Squidlog.net

Regular visitors to my SquidTop blog will know that Lose weight with a wheat free diet was an experiment on my part to see if a lens about a topic that spawns a huge number of lenses could not only be “quality” but also get traffic from Google, which is also somewhat overloaded with the subject. A tough challenge!

I was taking a gamble by publishing a lens like this. Had I thought about it in July of last year when I first joined Squidoo, then there was no way I would have done it. I was too new and had not built up either a network or a reputation. However, come January, it was a different story, so I decided to give it a go.

Getting traffic from inside Squidoo would be what would give the lens a boost while I waited to see if Google picked it up. And that is exactly what happened. My network on Squidoo visited, then Yahoo, NOT Google, picked it up. Yahoo has now dropped the lens (along with a lot of other lenses on Squidoo) but at last – it is now being picked up by Google.

What I wish every new Lensmaster would realise is that by joining Squidoo, they are saying:

“Here I am. I think I have interesting things to say. You can trust me. Come take a look!

What some of them don’t seem to realise is that before we will think about trusting what they have to say, we like to get to know them just a little bit first! Lensmaster Drifter0658, sums up “personal branding” brilliantly in his lens: What branding means to me and if I ever get around to publishing a lens on “must read lenses for newbies”, then this lens will definitely feature!

But I am going off on a tangent – whaaat? Moi? Go off on a tangent?

Having had a problem losing some weight myself, I felt that if I could tell an honest, personal story as well as give tips, without overloading the lens with links to products that were already over-promoted on Squidoo (and that I had NOT used), then my friends on Squidoo may just be curious enough to want to take a look. More importantly, I had to be sure they would not feel short-changed by the experience.

My weight loss lens may not be the best article in the world on losing weight with a wheat free diet but it IS personal and it is NOT “spammy”. There’s no links to weight loss programmes because I personally used none. Yes, there’s links to other websites that I have checked out, there’s links to recipe books on Amazon that may help and there is a link to the Weight Loss Group that I started on Squidoo (and is probably one of the toughest Groups to get into!), but that is it. Result? The Lens is doing very well and is the top weight loss lens on Squidoo.

The reason why I am thinking about all of this today is because I see a huge number of weight loss lenses EVERY day on Squidoo as part of my duties as a Squidoo Angel. I see the new lenses that are published, I see the lenses submitted to my group and I see the lenses that are posted in the Angels thread on the SquidU Forum.

In the Forum we often see questions like: “How can I get into the Top 100?” Well, no matter whether the topic is weight loss or something else, the lenses that always stand out for me are the ones that share personal stories and promote products that the writer has personally used. If you look at the Top 100 lenses on Squidoo, you will see a good number of lenses that do exactly that. If you look at the Top 5 lenses in each category, you will see the same applies.

Hmm, methinks there’s a message in there somewhere!

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