Here are five things I’ve learned about successful Squidoo lensmasters thus far:
Successful Squidoo Lensmasters Help Each Other - Squidoo lensmasters, the successful ones, are some of the most helpful and encouraging people I’ve ever been pleased to meet. They’re joyfully having a positive Squidoo experience and are aware that there’s plenty of room for others to be successful, so they help lift others up by sharing information on what led to their success.
Successful Squidoo Lensmasters Provide Helpful Information - Rather than using a lens as a simple sales page, something that turns people off, successful lensmasters provide real information that people will appreciate and return to when needed. Rather than focusing on sales, they focus on content.
Successful Squidoo Lensmasters Connect With Readers - They get to know the people who read their lenses. They ask for feedback in terms of guestbook entries, polls, and duels. They become friends with as many of their fellow Squidoo writers as possible, and help them promote their lenses.
Successful Squidoo Lensmasters Use Lots of Images - It is still true that a picture is worth 1000 words, and successful Squidoo lensmasters know that. They adorn their lenses with all types of graphics to catch the eyes and delight the souls.
Successful Squidoo Lensmasters Don’t Worry About Competition - I’ve heard it time and again on advice lenses of successful lensmasters. They don’t bother looking to see if a topic has already been done. Every lensmaster will have a unique take on a topic anyhow, and those who tend their lenses like flowers in a garden will be more likely to gain in lensrank. There’s no doubt that competition will always exist; we don’t need to consider ourselves limited by it.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:00 am
And they’re a wee bit obsessed, too. But there are certainly worse obsessions.
Great post!
July 16th, 2008 at 6:04 am
What Victoria said. (Although I was going to use the word insane, but obsessed works too. It’s why I fit in so well.)
July 16th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I agree with everything but the last one. I will look and if I think someone has done a reasonable to great job I move on to my next idea. I think it is just respectful.
If the lens is filled with nothing but a buttload of ads one after the other on totally none related stuff then I jump in and create my own lens.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Great post, I agree with all your points here. You have reminded me that I need to find time to make over some of my early creations that overdo the selling. Trouble is, it’s much more fun to create new lenses!
July 16th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Bigbluegirl - There are a few isolated cases where I might check up on the competition, but that’s with unusual topics. I’d probably look like a poser if I did a lens about unusual toilet seats, and I wouldn’t make a lyrics lens for a song if it’s already been done by someone else.
At the same time, I’d hate to think that my lenses would stop someone from writing about a topic they like. If someone wants to make their own lens about rubber ducks, Squidoo mistakes, or Sonic the Hedgehog, they shouldn’t let the fact that I’ve already covered these topics stop them. As long as they don’t rip off my content, of course.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:18 am
I personally do look at the competition - to see if I can do better / different. But that didn’t stop me from making a lens on css tricks when there were already a few highly popular ones on the subject out there. I did make sure mine was at least different though.
It’s now my second best ranking lens
July 25th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
With certain topics, I do check first. One of my most popular ones had several already done, but honestly - none were very good. With others (I wanted to do one on Praying Mantises), if there already is an AMAZING one, I’m not going to try to steal their thunder, mostly out of respect for the other lensmaster (I’d rather promote them than make my own). Of course, I wouldn’t do a lyrics lens that’s been done before either, I think that would just clutter Squidoo up with too much duplicate content.