Wahm Forum - Your "Work-at-Home Moms" Support Group

my52cents · Sun Jul 15, 2007 9:59 pm Which Squidoo category should I choose?

When I make a Squidoo lens, the hardest thing for me to do is to choose the category.

Today I updated my "I Love Calendars" lens and added a section on the history of calendars (a great topic for homeschoolers, by the way). Right now I have that one listed in the Shopping category, but I'm not sure that's the best one (although I do want shoppers to come and buy calendars!). If anyone wants to look and give me an opinion, I'd appreciate it (educational? entertainment?). I am planning to add more modules to the lens, including another informational section and another with links to online calendars, so you can keep that in mind.

The lens is: http://www.squidoo.com/I-Love-Calendars/
and you can find all the category listings here: http://www.squidoo.com/browse/topic_list

Thanks!
Susan

wahmannounce · Thu Jul 19, 2007 3:50 am

OOPS! Susan, I meant to make it back to this post to help you and completely forgot. I'll try to check it out tomorrow to give you my opinion.

wahm-2-wahm.com · Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:20 pm

Do any of you search by category? I've never used that feature ... I just search by key word in the search bar ... but I'm curious as to what you ladies do while there ... *SmiLes* Suzanne

wahmannounce · Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:30 pm

Suzanne,

I use the keyword search as well. Very rarely do I use the category search.

Choosing the correct category can be beneficial, though, for ranking and for the select few who may prefer to search by category.

Susan,
I think you chose the best category: shopping. Business is the only other one that I might think of for business owners looking for calendars. But, overall, I think you chose the right category.

my52cents · Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:32 pm

I sometimes browse by category. When you look at a lens, at the top it offers you the Top 100, which means the top 100 in that particular category. That's why I want to be sure I'm in the most advantageous category for my lens. My goal will always be to make the top 100 - at least the top 100 in my category (my find-stuff-for-ebay lens has been there and I'm trying to get it back up there).

I'm trying to get this calendar lens ready for before Christmas calendar shopping time. (I guess maybe that means I do have it in the right category). I like to browse other lenses in the same category, as well as lenses with similar keywords/search words, to get ideas on how to improve mine.

my52cents · Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:35 pm

Rhonda,
(We were replying at the same time!)

I think you're right. Shopping it is.

I don't know why I feel funny about making it blatently a marketing lens. Nothing wrong with that, but I feel better when the selling can be a secondary feature I guess. I just don't like lenses that obviously are trying to sell, sell, sell. To me, that's not what Squidoo is all about. I like to put some "personality" in mine.

Susan

wahmannounce · Fri Jul 20, 2007 2:55 am

Susan,

Well, you've got the right idea. People have come to really detest spam and advertising on the internet. So when you're obviously trying to just push a sell without any real content or useful information at all, you're going to have a really tough time keeping your visitors browsing your page.

Your personality should definitely shine through!