The Importance of Categories on Squidoo

If you're already a lensmaster on Squidoo, you may not visit the Squidoo.com page very often. If you haven't seen it lately, go take a look. Currently gracing the gateway to Squidoo is a collection of lists of the top five lenses in each of 27 categories. Each of those lists also has a "more" button which, when clicked, leads the visitor to the list of the top 100 lenses in that category.

Why is this important to you? Simply because thousands of visitors each day enter Squidoo through that Squidoo.com page and most of them choose to click either a lens name that catches their eye or they choose to further explore a category of interest to them. If you have a lens that ranks high in any of those 27 categories, there is a much greater chance that a visitor to Squidoo.com is going to find your lens.

Note that there are actually 32 categories in which to place your lenses. If you have a lens in a category that isn't listed, the odds of someone finding that lens through Squidoo's front door is drastically reduced.

Before you make a change to your category choices, though, consider other factors. If a lens's traffic is already good, recategorizing it might prove to be a mistake. Also, some categories contain a lot more lenses than others, thus making it more difficult to land a spot in the top 100, let alone the top five. Of course if you do change the category on a lens and placement when lensrank updates next time proves to be poor, you can always change it back.

Switching categories on Squidoo is just one way to fine tune a lens, but it's a good option to consider. Just keep in mind the old idiom: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.