When you create a lens it automatically starts out as a WIP or work in progress. It will be colored red and land at the bottom of the list of lenses you have in your account.
Lensrank is updated once a day ~ so it can take a day or two maybe three for you to get a new lens out of WIP status.
Here’s the deal though…
It’s not that big of a deal to us. Google can still see, index and rank your lens whether it is a WIP at Squidoo or not. People who go to your lens can still see it, click the links and buy from it. The WIP is a Squidoo label ~ it has nothing to do with Google. We will be getting our traffic from Google mostly so Google is who we need to worry about.
The process of getting Google to see your lens is the same whether your lens is still in the pink or not. In fact, Squidoo has given you quite a few tools to get that process started.
If you are on social media you can tweet your new lens, you can add it to your facebook wall. You can share it with a friend, you can stumble it. You could lensroll it to another related lens. These are all ways to help get your lens indexed and noticed by Google, as well as get them out of WIP.
My Lens was live, now it’s a WIP again?!?
Don’t worry… this has happened to me as well. The same thing stated above, still applies. Google can still see your lens, if you were indexed, you probably still are. It doesn’t affect your life in Google.
However, it is nice to get the internal links from Squidoo which happens when you’re live within Squidoo.
From what I understand the problem that has sent your lens back to WIP is a lack of love. A lack of traffic, updating, sales ~ all those good things Squidoo loves to see from your lenses. They put them back in WIP to get your attention, basically say “Hey Lensmaster! This lens needs some love. Now get on it!”
To get your lens out of WIP seems fairly simple, from what I’ve read. Give it a little love. Add some content. Build some links to it. Get it a little bit of traffic and it should be out of WIP in no time. Basically all the things you would do to get it out the first time will work to get it out again.
Something to think about:
If you’ve already done a bunch of work with this lens. You’ve built your links, you’ve done the work and you’ve never gotten any traffic, or never made any sales. (you did see I said you’ve done all the work for it, right?) then you might want to weigh whether time spent on this lens to get it out of WIP is going to be profitable or worth it.
There will be lenses that just flop. No matter how much research you’ve done, no matter how much linking you’ve done, no matter how much time you spend. They flop. It happens. Don’t delete them you can use them for other things, but really think about whether the time spent getting it out of WIP is going to be worth the investment.
All in all… take a deep breath. Do the basics you know how to do from the blueprint and keep building more lenses while you wait for one to get out of WIP.
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I worte my first lens yesterday and was wondering how to get it out of WIP so thanks for the advice. Hopefully it will be indexed and become featured.
Cabbie Dave´s last blog ..Rent or buy your minicab?
It will take 24 to 48 hours for it to come out of wip, once you’ve published there’s really nothing else you can do… it’s up to Squidoo to do that piece. There’s some things you can do to help it get indexed… Here’s 5 quick ways to get your lens indexed
[...] to the sidebar widgets until you have published 3 lenses (and they are live on Squidoo ~ not a WIP) When you have those three live then the sidebar widget will become available on those three as [...]
Thanks Jackie, I have 3 lenses that are over a year old and have become WIP lenses. I had no idea why. But these lenses are targeting keywords I would not target now, and have never produced sales. So I guess I’ll just accept it, more time on them is not likely to produce results.
Thanks for shining some light on the subject.
Jen@twin baby doll stroller´s last blog ..Twin Baby Doll Stroller Double Baby Doll Strollers for Girls updated Mon Aug 9 2010 7-20 am CDT
Jackie, do you know if there is an upper limit to the price of items we can promote on squidoo? I would love to take a stab at some luxury items, some in the $20k and up range. Do you know if we earn commissions on luxury items?
Lisa @ KitchenAid kfp750cr Food Processor´s last blog ..KitchenAid kfp750cr Food Processor updated Thu Jul 22 2010 1-33 pm CDT
There is no limit on what you can promote on Squidoo. You’ll have to read the TOS on Amazon regarding payout on high priced items, I think there are some special rules when it comes to high end items as far as your commission, but you’ll have to check there.
PS… it’s going to be way easier to get someone to buy a 200 dollar product than a 20,000 dollar product ~ would you buy a 20K product online? Just something to think about.
Hi Jackie,
That is real good to know! I want to ask you a question about an old lense I have that is still live and gets plexed once in a while.
I just got an article approved in EAZ that fits the subject and I’m wondering if it’s a good idea to add it too the lense? if
it is a good idea, would I just add the article with its title?
Thank you Jackie,
Fran
Fran Civile´s last blog ..The Build-and-Move-on System of Affiliate Marketing
Depends on what the lens is about… what it’s purpose is. If it is a informational lens then it might be worth it, but long articles usually aren’t best for squidoo. If it’s a money making lens I probably wouldn’t add a whole article to it.