Giant Squid Tips

Classy Mens Watch Worn by Obama

To improve upon this super niche topic lens I might change the title to something simpler like, Obama’s Watch.

I honestly wouldn’t expect killer traffic for this lens but I would expect that anyone visiting might be close to making a purchase.  You’ve got a great selection of Obama watches already but it wouldn’t hurt to add an eBay module if you find any Obama watches for sale there.

I think the key to making this lens more successful for you is doing some heavy lens promotion for it and adding some keyword rich subtitles to your modules to make it easier for the search engines to find it.

All in all, I think this lens makes a great addition to your fashion niche.

-Reviewed by Robin

Give ClassyGals some feedback here.

And as always, you Giants get the very first sneak peek.

The coolest things about SquidQuiz:

* Quizzes are really (truly) easy to build.
* Have you ever heard of a quiz you can earn a royalty from?
* There are hooks to Twitter and Facebook, so whenever one of your readers takes your quiz, they can share their score with friends. We’re aiming for this to be one of most naturally spreadable front doors yet.

Check out my Top 10 Spelling Pet Peeves quiz lens.

Better yet, post your own examples in the forum so we can all see and share and swap!

I’ll take Pachyderms for $800, Alex.

P.S. As Squidoo interns over the last few months, AJ and BadMSM shared some great ideas about how to help get your Quizzes more eyeballs and exposure. I open the field to the rest of you as well: If a Quiz falls in the forest, does anyone hear it? In other words, how would you go about getting people to take and share your Quiz?

Christmas Greeting Cards For Button Lovers

Megan says: Now if this isn’t niche, I don’t know what niche is! Nice. Here’s some feedback in bullet points. I’m feeling the bullet points today.

* It’s too bad the url is more generic (/christmas_greeting_cards) because the button lover thing is the less saturated, more specific part. (But please, don’t take SEO too seriously. It’s the content and conversations that matter most).
* I feel like the info about Sewing Button Clubs is a lot more useful to people landing on this page (they’re button lovers, afterall) than the filler material about other Christmas cards or gifts.
* Her bio is actually great positioning material for the intro! She says: “I love buttons. They are like little individual works of art. I love to sort through a new batch of buttons and see what treasures I can find. I hope you enjoy these Christmas greeting cards featuring sewing buttons!”
* Last thought: If this is her own Zazzle store, I think a reader might like to know that. And then we open a whole suite of opportunity for running a lens where happy buyers can share their feedback, add photos of them using your designs, stuff like that. Like your very own Get Satisfaction for your personal Zazzle store. Maybe.

Seth says: Buttons! I love that it’s all about buttons. I wish it were even more about buttons. This is the long tail come to life. Bravo.

-Reviewed by Seth & Megan

Give stargazer00 some feedback here.

Elegant, classy, sophisticated gift ideas

1. This lens progresses nicely for an unsure shopper. “Yup, I like elegant. Yup, I agree I want to charm my boyfriend. What does a gift say about me? Oh, good to know. Now on to the good stuff.”

2. Help readers visualize uses for the gifts. Obviously we put stuff in boxes, put books between bookends. Will the boxes help declutter a dresser? Or add sophisticated organization to a home office? Encourage you to drink and enjoy wine more often?

3. Use the Amazon Spotlight module to put your most unique items on
display all by themselves, large and loud. I nearly missed the Tiki
Head Tissue Box Cover!

-Reviewed by Kimberly

Give daoine some feedback here.

Pumpkin Pie Recipes

The boxes around the Amazon Spotlight product reviews are distracting and create a visual detachment from the product description. That can’t be good for sales.  Another reason to remove those boxes is the way they are offset makes the page look unbalanced and choppy.

The titles and subtitles on more of the modules should mention the topic, Pumpkin Pie.  Such as where you have “You’ll Need Mixing Bowls” for the Amazon Search module title.  It’s better to explain what they need the mixing bowls for.   You could add something like, “To Make A Great Pumpkin Pie” as a subtitle.  This will help with SEO.

From a design point, I’d move the recipe plexo further down on the lens and you need to be careful of the links being added there, when I looked at the lens there were several spammy links that had nothing to do with your topic.  Delete those.  It’s best to have only “on topic” links on your lens.

Overall, I think this is a great niche topic recipe lens that should do very well over the holiday season.

-Reviewed by Robin

Give AslanBooks some feedback here.

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Seth says: A valuable public service!  Clearly designed to get Google traffic from people looking for the lyrics. The intro module needs to entice people a little bit more, so it doesn’t strike them as a copy & paste job like a lot of lyric sites are. And especially since there’s so much more going on here than just lyrics.  Oh, and I wonder what happens if you challenge visitors to make up their own stanza of the song? If you can get a bunch of silly ones up there, it might lead to link love.

Megan says: This is a neat multimedia scrapbook lens. Adding a welcome note to the Intro would help grab people. As far as popularity and sales, without any editorial promotion or social network circulation (I don’t know if she’s done any), this lens will live and die with search traffic. It’s at the mercy of natural influxes based on how many people go looking for this song online and at what time of year–and how many other pages out there serve their needs better (if any!).

One bit of advice could be to customize the lens 1000% for people arriving from Google or other search. Make it insanely obvious what they’ll get when they land here and give them shortcuts to dig in. Pare down some of the filler material (fun as it is) so visitors can focus on buying the music or talking about the song right on your lens.

Another and very different approach could be to make the lens all about social chatter. Swapping stories or grandma pics or taking polls or whatever. Don’t try to sell — just get people spreading the page for you, and benefit from the ad royalties instead.

-Reviewed by Seth and Megan

Give Kim some feedback here.

We just launched the Squidoo Thanksgiving Cookoff today, and Giants are already all over it.  And no surprise, either.  You guys pay attention, show up early, support lots of charities with lots of lenses, have zero trouble coming up with creative ideas–and most important, no hesitation putting them into action.

A few people have asked for more examples of what’s eligible as a “foody” lens.  Sure, there’s the tried and true recipe lenses (always fan favorites, and good performers) but if you’re not much of a chef (guilty) think about all the other possibilities, like:

10 Questions to ask before you buy your BBQ
Taiwan: The best Chinese Food restaurant in Willow Glen, CA
My Family’s Thanksgiving Traditions
A Moratorium on Mayonnaise: Why I won’t let it in my kitchen
Favorite 1950’s Candies
Debate: Get recipes online vs. Buy a cookbook!
Kitchen Gadgets for Arthritic Hands
Volunteering at a Soup Kitchen
50 Baking Blogs You Shouldn’t Miss
What to eat the night before you run a marathon
Amy Adams’ Favorite Foods
Feeding Babies Organic vs. NonOrganic: A debate for Parents
How to plant a peach tree (and when to harvest it)
My Handcrafted Union Blue Pie Shelf for sale on Etsy

Not a single one of those is a recipe or cooking lens, but they’re certainly ‘food-related’ and would be excellent entries for the Cookoff. Or otherwise.

Hope that helps with the brainstorming!  Have fun.

Scrapbooker’s Christmas Dream Shop

• I really like the “Highlighter” Theme for this lens. Really makes it “Pop”.  However I would tone down the CSS. I’m not crazy about the dotted boxes. I think it’s just too much.
• I would get rid of the All Posters links. I am going to say this across the board and not just to Clouda9. Unless there is a clear relevant reason to use All Posters I would leave them out. They are a great resource for nice photos but I am also seeing a lot of All Poster overuse lately.
• I’d love to see more content. Do you scrapbook at Christmas? Show me some examples of your work.
• I really like the YouTube Video. It’s helpful to see a visual example.
• Overall I want more. This lens feels a bit unfinished.  I can see many lenses developed out of this theme. There are many niche opportunities here. Then you could link back to this lens. Creating a whole series on Scrapbooking for Christmas would be really neat!

-Reviewed by Bonnie

Give Clouda9 some feedback here.