Let's use this thread to discuss these resources: Hubpages, Squidoo and Zimbio.

Both Hub and Squidoo use "tag pages". These are pages that contain links to hubs/lenses that use the same tags (keywords).

Some of these pages have pretty good PR. Your goal is to get your hubs/lenses on as many of these pages as possible.

Not only for the link juice (if any), but we also want to find these tag pages that are already appearing in Google SERPs so they can drive traffic directly to our hubs/lenses.

And, we will also get links from all the other hubs/lenses that share the same tags, which can send some traffic our way.

We'll want to find as many relevant tags as possible and use as many of them on our own hubs/lenses as we can. Both Hub and Squidoo have limits to the number of tags, so just create multiple hubs/lenses, making sure you use every possible tag at least once.

To find tag pages that are indexed by Google, just use these custom searches in Google:
site:www.squidoo.com "Squidoo : Tags" las vegas
site:hubpages.com las vegas "Hot Hubs"

Just substitute "las vegas" with your own keyword(s).

Now "extract" the tags and add them to your hubs/lenses.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-29-08 AT 01:19 PM (PST)
 

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Special Limited Time Download for Frequent Forum Visitors

I'll only leave this up for about a day to reward those that visit here often...Please, no exceptions, no excuses.

Here's a new version of the TuelBar that makes finding tag pages much easier:
DOWNLOAD LINK REMOVED

Uninstall your old TuelBar, if necessary. On your TuelBar, go to:
Misc => Uninstall TuelBar
Download and unzip.
Click TuelBar.exe

Enter a keyword(s) in the search box, then some tabs will appear. Just click on either/and/or Hub or Squid to find tag pages.

Works on IE

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Kurt, regarding the promotion of this lenses I saw a kind of web2.0 drawing suggesting to link from some of your lenses with "YOUR KEYWORD" to a sort of "Destination LENS" This could you get you some nice link power - not sure if it works though...

Cool tuelbar...just used it to add 80 tags to my lens in about 20 minutes....but squidoo only allows 40....anyway, I have 35 more tags than I had 20 minutes ago. Thanks for the tip and tuelbar!

Bob

>Kurt, regarding the promotion of this lenses I saw a kind of
>web2.0 drawing suggesting to link from some of your lenses
>with "YOUR KEYWORD" to a sort of "Destination LENS" This
>could you get you some nice link power - not sure if it
>works though...

Hi Karsten...

We should always be looking to cross-link all of our resources.

>Cool tuelbar...just used it to add 80 tags to my lens in
>about 20 minutes....but squidoo only allows 40....anyway, I
>have 35 more tags than I had 20 minutes ago. Thanks for the
>tip and tuelbar!

Thanks Bob for the comments...

Bob and Everyone...I've made a video that shows how to collect Squidoo (and Hubpages) tags in a few minutes.

The video is 6:28 long, but I can do this is about two minutes, it takes a little more time to explain what I'm doing.

Here's how I use the Tuelbar to find tag pages indexed in Google, then use the Linez Tuel to extract all the tags in about 2 minutes:

www.dombom.com/iframes/Linez-Squidoo-tags/Linez-Squidoo-tags.html

Oh Wow Kurt! This is a big help lol. Thanks!

Mary

Great video as usual Kurt. You have simplified a tedious task with a very logical process.

I struggled with trying to find a way to automate finding the right tags for Social Bookmarking sites and ended up using my top keywords.

This is a much better targeted approach. Every tag is a link to your site so using already indexed pages in Google can only speed up the indexing and ranking of your own site.

Thanks again Kurt. I hope everyone takes a few minutes to watch the video.

Hi All,

I bought PLR rights to these Hubpages Video Tutorials:

Video 1: What Is HubPages? 3:29
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/whatishubpages.avi

Video 2: Creating An Account 5:27
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/creatinganaccount.avi

Video 3: Finding A Product 4:05
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/findingaproduct.avi

Video 4: Creating A Hub 8:22
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/creatingahub.avi

Video 5: Driving Traffic Internally 4:14
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/trafficinternally.avi

Video 6: Driving Traffic Externally 5:05
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/externaltraffic.avi

Video 7: Advanced Earnings 5:17
www.dombom.com/iframes/hubvideos/advancedearnings.avi

Thanks Kurt!

Bob

You Da Man, Kurt!

Thanks a million.
Phil G

Keyword Research for Hubpages and Squidoo

Using your favorite keyword research tool, make a list of all keywords that get at least 40-50 searches per day.

Run your list of keywords through the Inz Tuel to find the keywords that are easiest to compete against.

Take your list of the best keywords based on your research and enter them into BumDemon to find the best names for your lenses and hubs.
www.tuelz.com/bumbum.zip (Free download)

That's it! Now you know the topics and keywords that give you the best chance to get easy traffic, creating content around these keywords.

Use the tagging strategy above in combination with this keyword research strategy and you're miles ahead of your competition.

NOTE: If you don't have Inz, it will be available in next month's membership downloads.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-05-08 AT 04:17 PM (PST)
 
Here's an interesting hubpage contrasting the differences between Hubpages and Squidoo:
http://hubpages.com/hub/squidoo

Hubpages News:

Hubpages has started a hub about getting links to your hubs:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Project-Backlink?utm_source=drip77&utm_medium=email&utm_content=btmbox

Also, a person ID'ing themselves as an employee of Hubpages posted that they remove the nofollow tag from your hubs if you have 2 or more "good" hubs, using the same account info.

I had set up my hubs using different accounts, so I assumed (incorrectly) that all hubs use the nofollow tag.

Can anyone confirm this?

Hi Kurt,
I have 6 Hubpages that have scores from 70 to 55. I have two that are 70 and both have no-follow tags on just about every link including the links back to my gold sites which makes them about useless for link juice. 100 is the best score so maybe mine aren't so great....

Bob

Here's a comprehensive site full of Squidoo tips:
http://squidoomagic.com/

Here's some of the topics:
How Do I Vote for My Own Squidoo Lens?
Getting Traffic to Your Squidoo Lens Part 3
Visit SquidU at Squidoo
Getting Visitors from Google in 1½ Day
SquidAholic - Spy on Your Competitors
Add an Email Button to Your Squidoo Lens
The Recipe for Making Money on Squidoo
SquidCasting - New Feature at Squidoo
How to Make Text Module at Squidoo Exciting
How to Add a Cool Mozilla Add-on for Squidoo
Win a SE Optimzed WordPress Theme
Happy New Year and a Graphic Tip
Getting Traffic to Your Squidoo Lens part 4 - Answers Yahoo
Unique, Usefull and Updated Web Traffic
Getting Traffic to Your Squidoo Lens part 2 - Article submission
Getting Traffic to Your Squidoo Lens Part 1
Get Paid for Writing Movie Reviews by SquidFlix
Payday at Squidoo (beer money)
Graphic for Your Lens

LAST EDITED ON Apr-17-08 AT 06:18 PM (PST)
 
(Edited to reflect that AND is not OR )

It's not that easy to find all the rules that apply to Hubpages. Their user agreement isn't linked from anywhere obvious (it's at http://hubpages.com/help/user_agreement) and although they say that it's the "Entire Agreement" it patently isn't because they use certain terms in there that are only defined elsewhere (and after a lot of digging). There are still more rules (like the "no follow" one) that I only found buried deep in a forum response.

The rules on commercial hubs:

Commercial hubs are required to have an ad level setting of High. Your hub is considered to be commercial if it meets any of these conditions.

* it is monetized through a non-hubpages affiliate mechanism
* it contains links to other commercial sites
* it promotes a for profit business, especially a business that you have an interest in

The "overly-promotional" flag:

1) Revenue should only come from "revenue capsules", i.e. the Amazon, eBay and Adsense profit-sharing capsules. You do have to use your own affiliate IDs to take part in these. You also get a % of the profit share from Hubbers that you refer (this share comes from Hubpages, not from the Hubber)

2) "Outbound links to other sites where you can make revenue are banned ... UNLESS you give HubPages something valuable (original and exclusive content) in exchange for links from HubPages to your money sites. And the rate of exchange is one (1) Hub of unique and exclusive content for each two (2) commercial links. "

3) All links must be relevant to the topic of hub.

No follow

Links are no follow on hubs with a Hub Score of 50 or less or where the Hubber has a score of 75 or less. Unless the high scores are maintained, links will become no follow again automatically.

Links in Hub comments are all no follow.

It makes sense to put a photo in your profile and not to publish more than 2 hubs a day, maximum.

Isobel

LAST EDITED ON Apr-21-08 AT 10:21 AM (PST)
 
I got this info from Tiffany Dow.

Squidoo have added a section just below the introduction on your Lens called "Explore More ..." These are links to other similar lenses of Squidoo's choice.

You do have the option to turn it off which means that your lens won't show on other lenses. If you leave it on, you can utilise 3 of the spots to link to relevant lenses of your choice, including those you own.

Note that this is set ON now as a default for all lenses and in order to turn it off or modify the options you have to go into every lens individually and edit the Introduction module. It's on the tab called "Discovery Tool".

Isobel

Here's a great hub from Mark Knowles about how to get good SE rankings for your Hubpages:
http://hubpages.com/hub/How-I-got-my-hub-to-be-on-Googles-first-page

Kurt,

I think that's one of the best or more honest articles about getting the best rankings for your Hub Pages.

Thanks for the resource chief!

Mary