Spirituality (Katinka) wrote an excellent lens explaining Lenrank. In her lens, she discusses the factors which are known to influence lenrank. I learned several things from this lens. For example:
* "Giant squids get the equivalent of 2 angels blessings on every lens they make"
(This is a good insentive to becoming a Giant Squid)
* "Anything a visitor does on your lens is counted towards lensrank. Whether it's writing in your guestbook, voting in a poll, voting in a plexo, adding a link to a plexo or joining a duel"
(A good reason to put polls, plexos and duel modules on your lens)
Why is lensrank important? For one thing, as explained in my post about "How to Earn a Few Extra Dollars on Squidoo" lenses with higher lensrank earn more money. Currently lenses with lensrank above 2'000 earn over $10/month and lenses with lensrank above 10'000 earn over $2/month. That adds up.
Also, if you get a very high ranked lens, that can bring traffic. At the moment, I have two lenses with lensrank above 200. They both get significant traffic due to this, mostly from being in the top 10 for their topics (health, shopping, food, etc)
Here is another tip. Spirituality notes that "Click Outs" are an important factor for lens rank. What is a "click out"? Anytime someone clicks on something and leaves your lens, you get a "click out". This might seem counter intuitive, because you want someone to stay on your lens, right? Well, not if you want higher lensrank. What can you do to increase your click outs?
* Create relevant and valuble links on your lens that people will want to click. This might be to a related resource, a wiki article or anything a reader might be interested in for more information.
* Exchange links with a blog or website that is relevant. This has several advantages: you may receive traffic from their website to your lens, you should receive a relevant link which will boost your Google PR, and you will receive a "click out" if a visitor clicks on it.
* If you place a Youtube or Flickr Module on your lens consider using a thumbnail view rather than "show a full sized version" (examples of both can be seen on this lens about laser hair removal). If visitors want to see the video or photo, they will click on it and it will open in a new window. This click will count as a "click out". Watching the video on your lens does NOT count as a click out, though I have no idea if is might count as "visitor activity" as does voting in a poll or writing in a guestbook.
Does anyone else have other suggestions for increasing click outs?
(Image by Eurosquid)
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Great post!
ReplyDeleteAnother way to encourage clickouts is to list any related lenses. For example, whenever I make a series of lenses, such as my The Gift of Kindness and other "Gift of..." lenses, I list links to the others. I also lensroll each lens over to the others that relate to it.
I'm making more of an effort this week to visit blogs that correspond with topics of my lenses, too. That way I can leave a comment with my link, as well as add their link to a relevant lens.
Still so much to learn!
Well, that goes a long way in explaining lensrank. I will keep these things in mind when I update and create new lenses. The double angel blessing for a new lens for us giants is super cool. I had no idea!
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