Now that Squidoo lensrank has been fixed and we’re getting stats for our lenses again, why not take a look at some of the things that help to improve lensrank?According to “Lensrank Explained - Really” by spirituality, there are 8 main factors that go into the calculations, and determine how high, or low, your lens will stand in the rankings. Some of them are easy to achieve, while others take a lot of work, and even a little luck.
Here are five specific lensrank factors that you can affect on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
1. Star ratings
Most Squids are pretty generous when it comes to giving out stars to deserving lenses. Whenever someone from the Squidoo community stops by one of your masterpieces, chances are, they will let you know what they think of it by rating it from 1-5.
To get visits from logged in Squids, send out a catchy Squidcast.
Many lensmasters really underestimate the power of a good Squidcast. Don’t just blurt out a sentence about your new lens, or a new module you’ve added. If you want visits, you really have to sell it! Describe your lens, tell your fans why they should visit it, and don’t forget to add a hyperlink or two to some of your hottest modules.
To make sure everyone who scrolls through your lens leaves you a star or five, add thefluffanutta’s amazingly wonderful Love This Lens Widget.
2. Visits
The best kind of visit a lens can get is from outside of Squidoo. That means that you’ve written about a topic that people are interested in, or that you’ve been bookmarked, or that someone loves your page so much they know the URL by heart.
There are many, many ways to find the traffic you want, but they all require a little work from you. When promoting a lens, remember to:
Share it - on Twitter, Digg, Tagfoot, Facebook, MySpace, etc.
Link to it - in forum posts, signatures, and profiles.
Blog about it - but beware of sounding spammy!
3. Click Outs
Click outs are important for lensrank. They indicate that visitors are spending time on your lens, reading what you have to say, and visiting other sites that you recommend.
Aside from providing affiliate links, try to find websites or lenses that people reading your lens would be interested in, and link to them. You can use anchor text links, or link lists, or make buttons from pictures that you use on your lens.
Remember to include the code target=“_blank” to open links in a new window. You can also describe your links with this code: title=“Name of Link Destination”
4. Interaction
Like click outs, when visitors click on polls or other interactive modules, it shows that you’re drawing in readers and keeping them glued to your content. Try to add something for your guests to do in each lens, such as a poll module, duel or guestbook.
For several example of how polls can be used, check out “The History of Surveys”.
5. Sales
Depending on what your topic is, sales can be the hardest thing to improve on your lens. Even if you’re getting plenty of traffic, not everyone is going to rush over to eBay to buy what you’re selling.
To help improve your chances of affiliate success, try to recommend products that you have a personal knowledge of. Describe them to your readers, and tell them why you love it so much, and why they’ll love it, too.
In my opinion, with sales modules, less is more. You don’t need to list every single book on your topic ever published in a gigantic Amazon Plexo. One or two great books (with five star customer ratings) in Amazon Spotlight modules tells readers that you’re serious about providing them with the best advice possible.
The sooner you do these things, the better. Take advantage of the new lens boost that lenses receive after being published, and push it even further up the ranks with quality, interactive content and active promotion.
