Lensmastery by Linda

Like most of you, I have some lenses that get no hits, or very few. I’m going to have to focus on doing things to make these lenses viable.

The most important thing I can do is to make sure these lenses are linked from as many places on the Internet as possible. I’ve got a lens that lists places where links can be posted – for example, MySpace blogs, Xanga blogs, and many Web 2.0 sites. I’m making a list of these sites on Squidoo Traffic: How To Promote Your Squidoo Lens. This lens is becoming an ongoing research project to find places where lensmasters can create back-links for their lenses.

After making sure I’ve got back-links in place, I’m reviewing key elements of the lenses that aren’t performing. I’m checking the keywords, comparing them to the ones I find at Google’s Keyword Tool. I also make sure those keywords are represented in headings and other text on my lens. I check out the search engine results to see how possible it is that my lens could ever rank on page one of the search engine results for my chosen keywords. If need be, I change the main keywords to something longer (the long-tail) so I’ll eventually get to page one of the results.

I’m pleased with the number of lenses I have that do get search engine traffic, and encouraged to keep trying for the lenses that are not working yet. I know that with constant updates and keyword tweaking I’ll most likely succeed sooner or later. I’ve done this with some of my websites – with great success.

There may come a time when I feel I must leave a dead lens and go on to other projects, but for now I’ll keep trying. I like all my lenses and would love to see them succeed.