I had a hard time lugging our Sunday paper into the house yesterday and I soon figured out why…sale papers.
All of the major (and not so major) stores had enormous toy catalogs and festive flyers advertising everything from Furby’s to KitchenAid Mixers to Christmas PJ’s.
Now is the time that consumers start their Holiday shopping which means now is also the time to start making sales lenses. Squidoo provides the (free) tools for you to create beautiful, useful, content rich lenses about the products that people are buying this year.
So what makes a sales lens amazing? Read on…
1) Personal point-of-view. This is the #1 most important aspect of a legendary sales lens. YOUR poing of view is what consumers are looking for. Is Furby worth $60? Should I buy a Keurig or a Tassimo? What’s the best gift for a 3-year-old boy? Get personal, give answers and let people submit their own opinions about a product via a Duel or Poll Module.
2) Original content. Anyone can cut & paste. Anyone can paraphrase. Anyone can quote. Make your lens special by writing every single word yourself. Google cares about original content, Squidoo cares about original content and you should care about original content too.
3) Creativity. Spend a little time planning your lens. Think about how you can engage your readers with language, photos and style. Creativity counts!
4) Passion. Care about the things that you write about. I love candles, pop culture and board games. I have no interest in mopeds, microwave ovens or home brewing. Which topic would you rather see me write about? People are smart, they can tell when you don’t care.
5) Celebrate Magazine. Squidoo created Celebrate specifically for your Gift Guide lenses. Every single day we’ll be showing off lenses on the Celebrate magazine, the Celebrate Facebook page and Pinterest. We had over 9 million visits to Happy Halloween participating lenses this season and expect the same (or more) from Celebrate.
6) Photos. Your best choice is to take your own photos. When you can’t follow these guidelines.
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