There is a group of us who are working on Squidoo and working
through Potpie Girls’ One Week Marketing Plan (which is really quite excellent) and there is a level of frustration around the fact that some lenses are not being indexed (placed into the Search Engine results) within a week or two.
The One Week Marketing Plan shows you exactly how to make money with your Squidoo Lenses and get them indexed so that you start receiving traffic from the wider Internet world – and Potpie Girl lays it out in a really simple and straight forward manner – in fact, I’m going to be adding her strategies to my own process for client sites to ensure maximum benefit.
However, there are some lenses that just aren’t being indexed – no matter what is done and today, one of our group sent out a plea for help. So I had a look and did a very quick analysis.
The first thing I did was go to Google and the entered the exact url for the lens into the search bar. Whilst the lens was listed in a couple of RSS directories, it wasn’t listed for itself. There were however two other Squidoo Lenses that showed up in the ‘related search’ from Google.
I examined the first lens listed and found that it was essentially a sales page for a product and less than mediocre in terms of quality. Which raised the question, how was this lens indexed and not my friends?
Examining my friends lens, I was struck by the fact that although it was very good, the content was minimal – maybe 500 words in total and whilst I didn’t check any further I suspect that much of the content already existed in one form or another.
Now, this is one of my catch phrases – to get listed in Google have GREAT CONTENT! Folks, it’s all about CONTENT… There is a reason that Ezine Articles insists on a minium of 250 words per article and other article directories won’t accept less than 400… Content is King.
Let’s look at what the search engines job is… I return to this principle whenever I start a new campaign.
Search Engines exist purely to deliver quality content to their customers. Search Engine customers are people searching for “stuff”. Quality content generally means new and fresh information that is not already listed in the Search Engines.
If a new site comes online and only offers content that is already listed, you can be 99% assured that it will take longer to list in the search engines.
Search Engines want fresh new content to deliver to their customers.
Whilst the information my friend had presented on their lens was good, I don’t feel there was enough of it. I think that more unique, keyword rich content – text based content – needs to be added so the Search Engines would pick up the lens.
Personally, I think that each Squidoo lens created needs at least 2 text modules with between 300 and 400 words in each that tell the story you want and that content needs to be ‘quality, keyword rich, content’.
I advise my clients and colleagues to treat the creation of a Squidoo lens, Hubpage or any other content site, just like a school project – where you have to do the research and then have to present your findings in your own words. I discuss some ways to generate content on one of my Squidoo lenses.
Now, back to my first question, why is the sales letter lens indexed and not the other – I think it comes down to content! Regardless of whether content on the other lens is great, there is more and it is older…. Persevere, add some more great content and keep following the strategies in the One Week Marketing Plan and I’m certain you’ll have success.
On a final note, this does not detract from using Articles to link back to your sites and generate backlinks — this is all related and when you marry great content on your site with your articles, the combination is amazing.
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