Changing Lens Titles and Introductions

There has been a lot of discussion lately about whether it is a good or bad idea to change the title and introduction of your lens. I thought that I would weigh in on that discussion with my own findings, and how I have handled changes.

One of the lenses that I have changed the most is The Nile River - History and Facts, although it is not the only one. I have changed several lenses with pretty much the same results. If the changes I have made have been based on what keywords people were typing in and finding my lens, or based on getting the actual title closer to the URL, the lenses have benefited with a surge of traffic and targeted traffic. For The Nile River - History and Facts
, the changes have caused a positive increase in traffic moving the lens up the lensrank ladder as well. This lens is currently getting about 200 visitors per week. It continues to go up in traffic, so we will see where it will be in a few months.

If the changes have been because I wanted to just change something or try a new keyword, in most cases there has been no real change. So changing your titles and introduction do not negatively affect your lenses in most cases. It is true that if you have a lens that is already doing very well, and you change your title, you may affect how Google is sending people to it right now, so keep that in mind if you want to change your title. However, in most cases, the lenses that needed title and introduction changes are the ones that aren't doing as well as they should and need adjustments. So don't be afraid to make those changes. Move that lens that is only getting 20 visits a week to a lens that is getting 200 or 2000 visits a week instead, and converting more of those visits to sales.

If you haven't yet joined the new Squidlog.net site, definitely worth doing. It is free and for all Squidoo lensmasters. (http://squidlog.net) If you joined Squidlog.com, your Squidlog.net profile is just waiting for you to fill out. What are you waiting for?

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Updates and Upgrades

Today was the first time that I got to see the upgraded workshop on Squidoo. It will take a little getting used to, but it is definitely easier to see and seems to work faster for me. The obsession with brighter colors is not my preference, but I am sure that there is some scientific data behind the choices.

If you use the lens workshop addon from SquidUtils, you will have to update that as well.

The introduction module is the first peek of a "What You See is What You Get" or WYSISYG style editing program. It works differently than the rest of the modules right now. Other than getting used to the changes, what do you all think of it?

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Adding Links to Lenses

Due to the reported success of the Infolinks on the Introduction modules, I have been slowly adding links in my introduction modules as I update lenses. I haven't taken the Infolinks off my lenses yet, still waiting for some definite analysis on earnings which will take another month. But I figure that if the links in the introduction modules are the most successful for them, it only stands to follow that putting relevant links in the introduction modules of my own lenses will be even more profitable for me.

So as the lenses come up for updating, I am changing them.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Grab Your Reader's Attention

Grab your reader's attention with some great pictures and a solid introduction!

Your introduction should be brief enough to be read quickly, yet needs to tell your reader exactly what you lens is about, and to include your keywords. Do not skip the introduction, that is where the search engines will most likely take the blurb that will show under your title. Make sure your keyword phrase shows up at least once and even better twice in your introduction. But don't put it in twice if it doesn't make sense in the context of the introduction. Your content is always the most important part of the lens for your readers AND the search engines.

Personally, I do not like a lot of "bling" when I am reading something. I wear glasses, and am 46 years old, and too much bling distracts me. However, I do believe that good images can keep your reader's attention, and add value to your lens. Granted, I am biased towards pictures because I am a visual artist, and therefore like good visuals. There are also some simple CSS and HTML tricks that you can use to enhance a lens. Depending on your topic, enhancements can be more or less appropriate.

For instance, for my lens St. Patrick's Day 2009 Gifts, some color and highighting was definitely appropriate. It is meant to be a fun and serious lens, looking into St. Patrick's Day gifts, Irish gifts, and a bit of history. If you take a look at the lens, you can see that I have added quite a bit of green, including the title of the introduction module.

I learned the tricks I use in this lens from these 3 following lenses:
Squidoo CSS - my favorite code to spice up a lens
HTML for Photos: A Tutorial for the Semi-Clueless
My Favourite CSS Tricks on Squidoo
All three of these lenses are written by lensmasters that know a lot more about HTML and CSS than I do and they are great references. See if you can figure out which tricks I used in my lens.

You Can Create a Lens Cluster of Your Niche

One of my niches is pregnancy, and maternity. And one of my subtopics in that group is due date maternity clothes. I have a series of 13 lenses, each one with a due date month theme.

Most of us do end up concentrating our lens writing on 1 to 5 main topic areas with subtopics, and then writing a single lens that strikes our fancy from time to time.

It doesn't really matter what your topic niche is, just that you create one. Then you can go one step further and create a cluster. A cluster of lenses is a grouping that is interconnected. Think of it this way--you have already attracted a targed audience to one of your lenses--we will use my example of maternity. What are the chances that a person interested in that topic will click on the link to a similar or related lens. Very high, much higher than that person finding it on their own. So create a cluster.

How do we create a cluster?

Well, that part is easy because Squidoo gives us all the tools. We can interconnect our lenses in several ways.

1. In the Discovery field in the Introduction module.
2. With a Link List or Link Plexo.
3. With a Featured Lens module.
4. With links in the Text module.

I have done this with two sets of lenses so far. Take a look. The lead-in lens or landing page for those groups are : Announce Your Pregnancy in Style and James Taylor's Greatest Hits.

You do not have to have a large group of lenses to get this idea started because you can always update and add to your lenses. Start with two lenses, and add on. I do need to give credit for this idea to Captain Squid. I did not come up with it on my own. I will talk more about the Captain in future posts, but he is another invaluable Squidoo resource.