevant to life, living, and using what you offer.
S: story. Tell a story with a beginning, middle and ending. Make it satisfying.
O: overboard- at least a little! Emphasize fun, excitement, make it memorable.
A: automatic: with a compelling story, it is automatic to check out your product.
L: leave them WITH something beside a full page ad. A tip, suggestion, a reason to return, a reason to share your page with others.

The internet is buried in cleverly constructed pages designed to drag a person, willingly or unwillingly, to an ad, product, and ppc links. People are really starting to feel abused by those techniques.

You will get farther, for the longer term, if you create original stories and personal experience pages that have, as part of it, relevant offers for specific things.

I know this is more work, but it helps you build an audience, is very tough to duplicate or exploit, and it adds to the pleasure of people who use the internet to shop.

If you build pages like that, PLEASE let me know. I'll feature them in a few special ways I have planned, and I'll post them here on the blog!

Participating in Squidoo- More on Groups

As I mentioned before, groups and group masters are your best friends. Just joining a group will help increase your lensranking and traffic. First, applying to a group gets you at least ONE visitor. One visitor to your new lens is traffic, is movement, and that is very important to Squidoo. It might also get you a star ranking of some sort, 1 to 5, which is an actual interaction with a viewer and a sign that it is at least attractive enough for someone to 'do something' with your lens.

A group is a collection of lenses that are related somehow, according to the mind of the groupmaster. They have an idea of how they will promote the group, what it is about, and what keywords will get the group as a whole a decent and improving google ranking and traffic.

Just like Google likes it when a website has reciprocal, similar links, so too do you benefit by having your lens in a group with similar lenses. The group page can be a 'landing place' for potential audience or customers from outside of Squidoo, and from there it is easy to find all the other lenses that may interest a visitor. This is known as the proximity effect or even viral marketing.

When you are ready to join groups, it is an extremely good idea to look the group page over carefully and see what the groupmaster is doing with and for the group. They may have posted minimum standards and, before you apply, be sure your lens actually meets those minimums. If you have any questions or doubts, email the group master. They are interested in having their groups be the best they can be, having a great selection of lenses to offer visitors, and perhaps filling some gaps the groupmaster might see. Group masters appreciate contacts prior to application. It gives them a chance to give you a little guidance in what works best in the group, what may be improved on your lens, and some additional ways you may fit in.

They can also advise you if there are any contests, resources, blogs or project that they have developed that may be very good for you. Participating in activities can increase your visibility, improve your lensrank, and give you some great ideas for new modules or marketing ideas that could increase your sales or traffic to your blog or website.

Once you are accepted in a group, once a week check in at the group page or resource your group master has provided. Comment on the page if there is a module. Vote on the plexos. If the groupmaster is looking for other lensmasters to do a round robin or group lens visit, be available to do that.

You might discover your groupmaster has submitted your lens to LOTD, or in a contest that will bring you a lot of visibility. You may be blogged, or dug, or submitted to delicious by your group master. Each one has their own ideas of what to do with the group.

Groups also give you an opportunity to lensroll similar lenses and help you to become a tour guide for visitors.

Being in a group, or more than one, means that you have others interested in your success, not just you alone.

Participating in Squidoo- Leaving Comments

Recently someone asked: "Why should I leave a comment? What's in it for me?"

The first step in participating in Squidoo is leaving comments on every lens you see, and you get a LOT out of it.

The first thing you get is an external link to your own work. The web itself is called the interNET, with the foundational implication that we are all NETworking. Web 2.0. Presumably, this is why you joined Squidoo in the first place, to NETwork. Leaving your link wherever possible makes you part of the network, both in Squidoo and on the internet, and makes it much, much easier to find you.

The second thing you get is NOTICED. The lensmaster who wrote the lens you commented on notices the comment. They will most likely look you up and see who you are. They may leave a comment for you, and in that case, extend your own NETwork. You have just gotten a very nice reciprocal link without even trying!

The third thing you get is KNOWN. There are some very interested and influential people browsing lens after lens in Squidoo. There are contests, reviews, talent scouts, lots of things are going on. Those people could do you a lot of good. They look and see who is participating, who is leaving comments. If a lens you have commented on becomes a winner in a contest that is driving lots of traffic to that lens, your comment remains there for people to see. If you've left an interesting comment, some interested people may look you up!

Leaving comments on people's lenses inspires confidence in you, for those who see your avatar or picture in many places. It tells them you care about your lens, your business, you website. It tells them you care about your position, your prominence, your reputation. It is like a 'mini-sales call' or leaving behind a business card for people you haven't yet met.

As I go through and cull the Mall membership, I won't be culling lensmasters who I know are participants. I know this by seeing your comments on other's lenses, in the contests, on the blogs, in the forum.

You get far more out of commentary than you put into it. You're a business person, right?

We're all in this new dance together- or we're not!

Squidbooks!!!

One of our leading lensmasters, jackclee has just published a great new lens, with an incredible idea! He calls it Squidbooks, and it is about using Squidoo lenses to be the publishing format for your book!

Using a beginning lens, he recommends the url be the title, and each additional page have the same url with a number behind it, each Squidoo lens then becomes part of a book. The lenses link one to another at the bottom of the page, so as one finishes reading, one can 'turn the page' just by clicking on the link!

I recommend that you take a good and careful look at that lens. Many of you have interesting lenses with so much content, that they can be turned into profitable and monetized books without the need of a publisher!

Here is a wonderful idea for doubling up the effect of your work. Your content/commerce lenses can not only be storefronts, but actual books! You can be a published author in your own right, with the knowledge you are already sharing. Thanks, Jack, for an awesome idea!

New Social Networking Site

There's a brand new social networking site, free to join, that is primarily for internet professionals and artists, but everyone is welcome to join the site.

They are working to create a network of people who are knowledgable about internet technologies AND for people who are learning them. Like other sites, there are places to put a gallery of pictures, your music, and dating info. There is plenty of room to put your blogs, websites and even your squidoo pages.

Here is the description by the founder:

MySiteProfile.com is a search engine friendly, online community and social network for bloggers, web designers, developers and various types of artists. It gives its members the opportunity to brand themselves through a personalized profile page in which they can promote their businesses or services, as well as their talents and interests, while gaining recognition amongst other like minds. Although MySiteProfile.com was intended to be used by web marketing professionals, we welcome all persons interested in the offerings of this site.

It was easy for me to make a very nice page, and since there are only 174 people, plus or minus and growing, it is a good time to begin your own profile page and get networking!

Peacocks Pressing Right Along!

In the Mall on Squidoo, we are just like a peacock with his tail down. Strutting along, pressing right along, and hopefully when we receive visitors our tail fans out and we show our best and most beautiful.

The star ranking algorithms as they are stand. According to Gil, it is inaccurate to say that they are 'broken' though there are many who have felt that way. So, since it appears that there will be no major changes that make the algorithm more predictable, it is time to go through each of the individual feathers in the Mall and shine them up!

I am reinstating the star ranking that I give to each lens that comes across my desk, just as I explained in my tutorials. We will count on all those factors being the primary ones in play as they have been since I started.

I will also be looking for additional things that will be important in your lensrank, but more importantly, we will be looking for GOOGLE rankings, which will be the place where your primary customers come from.

If we can spruce the place up, we won't need star rankings to be the lovely peacock at Squidoo!

Application to the Mall Group

Here is a screenshot of a lensmaster's page, by ALI HABIB, that applied for entry into the Mall group on squidoo.

I refused the lens today without comment, but found it front and center on an internet marketing group page. On her group page, as I looked once again at the lens, it had FOUR FIVE STAR RATINGS, even if it didn't have any comments.

What kind of groupmaster do you want providing company for your lenses? I reported this lens as a hideous terms of service violation. What kind of group master do I want to be for you?

The Long Tail and The Caravan

SMALL SHOPKEEPERS

It was not so long ago that big box retailers, like shopping malls and Walmart, were rightly accused of destroying the small businesses that populated downtowns and supported families for generations. These types of marketing outdid nearly all the small businesses in pricing, selection and convenience. They purchased cheap goods manufactured in foreign lands, offered products that served the same purposes as the goods offered by small, independent retail shops, and did it at far lower costs.

Entire cities suffered great economic hardships because of this change. Downtowns were gutted, and people went to work for these retailers, losing income and lowering their standard of living. Cities suffered from the loss of revenue. Many cities have not recovered to this day.

THE LONG TAIL

The internet, and Squidoo in particular, has leveled the playing field of the small retailer with the giants like Walmart. Once again, small shopkeepers, like yourselves, can offer high quality and unusual products, without having the disadvantage of higher overhead that destroyed those small businesses before. Even though those large corporations continue to offer cheaper goods badly made, here is your entry point into the national market, making yourself available to customers who are sick and tired of shoddy products and cold corporate 'service.'

THE CARAVAN IS COMING

You are in on the ground floor of something very, very big. Squidoo has nearly doubled in size just since I started, and at this growth rate, by Sept. 2007, will be TEN TIMES larger than when I began; and by the end of the year will have over 3/4 million lenses!!!

PLANT YOUR ROOTS NOW

In order to survive the great flood of lensmasters who are coming, it is critical for you to plant your roots now. Well rooted trees planted in solid earth survive floods far better than green shoots and slender trees poorly planted.

Your lenses MUST be superior, a tough act to follow, submitted to Google NOW, before your competitors come in, looking to overtake what you have begun.

WHY?

The reality, on the ground, is that many parts of our country are having grave economic difficulties. The new opportunity that Squidoo provides along with those realities means that many people will be seriously pursuing this opportunity. Their financial survival may depend on their success or failure. There will be a lot at stake.

DUPLICATION

I am already seeing it happen, and you may have noticed it too. There are pure affiliate module lenses that are easily duplicated by anyone who can build a squidoo lens. If one lensmaster seems to have a successful lens on videos, another lensmaster looks over the successful lens and builds one A LITTLE BIT BETTER; with more content, more links, a few more of the same products. A slicker title, better tags, even a better bio, any place where you haven't invested great work in great content, becomes a weakness others can and will exploit. As more and more lenses are built that are just like yours, your potential for attracting buying customers will be more and more diluted. There will be more and more lensmasters competing for the same customers.

BLACK AND WHITE HATS

Black hat SEO is what will be filling up the Squidoo lens roster in such enormous numbers. By its very nature, black hat SEO takes chances with standard practices outlined by Google; by its nature it takes risks. By its nature it attracts people who are also risk takers.

Viral marketing and social networking means that there will be long lines of networks and 'downlines' all trying to duplicate those things which have been successful. Your own success, if not carefully plotted out and cared for, will be what draws the attention of those who are happy to duplicate your work in every respect.

White hat SEO will be what saves you, what improves your business, improves your google rankings, nourishes the roots of the small business you planted.

AUTHORITY SITES

White hat SEO tells us that Google NOW LOVES authority. It loves sites that are linked to by others, that get a link on Wikipedia, that bring content to the internet, not just advertising.

Becoming an expert in what you are selling, offering easy contact for your customers, giving information that only you can provide, showing your product and your knowledge in an appealing way; all of these things will help you to be considered an authority by Google and will help your small business grow well in spite of the flood of incoming lensmasters.

We have come full circle back to the value that the original small retailers offered to downtowns in every city in the world, but was lost. Google somehow knows how important those tiny, specialized retailers actually are, and has revamped the web algorithms to 2.0 to bring this back to life.

LENS CLUSTERS

Lens clustering is an extremely good way to demonstrate yourself to be an 'authority.' As you grow in knowledge of your products, as you research and collect links, tips, techniques, information and increase your collections, the opportunities show up for multiple lenses on related, if not the same, products. Your good content lenses will link to each other, relate to each other, and Google will read this as authority. Build an independent website to which your lens clusters can direct traffic and increase your visibility and your reach. Follow your chosen industry and blog its developments. Just because your squidoo lens is drawing traffic NOW is not a reason to neglect your lens, neglect your small business, or to ignore what the future clearly holds.

THE LONG TAILED SWORD?

The Long Tail can be your great opportunity. It can also be what stretches the market too thin for anyone to make a living. This two-edged sword is what you will need to consider as you gear up your business for the future. Will you do it?