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

Let's Talk Lensographies!

Apologies for the long wait between posts, life getting in the way again and in a couple of weeks I'll be jetting back across the Tasmin to help out when dad get's out of hospital, but for now let's look at lensographies.

Fellow squidmaster Fluff coined the term lensography to mean a collection of one's squidoo lenses, but they've really taken on a life of their own since and can really help with increasing your income. Yes you heard right, increasing your income. Now I'm not talking directly here, rather indirectly because a lensography helps you to link together all of the lenses in a particular niche.

Basically you're providing backlinks to each of your individual lenses when you include them in a lensography. Now there's a lot of debate about the value of internal versus external backlinks, but these are so easy to produce why wouldn't you?? I also like the fact that if you're setting up a profile or a forum signature where you want to promote one of your niches you can just use your niche lensography - how simple??

I have a lot of lensographies which is why I've just published my Lensography of Lensographies and it's a great way to see the different ways in which I've approached making my lensographies. If you want to look at my feelings behind lensographies and why I believe that lensographies are such a good idea then you really should check out Why Should You Have a Lensography?

So how many lensographies do you have?

How Many Lensographies?

A while ago someone asked in Squidu whether they had enough lenses for a lensography and it got to making me feel guilty – I’m never up to date with my main lensography! I don’t think it’s ever to early to start one and that way you’ll get into the habit of updating it every time you make a new lens. My main lensography doesn’t have all of my lenses on it however, I am nudging 300 lenses so it would be quite an ask. What I have done is created several different lensographies and linked to them as well as some ‘lonely’ lenses.

How many lensographies do I have? Well to be completely honest I can’t remember as I’m writing this!! I just realized how many Hannah Montana lenses I had so I created a lensography for Hannah Montana as well which also included my hubs on Hannah Montana bedrooms. This is the key to interlinking when it comes to lensographies do not stick to just squidoo…..

One of my bigger lensographies is Lou’s Cocktail Lounge and this includes links to two different article sites, a blog, hubs as well as all of my Squidoo lenses. It’s great to link out to several different places and to have a home for everything cocktail related that I’ve done online.

I’ve quickly counted up at least 8 lensographies in my head and I know I need to do a few more. Once you have about 5 lenses in a particular niche I think it’s time to make a lensography to keep them all together. Using the interlinking lenses techniques that we’ve talked about before you can add your lensography to each of the lenses within that niche and you’ll find that you will increase your internal traffic within that niche.

How many lensographies should you have? There is no answer, have as many different lensographies as you have niches and you’ll find it a lot easier to promote your lenses in various different places.