Improve Search Engine Placement of Squidoo Lens – Part 4

Improving the search engine placement or ranking of a Squidoo lens is not much different from working to get better rankings for a web site or blog. Only main difference is that a Squidoo lens is one page, where a web site or blog will have many pages to SEO optimize. Let’s not forget, that search engines rank pages – not entire sites. So let’s get your Squidoo page to the top!

A quick review of what we’ve learned about SEO optimizing a Squidoo lens so far.

Earlier, we learned the steps to create a Squidoo lens. Next, we learned how to SEO optimize a Squidoo Lens and maximize our optimization efforts with correct use of title tags, headers and meta attributes. In part one of this current series, we learned how to analyze Squidoo SEO efforts on our lens and be sure we had our lenses the best they could be.

In part 2, we discussed the difference between Page Rank and Search Engine Rank and learned that we needed to stop focusing so intently on that silly green PR toolbar =) Finally, part 3 brought us to talking about, and learning how, to really analyze competition in the search engines . By analyzing our competition, we decided to focus on three keywords for our Squidoo lens and to rank those keywords in order of priority.

Whew! We sure have discussed a lot! Congrats for making it this far! All of that previous information is leading us to todays post on….

Building Links to Squidoo Lenses

See this little guy over to the right? That is the “perfect link”. Do you know what a perfect, ideal link to your Squidoo lens consists of?

Link exchanges? Forum Signatures?

The index of the search engines is built around links. Amazingly, all 8 billion plus pages in the Google index are all somehow linked together…and Google loves links. In Google’s “eyes”, links to your site are like votes FOR your site. Google values the power of recommendation of web users and how we, as internet users, naturally want to share good sites/pages we have found.

The “perfect” link is a one way link pointing to your web page. This perfect inbound link has a power-punch of anchor text that matches your keywords/page content….this link comes naturally within content of another web page… and best yet, the link comes from a site with a strong Page Rank that has very few outbound links within its content.

How MANY links you have pointing to your web page or Squidoo lens does not matter nearly as much as the QUALITY of those links. Many web pages have enjoyed high rankings in the search engines from just a few “perfect” links to their page.

Thing is, these ‘perfect links’ are tough to get, but we need them. Links are our means of getting our Squidoo lens higher in the search engines…links are our means to rise above our competitors. Higher exposure in the search engine means what? You got it! More organic traffic!

It’s been said that you should spend half your time optimizing your Squidoo lens, and the other half doing OFF site optimization – meaning…. link building.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel here, I will show you some great resources on link building. These sites have good tips and great ideas (I especially like the query: “your keywords” “add url”…neat trick to build one way links. The BackLink Builder Tool does this for you)

Squidoo Link Building Resources:

27 Quick Tips to Top Search Engine Rankings

Backlink Builder (very neat tool!)

SEO-Theory Link Building Info

Add URL Pages

101 Link Building Tips

How to Improve Your Link Popularity

That is just the tip of the iceberg. Just get on Google and search… there is a ton on information out there on link building. Just remember, don’t get your url listed on any page that is only a list of links. If there are over 30 links on a page, the search engines may consider that page a ‘link farm’… and that is bad. Regarding reciprocal links, these don’t do a whole lot for Squidoo pages. Sites that have many pages can make reciprocal links work, but your single Squidoo page can not.

As for buying “150 backlinks for only $2.99!!” – pass on that garbage. Main thing is to get your site out there and expose it. The links you acquire will help with your link popularity, but they will also give more opportunities to even more folks to visit your lens. Since you already know that the best way to get one way links is to create content that people WANT to link to, you efforts of exposing your Squidoo lens will work even better.

Article Marketing for Squidoo Backlinks

People have asked me what I think about using article marketing to build one way back links and traffic to a Squidoo lens. Should you use article marketing for link building and traffic generation to a Squidoo lens?

YES!!!!!!

Distributing useful, high-quality content across the internet that includes an optimized anchor text link back to your Squidoo lens is a flat-out wonderfully fantastic idea. I do it all the time. The Squidoo lenses I am selling were just created recently and I initiated an article distribution program for them the next day. Already, I see those lenses generating decent traffic and enjoying improved search engine rankings for some competitive keywords. If it gets too much better, I may not even sell them.. haha!

Thing is, I have my own little system for article distribution for my Squidoo lenses, blogs, and web sites. It works quite well and it is painfully easy. To be brief, I start with a program that lets me automatically submit hundreds of unique copies of my article to article directories. I like the unique content part, but what I really like is that I can set it to also include a different resource/bio box with each article. This enables me to change up my anchor text to weight my three keywords I am focusing on as needed (you remember the three keywords you need for each lens, right? If not, read part 3).

This program does not submit out to really high PR sites, and that works for me. In my little mind, I like to build one-way back links to my site from medium sites BEFORE I manually submit to high PR sites like EzineArticles.

Why? Simple. I don’t want my syndicated/distributed content to rank higher in the search engines than the site I am optimizing does. So far, after using my system many, many times, I have yet to have a syndicated article rank higher than my site. And that used to happen to me all the time when I submitted to EzineArticles first.

Does that matter? I’m not 100% sure. I just know this works better for me, and my little system keeps working for me…the links keep building week after week after my syndicated articles get picked up in yet another unique version by even more sites. A little bit of work on the front side…and a whole lot of good results from there on out.

After some time passes and I feel it’s time to start the process again, Guess what? One click of a button and unique versions go out all over the internet AGAIN. Sweet! (and no, this is not some article spinner or whatever they call it).

What IS my article marketing system? Well….. I was going to do a review on this… really, really planned to…but….

Ok, I’m just not ready to have to compete with everyone else. In many niches, I know my system gives me a bit of an upper hand. If EVERYBODY uses it…well, I’m back to the drawing board trying to find a new point of difference between me and my competitors.

Point of Difference?

Yes, that thing that YOU do, that your competitors do NOT do. That ‘sumthin’ that sets you apart from the crowd. This is my point of difference. If you like it, try it. There will be NO sales pitch for this product… It’s ok if you pass on it…lol! And if you’re REALLY creative, you will see what else it can be used for – a little something that really adds some bucks to my account each month 😉

If you have a tough time writing articles and content, read the 3-step easy content writing post I have – it helps =)

I could type forever about link building to improve the search engine placement of a lens, or any ol’ web page…but I have already typed a novel.

Get out there, build some links….watch your lens improve in the SERPs.

It’s fun!