Title and Intro
Open up the Indy 4 lens and follow along. For the title I used two iterations of the movie name (Indiana Jones 4 and Indy 4) and coupled them with popular terms like “news” and “rumors”. Use any popular search volume tool to find out how exactly netizens are searching for your subject matter. You may be surprised, and you’ll definitely learn a few iterations that you hadn’t thought of. Then I mentioned the release date and gave a brief synopsis of recent events to let visitors know that they’re looking at a lens that is current and most likely frequently updated. It is important to engage the visitor quickly, lest you lose them. The first few sections of your lens are the first and last chance you’re going to get to make an impression.

Text Module - Rumors
We might as well keep going down the lens in order. The first text module I used is for Indy 4 rumors. I populate this module manually, as opposed to a news feed, because I find the tidbits in so many different places. I could use more HTML code than I do here but I’m keeping it to simple hyphens as opposed to fancier formatting because again I’m adding to it frequently and ad hoc. The image in the top right is one that I downloaded onto my laptop and then uploaded using the browse button all the text modules have.

Text Module - Large Photo
If you add an HTML image tag set to a text module and make the source a photo which already exists online, it will usually be pulled in quite easily. See here for image tag information. ( usually does the trick in a Squidoo text module). Here I link to a full-size version of the cast photo you can see as a thumbnail above in the rumors section. Linking to a photo from another website in this fashion is generally frowned upon. But then again, so is re-purposing any copyrighted image on a Squidoo lens, technically. One alternative would be to upload the photo to your own server, or a free image hosting site - but then there’s still the issue of copyright. If someone really wants me to take the image down badly enough my email is easy to find. It has never happened in nearly 2 years of Squidoo usage, so let’s not obsess over legalities and keep on trucking.

Amazon Module - Indiana Jones DVD Box Sets
I’ve taken the wide and full screen versions of the Indy trilogy box sets and plan on writing custom descriptions for them for a more convincing pitch. Keep your money-making modules to a bare minimum to preserve the legitimacy of your lens. If visitors perceive your lens as little more than a smattering of information saturated in a ton of ads, they will treat it accordingly. If people see your lens as an objective resource, however, they will tell their friends and even link to you. Since I figure it is far more likely for someone to buy all three DVDs in a set, I haven’t bothered to list the DVDs individually. This preserves real estate and would probably be a waste of time.

Text Module - Welcome Back, Indiana Jones
I use this module to inject more original thought and writing into the lens, so that it doesn’t just come across of a Frankenstein-like cut and paste effort. This module is original content that you can’t read anywhere else - and that goes a long way towards instilling faith in your lens as a whole.

RRS Module - Movie Chronicle
When I decided to build this lens, one of the first things I did was look for movie sites and blogs that offered RSS feeds on individual movies. This was the first one I found, and it’s frequent updates cover nothing but the latest Indy 4 related happenings. This way, the subject matter is super-relative to your topic, and updated so frequently that visitors are far more likely to add you to their favorites and check back regularly.

Text Module - Large Photo
See my previous notes on using a text module to pull in a large photo.

Poll Module - Indy 4 Titles
Poll modules give you a chance for originality and creativity. Several days before I made this lens, it was announced that Lucasfilm registered 6 potential titles for Indy 4. So, my poll was a no-brainer. Polls are interactive and will engage your visitors. Think about a facet of your subject matter that could be utilized in a similar way (types of cheese, breeds of dog, names for a boat), and even change up your polls from month to month to keep the content fresh and record a result archive using a text module. The possibilities are many.

YouTube Module - First Day of Shooting
There are lots of Indy 4 related videos on YouTube, from official releases to footage shot by fans who were standing near the set one day. Place them sparingly throughout your blog, and make sure you watch them all first to make sure they work and are the most interesting and relevant available. Give your visitors a break from reading and turn your lens into a true multimedia experience at the same time.

This post is dragging on, and I’m sure you all get the point by now. Also used on the Indy 4 lens are video plaxo, related lens, eBay and blogger modules. The point is - any module can be put towards any subject matter if you are creative enough. Best of luck to everyone in their next Squidoo endeavor, and please leave your best examples of “outside the box” module usage in the comments.

Many folks really enjoy using Squidoo, including myself, and some are even making some money off of it. Seth gets a lot of flack because he made a lot of lofty predictions for the network when it launched to the public way back when - but it’s got a large following and a huge number of informative, lovingly tended to lenses. Spammers are like ticks, locusts or barnacles, infesting everything in sight. If Google’s apparent scorn of Squidoo is indeed deserved, then more power to them. But if Seth and company are scrambling to alleviate the problem to the extent they seem to be, make sure said penalization is a very short one, Mr. Cutts. I’m not a huge fan of the quality-control department’s new encouragement of ‘reporting’, and this may be the first tangible and large scale example. For a detailed play-by-play of the exchange so far, there is no better source than Danny Sullivan. Of course, that can be said for a lot of topics.

“Change can be hard, but once you get used to it, you often wonder what you did without the new updates. Our new lens stats reporting system is the same way. It looks a little intimidating, but in the end it offers more flexibility and options than ever. First things first - how does this thing work anyway?

Login to your account to visit your Dashboard and view the new stats system. You’ll see that everything is still there, just in a slightly different spot. On the left you see the titles of your lenses, followed by four links for viewing, editing, deleting, and getting the statistics on your lenses. Next are the columns for your LensRank, Star Rank, visit count, pending commissions, and the date your lens was last edited. For each of these columns, plus your lens titles, if you click on the header at the top you can toggle back and forth between A to Z and Z to A ordered lists. Read more on how to use this below!

Some links that used to run across the bottom of your screen are now on the right side. In the section labeled Tools, you can still access the “transfer a lens” and “bugs & feedback” links.

The “stats” tab at the top of your dashboard zips you over to the new and improved stats page where you can see which lensmasters and members are new to Squidoo because of your influence! If you’re seeing new members who haven’t yet created lenses, why not send them a personal note? It’s the quickest way to get five bucks and they’ll appreciate the extra help. You can also see the statistics for any of your lenses by selecting it from the drop-down menu at the top of this page.

On the individual stats page for each lens, you can now get a lot more goodness about how busy (or slow) your lens has been. The Summary tab gives you vital info about traffic and Lens Rank. The Traffic tab shows you where people are coming from, and where they’re going after leaving your page. Here you can also view traffic for just one day (today or yesterday), for a seven-day window, or for the last month. BIG TIP: See how the keywords have a little + sign behind them? We’ll come back to that later! The Royalties tab is the best new part. Here you can view a chart of how much money your lens has made, when each royalty has paid how, what people have purchased from Amazon.com after leaving your lens, and (coming soon!) eBay sales!

Whew! Spend some time getting to know your stats. They can do a lot more than just tell you what happened in the past. They can help you learn how to do better in the future.”

Brand reputation management and search marketing were once very separate entities – but with the emergence of blogs, forums, directories, social media and other user-driven content sites, they now must be performed in tandem. You don’t have to be a skilled programmer, or even know how to build a website, to get your opinions online anymore - This can be a very scary prospect for any company. If you’re not scared, you should be. Boo.

How do you combat a high-ranking negative reference to your name or company? Luckily, it is far easier to attain good rankings for a business or domain name because there is far less competition for these words than for the goods or services they provide. It is also reasonable to push down negative rankings for individual people’s names. But not always, obviously. If your client’s name is Gavin Wunderschnitzen, you’re laughing. If your BRM services have just been retained by John Smith, just give him his money back now.

The same blogs, forums and social media sites which can be used to negate or slur a brand, can be used to defend it. Build a Squidoo lens with an individual or company’s name in the URL, and populate it with good, relevant content. Link to the new lens from some of your existing sites or lenses using the aforementioned name in a text link. Google will find it quickly and just as speedily begin to associate your new lens with related searches. It’s effective, it’s free and it is a testament to how fond of Squidoo Google and other search engines have become.

Now when you edit a Flickr module in your Squidoo lens, you are no longer able to select the auto-select option. You’ll have to navigate to the Flickr site, search for your subject matter and select photos for your Squidoo gallery one URL at a time. What once took a few seconds now takes fifteen minutes or so for a gallery of 6-10 photos. A message pops up which tells you that due to a “Request from our friends at Flickr, all photos must be selected manually”. I am paraphrasing a little bit, but one this is obvious - the decision was not made by Squidoo.

I imagine this boils down to simple bandwidth issues. And that’s perfectly understandable, but I’d be interested to know how it has affected the popularity of the Flickr module. I know I don’t use it as much as I used to. It’s still a nice addition, but I reminisce fondly of the early days when it was as easy as whacking in a del.icio.us or Technorati module. Let’s hope they’re not next!

Download this 100% free eBook entitled Squidoo-it-yourself Guide right now!

To show you how easy it is to add a YouTube video to a blog site, I’ve plugged in a Squidoo eyetracking usability study below. Adding such a watchable interface to a Squidoo lens is even easier! Just press play:

You can go to the YouTube site yourself and manually select URLs to then paste into Squidoo, or you can search through the module which is much quicker. The videos will play right on the live version of your lens, with no reloading of pages or pop-ups. As many of my lenses are pop culture related, I have found tons of appropriate videos to embed. Depending on your subject matter, you may not find anything all that relevant. But fear not - You can easily upload your own clips and then display them on your lens via the module. Get creative and see what you can come up with.

For a few ideas and practical examples, have a look at these lenses: Beta Band, Blade Runner, John Belushi, Dave Chappelle and Blazing Saddles. Music videos, TV and film clips, commercials, home movies, instructional videos - they’re all fair game. Please feel free to comment and tell us how you’ve used this awesome new module!

So why not divide your subject or topic into more than one lens? It’s easy enough to link them to eachother, and the relationships will assist in drawing visitors, getting the lenses indexed and eventually even Google page rank or link profilferation. You can build a lens on the three Stooges - but there’s more than enough information available out there to warrant a lens on Curly Moe and Larry separately. A lens on your favorite author is a great idea, but you could also consider making separate ones which branch off for each of her books. It’s OK if you can’t fit all of your ideas into one Squidoo lens when there’s no limit to the amount you can make and share!

I have several lenses which are in the top 100. My Sopranos and Trailer Park Boys lenses get roughly 350 hits a week each. The TPB lens appears #24 in Google for the term, which is pretty cool. I have been working on it a lot lately as a result - sorta like buying new drapes before your parents come to visit - and I thought I’d indulge in a little shameless self-promotion while explicating what makes it great. Open ‘er up and we’ll begin.

I’ll run down the lens from top to bottom, making a few comments along the way. First of all, put some time into your intro, and don’t just copy and paste it from somewhere else. Make sure you use a photo, and make sure your text is at least as long as the graphic. I made the TPB intro funny and as many folks don’t know a lot about the show, I attempted to get a few snippets in there to make them curious so they’ll continue reading.

I like to use ‘Write’ modules wherever possible, as this is where you can write original content and include photos. In the next module down, I include a photo of TPB’s main characters and a synopsis of the show. You can also include external liks in these modules, and make sure you do. External links seem to help Lens Rank.

Amazon Lenses give you the ability to choose, order and write blurbs about whatever you want to try and sell on your lens. So make sure you take the time to do this, and don’t just let Amazon pick for you. Write unique summaries, like I did here for each of the TPB DVDs, and choose your items with care. Also see the Sopranos lens for another example of an Amazon module I spent a lot of time on.

Next we have another write module containing a photo and links to an external TPB FAQ. I also included a quote here - quotes are great content for lenses. You can have a module devoted to them, or spread them throughout like I do in my Sopranos and Red Sox lenses. Trivia is another great topic for lenses, and if you do it in a Write module, you can add an additional photo, too.

Next up - another Amazon lens, this time for posters. If Amazon has different types of products devoted to the same subject, split them up into separate modules and spread them out. And another word on hand-picked items and description. It ties into consumer confidence and conversion - if you’ve taken the time to customize any of the revenue-generating modules, people will be likely to appreciate that and in turn be more likely to convert.

Link modules are probably the most popular module around. My best piece of advice is painstakingly write good, funny and descriptive paragraphs for everything you include. Visitors will appreciate accurate descriptions of the links you provide, and that good karma may earn you a sale or at least a good star rating!

The Cafepress module here is great because there are lots of Trailer Park Boys related schwag on their site. The images are also a great way to liven up your site, and add more skimmable content. As with the Amazon modules, be sure to customize where you can. I have seen these shirt designs go from relevant to completely non-related from day-to-day. Hardlink in the module options to keep this from happening.

Here is another write module, with guitar chords to the show’s infamous Liquor and Whores song.” I even found a photo of two of the characters playing their guitars to add to the mix. Get creative with Write modules - quotes, quizzes, chords, trivia - it’s all fair game. RSS feeds are your friend. Here I’ve pulled in any news article from Yahoo which contains “Trailer Park Boys”. You can customize Yahoo news feeds for absolutely anything here. I love this feed, and use it in all my lenses.

Flickr modules are great fun, if there’s an abundance of related subject matter accurately tagged back at the main site. And as with the Cafepress module, relevancy can fluxuate. It’s best to link to a specific photo set or one photo at a time to ensure you’re always displaying the best content for your lens.

And finally, another Write module with some trivia thrown in this time. I hope this little review was helpful, and has given you a few ideas to take back to your own lenses. Remember, you can always email us or comment with any questions. Happy Squidooing!

Initially it will likely be on a one-off basis, as Squidoo does not allow any of the scripting technologies that the major brokers use to automate their processes. A PR heavy lens will be found that is relevant to an optimizer’s client, an email is sent to the lensmaster and then some money exchanges hands via PayPal. This is going to start happening a lot, and as long as lenses remain fairly objective and faithful to their topics - I don’t see this as a bad thing. In fact, it’s sorta been affecting my new lens subject matter as of late.

10% or smaller affiliate commissions, after Squidoo takes their cut, end up woefully small by the time they get to lensmasters. So I predict that ultimately one-way link sales will well eclipse any Amazon, eBay or CafePress revenues for people who stick with their Squidoo development. So keep at it, stay patient, and I think we’ll all be making some money real soon.