Right From the Horse's Mouth

There we have it! In the forum Gil revealed that the star ranking algorithms will REMAIN A MYSTERY! This is to ensure a prevention of the 'gaming' that destroyed the star ranking algorithms since the beginning of the year.

Behavior DOES have its consequences, for lots of people.

I apologize to you, then, my admired internet commerce confreres, who work so hard to create beautiful and resourceful squidoo lenses for your customers.

So, accepting reality then, we will press right along and find the best advice, the best techniques and the best lenses on squidoo to help you be your best, regardless of star rankings.

You're all stars to me, anyway!

I Follow the Links of Every Lens that Applies to the Mall

I have found a number of problems when I do this. Sometimes the links actually redirect me to a pornographic site.

Other times, when I have examined the lensmaster's main page, I have found unfinished lenses with 25, 30, over 50 five star ratings, meaning that they had a congo line of people giving out high star rankings regardless of content.

However, this lens horrified me more than any.

In this case, I was directed to "Hitler" at videosense. His videos were parodies, most significantly, parodies of the Jewish Holocaust and the SS.

Squidoo has its hands full just with policing adult content. Groupmasters are on the front line of what it means to be squidoo, and as these many things come across my desk, I am responsible to turn them over for TOS violations and for whatever else it is expected of me to do.

It can make, and has made me, very unpopular.

These Are People Working Squidoo To Their Advantage

That is the title of the groupmaster's FEATURED LENSMASTER module.

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?

Lensranking has been ADJUSTED

Now that the lensranking has been adjusted, I'll be posting about how to get your rankings up according to the wisdom bestowed from the 'best of places' that seem to influence the decisions.

Consequently, the plans I have had for the Mall have had to be changed somewhat.

I will discuss these things in future posts. Hang on to your hats!!!!!

Star Ranking Atrocity

At this time, the top 100 by lensrank has become inexplicable by any of the standards that have been previously used. I have asked for clarification of the algorithms that make this a useful tool for all of us. As yet I haven't received this clarification, which I hope is forthcoming soon.

Until it is, though, and while I'm delighted to see some of our Mall lensmasters rankings improving, my previous tutorials about lenranks and stars are suspended and I consider them to be useless.

As a groupmaster, the tools such as most profitable, most emailed, and top 100 by lensrank could be extremely helpful to assist group members in achieving more, becoming more profitable, obtaining more traffic and becoming more visible to the internet community, both inside and outside of Squidoo.

Until it becomes clear how to use these tools in a reliable manner, I am developing alternative ways to support you and your work.

Affiliate Lenses & the Long Tail Market

Squidoo is quite unique in that it offers many different possibilities for adding affiliate modules to your lens.

One way of approach to this is to add affiliate modules that support the content of your lenses. For example, a lens about a young girl's stuffed animal collection is FULL of content about the specific characters she loves. The affiliate modules that she selected enabled her to offer some of those characters for sale, so if a person became interested and involved in her hobby, they too could own some of those animals. This is a SUPPORT module.

The second approach is to create a lens that is ONLY affiliate modules. One chooses a topic, say garden rakes, slaps up several affiliate modules, looking for every possible garden rake offered by all the Squidoo affiliates, add the tags, and a bio that says 'hello world, this is my bio, I can edit it later' or 'I hope you buy your garden rakes from me.'

The long tail means, among other things, that there are A LOT OF ENTRY POINTS into the market, just as your squidoo lens is. It means if you could easily build a lens on garden rakes, because traffic looking for garden rakes is X per month, adsense ads get X per month, and you expect a residual income of X per month; so could many other people. They can all sit at their computer and in a few minutes have a lens just as compelling and with just as great a selection as yours. The potential for sucess becomes more and more diluted.

Go out of your way to know your products, know what you like and don't like about them, build some credibility with your audience. I expect that Diddl will be a very successful lens as it finds its audience and market, and the audience and market find that lens.

Building Great Commerce Lenses #1

A great feature that can help your sales and the overall look and feel of your lens is the bio feature. It is one of the entry points to your lens, a window.

It is very easy to overlook this, especially when you are busy, but customers do not. Actually, when we signed up for squidoo, our understanding of what we were doing was in one place. After having DONE it for a while, our understanding takes us to another place. Usually, though, our initial bios don't change.

What many lensmasters don't know is that your bio can be different for each lens! My corvette lens doesn't benefit from my bio that I did for the Amish lenses, and vice versa. When I edited the corvette lens bio, it did not change the bio on the Amish lenses. This is a terrific feature for you to benefit from.

The very best lenses all have certain elements in common:

Who
What
When
Where
Why
How.

The bio is the best place for why, and why you, to be explained. An excellent bio that explains why you like the products you offer, or why you designed them, why you're pleased with them, is very encouraging for a visitor.

We only have one chance in front of a potential customer. If they feel 'satisfaction' when they come to your page, they will likely come back again and again. This 'stickiness' is what makes for repeat sales and your success as you build. Don't overlook what a strong bio can add to your page.

Tutorial: Five Stars- Genius!

If, after today, you receive 5 stars from me, it is because you have struck me as a creative or marketing genius. Your commerce lens is PHENOMENAL!!!

You have ALL YOUR DUCKS IN A ROW. People look at your commerce lens and say WOW!!!

The five star rating is the best way I have to tell the world that you BELONG in the top 100 ranking on squidoo.

It is the best way I have to tell the world that you are an up and comer!

These lenses, and the lensmasters who make them will receive my unmitigated, solid, continuing support. These are GRANDMASTER LENSMASTER COMPETITORS.

They each have a tight-focused niche. They each have something very special about them. It could be creative, artistic, quirky, humorous, activist, intellectual, informational, it could be anything, but they REALLY STAND OUT IN THE CROWD.

You say Margaret, I only sell T shirts, knit socks, sell breadboxes. How could that EVER get 5 stars???

Even the most pedestrian, ordinary things can be extremely profitable lenses, if you are the phenomenon I think you are.

Now, go out there and blow everyone away!

Tutorial: Four Stars- Rock Star!

If you have received 4 stars from me, this means that YOU ARE A ROCK STAR!!!

You will likely be featured as a NOT TO MISS STORE. I may write a review of your commerce lens and blog it, just for fun. You may discover that your lens is lensrolled into the Mall on Squidoo lens. It may even be favorited. I may have already emailed it to other great lensmasters to see, or to friends or family. I will purposely visit ALL YOUR OTHER LENSES AND THIS TIME, I will do the same. I will email the best ones to other great lensmasters to look at. I will email them to family and friends. If possible, I will lensroll them into one or more of my own lenses or groups. I will keep your best lenses in mind for good contests, or for a review. I will favorite each one that I really like. I will consider you among the first bunch of FEATURED LENSMASTERS.

How do you get this?

You'll have a great intro. You will have great information about your products. Great pictures. Your lens will be focused. Your bio will be pertinent to this specific lens. I will be convinced that you have done everything you can to take care of the customers. Your mugshot will show up in other lenses by comment, you will be participating in the blog, in the lounge, in contests. I will see other lenses in your lensrolls.

A four star rating from me means that you are a winner, someone to watch, and a great example of a great squidoo'er.

Tutorial: Three Stars- Good Solid Lens

Three stars mean that you have convinced me that you are a good, solid business person.

I am willing to email your lens to someone who I know who happens to be looking for your product, or who I am sure would like it very much.

Does it need to be perfect? No, not at all.

It means this:

I can CONTACT YOU. If I have a question, I at least have a way to get hold of you.

You have a good introduction. That means a relevant picture, some sort of introduction that helps me be oriented to the focus of your lens.

Starting from today, NO COMMERCE LENS MISSING A CONTACT ME FUNCTION WILL RECEIVE MORE THAN TWO STARS FROM ME.

No exceptions.

Tutorial: Two Stars? What the Heck Does That Mean???

Two stars for those who apply to my groups mean: NOW we're getting somewhere!

It means YOU QUALIFY TO BE IN MY GROUP.

It means you have moved beyond the minimum. You have THREE MODULES, not counting the introduction, all of which have some sort of content. It means you have SOME SORT OF PRODUCT TO SELL TO ME and you are TRYING TO DO SO.

It isn't that hard to get to two stars. If you have previously received a one star from me, and you have improved to this degree, I can add another star to your rank.

Tutorial: One Star: Yes, I See You

I have several groups, each of which have been formed for a specific reason. I am one group-master among many. My standards are my own, please do not expect any other group-masters to use the same guidelines. If you follow my guidelines, I believe you will do better with other group- and lens- masters, as well as your visitors, but these are not something to hold others to AT ALL.

A one star rank from me, as a group master means this: Yes, I have seen your page. I have READ each module. I have noticed the features you have put there. I have seen which modules you have used and why. I do not click on affiliate links or google ads. If you have a link to a website, I DO click on that to see what you are trying to show me. If you show a link for reference or information purposes, I click on that. I look to see if I can contact you with questions. I look to see if I could leave a comment if I wanted to. Unless this is your only lens, I also click on your lensmaster name and see your roster of other lenses. I look at your top lens AND I look at your bottom lens. I look to see if you have ever commented on my lenses, other group lenses, have commented in the lounge, are signed up for contests, and I read any comments other people have left for you.

So, yes, I have seen your page and looked it over carefully. Ihave made a study of it. I know what's there & I know what's missing.

Everyone always BEGINS with a 1 star in my groups.

Rating Tutorial: No star? One Star? What????

No Stars = Bone Yard.

Star ranking is A MEASURING TOOL. Nothing more or less. It is ALL ABOUT THE VIEWER'S EXPERIENCE. Or, let's say it SHOULD be.

However, most non-lensmasters who see your lens will never rate it at all. If you get ANY RATING AT ALL FROM A NON-LENSMASTER, BREAK OUT THE CHAMPAGNE!!!

On the part of non-lensmasters, ignoring your star ranking isn't unusual. We can ask them to rate it somewhere in the lens, but if they don't, well, they don't and you get no goodies in your lensrank unless they do something else, like purchase.

However, other lensmasters DO rate, but not always. They also don't always LOOK at your lenses even if they rate them. This has happened to me over and over again.

In general, though, for Squidoo purposes, 'no star' means no one has looked at your lens in that way.

Lensrank on Squidoo indicates people's interaction with your lens, so a no star at all is actually WORSE than a 1 star rank.

1 star means someone looked at and interacted with your lens! Someone cared enough to do that. This is all to the good with lensrank.

Paraphrasing a very knowledgeable lensmaster, Chou, who stated in the lounge: A lens that is so hated that it inspires people to give a 1 star, to have all their friends come by the thousands and give it a 1 star, and who leave many really nasty comments is, according to lensrank algorithms, a very successful lens.

It may not be much comfort if you have received a 1 star, but, for purposes of lensrank, it is one more person who has interacted with your lens. Your lens is, at least, 'on the map.'