Are Lensographies Still Valuable?

With all the Google changes during the last couple of years are lensographies still relevant?   I believe they are, however we need to be aware that the type of lensography you have will make a huge difference.   The mere list of lenses style of lensography really isn't effective any more, however lensographies with content are invaluable.

I like the fact that I can keep all of my 'like lenses' in one place for organizational purposes, but lensographies do more than that.   How many of you have lenses that have dropped into WIP?   

If you've answered yes then did you know a lensography can help that lens?   When a lens falls into WIP it means that Squidoo no longer features it on the Related Lenses feature, or on tag pages.   With a loss of internal links it's important that it still has some in Google's eyes which is where interlinking your work helps.   There are lots of ways of letting Google know that your page is still there and one of the easiest ways is by setting up a lensography which features the lens.

I have a few lenses that live part of their life way down in the ranks and with the increasing number of lenses on Squidoo a number of them have fallen into WIP over the past year.   These are lenses that are very specific to different seasons and although they are barely visited at some parts of the year the sales they make at other parts of the year make them valuable pieces of online real estate.    This means I link to them from various places like other sites such as Wizzley or Hubpages, on blogs and with a lensography.

I've actually been amazed at how well some of my lensographies have ranked in the past as well.

With this in mind I realized that although I have a Christmas ornament lensography (which ranks really well in the lead up to the holidays), I didn't have a more general Christmas page and as I'd just made a few more Christmas lenses I decided I should start up a new one called - The Christmas Page.

This page is far from perfect yet, I didn't do any keyword research, I basically wrote a page where I could encompass my Christmas lenses.   What I have done is added some content and I also decided to keep it in the Happy Snowman magazine to see if that gives me any traffic.   I will be going in and customizing my bio on the lens and will also be examining my traffic and adjusting the content depending on what keywords show up in my stats (if any).

When I first published this lensography two of my lenses featured were in WIP, they're still not in a paying tier, but they are featured and are getting traffic.

As I mentioned on a previous post you should be working on Halloween and Christmas lenses at the moment and one of the things I worked on this week was updating my Costume lensography which had just been a list of my costume lenses.   I've added extra content including a few costumes on this page and customized my bio as well.   I'll continue to add content to it, but what's interesting is that it's now comfortably in tier 3 which I was not expecting.

Shameless Plug

If you're looking for some products to promote on your Christmas lenses check out these throw pillows and cake picks from my Christmas Zazzle Store -

Vintage Snowman Images Throw Pillows by ChristmasHolidays
See more Snowman Pillows

A Very Merry Christmas Cake Topper by ChristmasHolidays
Find more Cake Toppers at Zazzle

Welcome Back - Let's Get Busy!

Well it's been nearly a year (well 11 months) since I had to take what I envisaged as being a short break from this blog.   I've had a lot happening in my offline life as well as online and things have been falling through the cracks, my offline dramas still continue, but hopefully I can still manage to keep this blog updated again.

One thing that I've noticed on Squidoo is how important it is to keep a lens updated.   People have been saying this for absolutely ages, however it's only really been the last 12 months that I've noticed it really making a big difference to my lenses.   I'm not sure if it's a change in the algorithm or if it's because so many people are refreshing their content, either way I think it's a great idea to set up an updating system for your lenses.

You don't have to do a major update every single time, just a few little things count as an update like these -

• Check that you've filled in all 6 spaces in your related pages spaces.
• Update tags.
• Check for spelling mistakes.
• Credit images.
• Change a theme.
• Make sure you're using your sidebar widgets.
• Add a bookmark widget.
• Change your featured lenses to do-follow - I use this tool
• Check that your links all work especially sales links.
• Change modules/products/images around - think of it as a shop, shops change window displays and shop displays regularly.

I also make notes as to major changes that I can do at a later date and plan time to go back and do them.

Don't stress if you haven't updated your lenses in a while I have a number that were last updated in January 2011 and only one of these exceedingly 'old' lenses have gone into wip.   However I will be working a lot harder on updating every single one of my lenses after noticing some huge jumps in lenses I have been updating over the last couple of weeks.

I'm continuing to also use Wizzley, both to produce content in it's own right as well as to provide backlinks to my lenses.   Interlinking of your relevant work is always a great idea.   I'm finding Wizzley to be really good and thoroughly recommend it.

It's the sixth month already so you should be working on updating your Halloween and Christmas lenses as well as making any new ones that you want to add to your collection.

I will be endeavoring to update this blog once a week from now on to include tips (as usual) and I might also be adding some lenses of mine that I'm needing to do some serious work on so that you can see how I try to 'rescue' some of my lenses when they're not paying their own way.

Halloween and Christmas Lenses

Well I'm a little late with this post as I've been feeling a little Squidooed out to be perfectly honest.   I haven't updated all of my page break lenses let alone checked for my custom bios!   I do have a few things to talk about however.

The first thing is for you to look to your left - I have some lenses for sell for only $10.   I made a new lens with an idea about flipping it a couple of weeks ago and listed it along with some old lenses that are in need of some tlc or I developed them meaning them to become part of a group of lenses and stopped at one!   I've already sold a few of them, but keep an eye on what's on offer in case you see any that you 'must' have!

If anyone is interested in getting a lens custom built for them then just contact me and I'll be only too happy to talk to you about it - the price will depend on what you're after.

Now you're probably thinking this post says Halloween and Christmas lenses when are we going to talk about them?   This time, last year, I started building Halloween lenses as I really didn't have much in the way of Halloween lenses before that - last October I received 4 figures from those lenses.   It is definitely the time to make a start if you haven't already.   I found I was more productive when I actually planned out exactly what type of lenses I wanted to make (there were only 2 that weren't made, so I was very happy).

I also started brushing up and increasing my Christmas lenses in July last year and Christmas is always very profitable for me.

I look at it by thinking when do the shops start showing displays and getting people thinking about the holiday season - then I figure that they've probably placed their orders a month beforehand.   I know the internet is a little different to shops, but the planning side is definitely one that I think can be emulated well.

I want people to start seeing Halloween decorations or costumes around and then search online to land on my sites!   The same with Christmas.   October, November and December aka the last quarter of the year is traditionally the one that sees the most online sales of any other time of the year and I want us all to cash in on that.