Lens of the Day
Every day Squidoo HQ features a lens of quality as a “Lens of the Day” on their main page and in their newsletter. For Canada Day, July 1, my Canadian travel lens was featured.
When I created this lens I used a few of my images to get it started but then populated it with Flickr images using the flicker module. Mainly for convenience and time. My plan was to come back and update it with my images once I got them off the old computer. Weeks passed. Months passed. The lens got mild reviews from visitors and received moderate traffic and I would tweak it here and there.
Finally this past month, I could put off my major update no longer, the Flickr module was retired. I decided I had to stop procrastinating and add my images. It was a gradual process by region but I noticed an immediate change in the quality of the comments being left which encouraged me to add the pictures quicker.
I was up late (late) Saturday night working on some computer tasks. When I stopped by to the Squidoo main page I saw my face looking back at me with a banner for Lens of the Day across the corner. It was a nice surprise but I really did not grasp what it would mean for the popularity my lens.
When you have a lens chosen for LOTD you almost immediately notice a change in rank. Mine jumped more than a couple thousand. By the next day my lens had zoomed up to #13 across the board and #1 in travel and I still had a few more images to add.
My point? If you put in the extra work someone will notice. LOTD is a wonderful achievement and a huge motivation. There is nothing like receiving over 130 messages in your in-box telling you how wonderful you and your lens are. If you share something meaningful people will share with you in return.
It has a few days later and my lens is holding its own at the #15/#1 mark. I know it will gradually decline as traffic lessons but it was a nice ride and I encourage you to not hold off on making your lenses better because you never know which of them will be honored with so much fun exposure.