Home > Q&A > Q: I just joined Squidoo today. What are 5 things I can do to work towards being a successful lensmaster?

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Q: I just joined Squidoo today. What are 5 things I can do to work towards being a successful lensmaster?

Answered by ajgodinho: When you initially join Squidoo, you may be overwhelmed and the task of creating your first lens may seem daunting to you, but rest assured it’s normal.

There is a slight learning curve to Squidoo and you need to be patient with yourself as you learn and figure out the basics.

However if you devote time to learning those basics, apply that knowledge and continue to improve, you’ll become a successful lensmaster in no time.

1) Determine Your Purpose
Success is relative and is defined as achieving something that was planned. So before you attempt to be successful, the first thing you need to do is determine what you are planning to achieve on Squidoo.

Are you on Squidoo to make money? Drive traffic from your Squidoo lenses to your website or blog? Because you love to write? Are you looking to connect with like-minded individuals within the Squidoo community? Are you looking to spread awareness and support charitable causes?

Asking yourself some or all of the above questions, will help you set realistic goals and work at achieving them by setting out a plan to help you succeed in your endeavors. Once you’ve determined what your purpose on Squidoo is, you can move to the next step of investing your time in gaining the knowledge and skills required to start building quality lenses.

2) Invest Your Time in Learning
In order to build successful lenses, you need to understand what Squidoo is about and tools available at your disposal. The first step in this process is to familiarize yourself with the basics of the Squidoo platform. The building blocks of a Squidoo lens are called modules and Squidoo has hundreds of modules available to help you create your masterpiece web pages.

Depending on what your purpose on Squidoo is, you can use the various content, sales and other interactive modules to structure your lenses. One word of caution, given that there are hundreds of modules, make sure not to get too caught up trying to learn about ALL the modules.

Focus on the basic modules, for example, the Text Module, Text with BIG Picture, Link List, Poll Module, Video Module, Big Arrow Link, Amazon Module, Amazon Spotlight, eBay Module and Guestbook Comments, to name a few.

3) Research Your Subject
Once you grasp the basics of Squidoo, it’s time to start building unique and original content for your Squidoo lenses ensuring that it adheres to Squidoo’s TOS. One of the most important aspects for a successful lens is knowing your subject and researching it, so you can deliver what your audience is looking for.

There are numerous tools available on Squidoo that teach you how to find topic trends, potential competition, effective keywords and tags, and so much more in order to build a successful lens. Use these, carefully researched, keywords in relevant places on your Squidoo lenses like the lens URLs, titles, image names, etc. so your pages can be found.

Also, spend some time on writing an effective introduction that grabs your reader’s attention and avoid content that sounds too sales-pitchy. Finally, make sure to credit content sources and images that were used on your lenses.

4) Engage Your Readers
A lot of readers like to provide their feedback and opinion, so give them an opportunity to do so. This will make them feel more welcome and show them that you care about what they have to say. Squidoo provides many interactive modules that allow you to engage your audience through modules like polls, duels, quizzes, and guestbooks, to name a few.

Given that social media plays a huge role today, make it easy for your readers to be able to share your lens with others by using the Bookmark widget on your lenses. Needless to say, don’t forget to write a brief bio on your lensmaster bio page and upload a picture or avatar, this helps build trust and credibility with your readers.

5) Lens Promotion
Yes, it’s important to promote your lenses, but this does not mean that you go about spamming your friends, family, fellow lensmasters, or blatantly posting your Squidoo lens links all over forums and social media sites. Having said so, there are legitimate ways of promoting your lenses to your friends, family, forums and social media sites.

SquidU and SquidooHQ are a great place to start because you can interact with fellow lensmasters, get answers and be part of a wonderful community.

Finally, update your lenses regularly and improve them. It not only helps improve your lenses, but keeps them updated, thereby increasing your lensrank and potentially drawing more traffic.

Bear in mind that this is not a formula for Squidoo success, but more like guidelines to help you navigate your way. There is no magic formula to Squidoo success. It takes time to build successful Squidoo lenses, so don’t be discouraged if you don’t see results immediately. Take it one step at a time, one day at a time and enjoy your journey…wishing you much success!

-AJ, ajgodinho on Squidoo

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