Lens Critiques & Chocolate!

Well it appears that a lot of you are brave enough to have your lenses publically analyzed which is fantastic, but when the first email appeared in the box and included the words chocolate and cupcake in a single line I'm afraid I momentarily forgot I was supposed to be analyzing it - I was suddenly very hungry!!

Chocolate Cupcake Postcard by jamieanne
More Cupcake Postcards

MamasCritics is a lensmaster that I haven't come across before and she wanted me to look at her lens - How to Make a Giant Chocolate Cupcake.

The first thing I did was to simply google - how to make a giant chocolate cupcake - and this lens came in at number 1 which was fantastic, unfortunately there are no monthly searches for this phrase according to the Google Keyword tool which explains why MamasCritics was only getting 31 visits per week.    

How do I know the number of visits to a lens - well I checked Squidaholic - this is a great site to use not just on your lenses, but on your competition to see how they're achieving a higher ranking than you (you can't see everything though).   What you can see is the traffic of a lens and the backlinks to that lens.   With this lens there are no backlinks either.

What do we do now?   We have to find some better keyword phrases that will apply to this lens for starters so I looked at - how to make a giant cupcake - this phrase is searched for 1,000 times each month, but unfortunately this lens isn't listed on the first 5 pages for the term.

Giant Chocolate Cupcake is a phrase that has 260 monthly searches PLUS MamasCritics ranks at number 7 for this keyword.   This is obviously a good place to start.

This is what MamasCritic's lens looks like in Google -

How to Make a Giant Chocolate Cupcake

eview by Darren Slatten - Jan 1, 2010 - Price range: $999.99

 ... I made this Giant Chocolate Cupcake for a church get-together, it was a hit. I took pictures as I put it all together, it was so simple! I thought I ...
www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-a-giant-chocolate-cupcake - Cached - Similar

It's the reason why she ranks well for Giant Chocolate Cupcake, because she's one of only 2 on the front page that actually has the words together.    Remember my last post we discussed using the Google SERP tool?   That's what you're seeing above.

In that same post we discussed checking what Google thought your lens was about and using that tool we find that Google already thinks that MamasCritics lens is about these keywords -

how to make a giant cupcake - 1,000 monthly searches

giant cupcake recipes - 720 monthly searches

giant cupcake decorating ideas - 1,600 monthly searches

giant cupcake cake - 4,400 monthly searches

giant cupcake - 33,100

I think we should work on the keyphrase 'how to make a giant cupcake' the reason being that is already in the title and I've looked at the top ten results for this and stringing the words together in the first two sentances has NOT been done in the results, the closest has been how to make a polka dot giant cupcake and how to make a giant 3d layered cupdake.  

The first step is to change the introduction for example - I am often asked how to make a giant chocolate cupcake because my recipe is always a hit.   My giant cupcake recipe is very simple to make, let me show you how.   This is what it will look like-

How to Make a Giant Chocolate Cupcake

 ... I am often asked how to make a giant chocolate cupcake because my recipe is always a hit. My giant cupcake recipe is very simple to make, let me show ...
www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-a-giant-chocolate-cupcake - Cached - Similar

It includes the keyphrase how to make a giant cupcake as well as giant cupcake recipe which is another keyword phrase that has been identified on this lens already. 

I would continue on about the 10 easy steps and when you endorse Betty Crocker (if you're an Amazon Associate) I would make her name a link to her products on Amazon.

Before leaving the introduction we need to do something about the introduction title - at the moment it reads

 In 10 Simple Steps – this doesn’t mention any potential keywords so we need to beef it up.

The Easy 10 Step Way to the Perfect Giant Chocolate Cupcake is an example or Make a Mouthwatering Chocolate Giant Cupcake in 10 Easy Steps.

We really need to look at your titles and make sure that they add keywords because the best recipe in the world won't be found unless it appears in Google and keywords are crucial to Google finding it.

What You Will Need could be changed to Ingredients for a Giant Chocolate Cupcake.

Now Let's Put It Together etc could be changed to How to Make A Giant Chocolate Cupcake in 10 Steps with the sub title Giant Chocolate Cupcake Recipe.

Another thing you could do is after the cake is assembled and you say now for the icing you could start a new module and have a title or subtitle whichever looks better as it's part way through your 10 steps with the words Decorating Your Giant Chocolate Cupcake.

As well as this lens I see you enjoy cooking so I would consider settng up a food lensography which would link not just to your recipe lenses, but also to your blog recipes.   You can then add the lensography to the bottom of all of your food recipes with customized headings such as Because You Can't Survive on Giant Chocolate Cupcakes Alone! 

Hopefully those tips will help, but getting backlinks will also help as they're like signposts to content.

For other people hoping to get tips from this you're at an advantage because you can look at what keywords are bringing traffic to your lens already and see where you're rating for these.   Once you've found these you need to Google them to see what position you hold.    Next you should compare with others that are above you and ask yourself which link would you click on if you were making this search?