Squidoo Lens Tutorial: The Intro Module
Hopefully everyone is having better luck finding products now!! I’m going to assume you’ve found a product to promote and now we’re going to jump into what you do with that product now that you’ve found it.
The first thing you want to do is set up a lens for it!
You want to create a lens over at Squidoo. The first thing you’ll be asked is to name your lens. Go ahead and name it your product keyword. It doesn’t really matter if it has dashes in it or not, so whichever you choose is fine.
When you get everything set up and you are in edit mode in your lens you need to grab some modules to put your content in. Now, remember we don’t want this to be a sales page. People looking for these keywords are probably pretty well sold on the product, we just want to give them a “knowing” that they’ve made the right choice and show them a place they can get a great deal.
So to do this I like to make my lens interactive, add some “non text” modules, to help break up large blocks of text, as well as help people interact and gain confidence in the decision they’re about to make.
To do this I usually add the following modules:
1. Intro ~ that’s automatic you don’t have to pick it.
2. Text module
3. the most important thing
4. poll module
5. text module
6. youtube module ~ there is now a video as well as a youtube module available I still pick youtube module for no other reason than I am a creature of habit.
7. Big arrow module
8. RSS feed module
9. Guestbook module
It seems like a lot of modules, but remember we don’t want these to be spammy crap lenses, we want to offer real quality content, and a nice looking lens. Even though my lenses have 9 or more modules it really doesn’t take that long to fill in once you get a system going.
Let’s take a look at the system:
Intro Module:
For the intro module I want just a short blurb (that I make up so it’s original content) about a benefit of the product or some reason that makes it a great gift idea for someone.
I make sure I have the keyword in the first sentence or two because that’s usually the description google will pick up to display with the listing, and it’s good to have the kw there as it will be bolded. 
As you can see here I include my keyword in the title of the intro module. I write my content and add a link using html in the intro module. Dont’ make this complicated ~ it really should only take a few minutes. If it takes longer than that you’re thinking too hard.
You see the tabs at the top of the intro module edit area? The table of contents and discovery? Click on the tabs and you will have options for each of those things. I always turn off the discover feature for this type of lens. The table of contents is a personal choice.
At the bottom of the intro module there is a place to upload an image. This image you should have saved to your computer in a folder where you can find it.
Make sure when you save your images to your computer you use your product keyword as the image name, and leave the spaces out.
To grab your image, just click the “browse” button and then search the folder you have it in, click the image name and then click upload.
If you are having problems getting your image to show up you may have grabbed an image that “does” something, like zoom or move or something. These will not show up when you upload them, go grab a different image.
Once you’ve uploaded your image and written your content for this module all you do is click save. Then it will be saved and ready to go.
That’s all there is to the intro module. A brief introduction to the product and why they might want to buy it. No hype. No selling. No yelling “BUY THIS. BUY THIS.” No colored links. No Boldness. Just a bit of good content that lets them know what to expect.
This is getting very long so I will do the next module in the lens in another post.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d5089696-6670-4283-a4e1-3add45522a70)
Need some help getting started? Wherever you are I can probably help. Whether it's Squidoo, niche blogs, or an authority blog, one on one help is available!!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Other Posts That Might Help:
This is a great tutorial. I’ve been meaning to set up a Squidoo lens for one of my sites. Thanks for this!
Jackie,
Thanks so much, pointed out some details I was missing, such as the poll, great idea!
Do you think the Twitter module is too distracting?
Thanks again!
Kristie
P.S. Happy early Merrrryyyy Christmas!
Yeah I wouldn’t put the twitter module in these product lenses. It’s definitely good for some things but probably too distracting for this.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Thanks Jackie,
Sounds easier than I want to make it out to be. Just wondering, can you explain how to pick your URL so that it goes with your lens?
Thanks again, Angie
Hey Angie,
when you do your product finding ~ the keyword you find that fits the criteria set up in the blueprint ~ that’s your lens url.
You just use your keyword as the url.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Jackie – could you explain how to add the html link to your Amazon product in the body of the text module? Thanks
Here’s the tutorial. How to add html links to your lenses
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Jackie, I tried and tried last night to get my keywords to link to my Amazon product and I could not get it to work. Squidoo has changed the Intro Module to have an actual text editor when you input text. I entered my text, highlighted my keyword, picked the chain link, and then input my Amazon link and hit okay. It seemed to work in the text editor window, but when I go to Squidoo, the text is blue, but not clickable to anything. What is going on? I had no problems with this step on the last lens. Did Squidoo change something and we need a workaround?
2 ways around the problem
1. Click the “source” button on the editor and then just paste the entire bit of code you’ve copied from Amazon in where you want the link to show up.
2. if you are going to highlight and use the anchor icon you have to make sure you put ONLY the url in the box, not all the code that comes with it from amazon or it won’t work. You have to grab JUST the http:// part of the code that ends just before “> hopefully that will show up here lol.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
I was not sure where to leave this post in but this is the only one I could find based on the question I am going to ask. As a person that is new, how should I craft by bio section in my lens? do you have an article for that?
http://internetmarketingformommies.com/how-to-get-much-faster-at-building-lenses/
under #4 final touches.
I found it by putting bio box in the search box.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Hey Jackie!
I’m a lil’ confused… I’m trying to make another lens and you say in the beginning of this tutorial to name your lens your product keyword. So, I would just name my lens the main keyword that I’m going for and not the actual product itself?
Thanks!
Cindy
Follow me @casurette on Twitter!
Yes you want to use the keyword you are targeting in the url. You’re not optimizing for the product you’re optimizing for the keyword.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Hi Jackie,
I have only got one lens up (and almost completed my Blog). My lens is now live, and in the “Explore Related pages” it’s showing someone else promoting the exact same product. I know as I continue to build lenses and follow this plan I can have that show my related pages, but in the meantime, is there anything you could recommend I do about this?
Thanks again for all your help.
I’d turn it off. You can do that in the intro module ~ here’s the post http://internetmarketingformommies.com/getting-a-squidoo-lens-started-the-intro-module/ ~ scroll down to the intro module section ~ it’s the discovery tool that does this.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Thank you again. You’re remarkable.