How To Build A Free Baby Webpage (Squidoo Baby Lens)

The Step By Step Guide - Build your First Webpage Ever! 

It's easy, it's fun and you CAN DO IT!

Building your first web page is like anything else you do for the first time: Unknown territory that seems to be full of traps and things one does not know.

But just remember how it was when you first started to use the internet, or when you first time did something you never thought possible. Now you hardly think about how you do it and it became second nature. That shows you clearly: You can do it!

If you have a bit more experience with building web pages, then you find it dead easy, and if you're new you'll easily master it by using this page as your guide.

Step One - Register for an account 

Step 1 - How to decide what's a good Title 

The title of your webpage - or lens, as we call them here at Squidoo - is important. It's what the Search Engines will display first, and it's what your visitors see.

The title is also used to display your lens (remember this is the name we use for webpages here) in groups and in the Search results.

My suggestion: Make is short, to the point and inviting. Why not i.e "Our New Baby - from Conception to Birth"; or "Finally I'm pregnant! Full of Joy!"; "Our second Baby" ... etc.

If you are making a lens for a baby that's already here and you know the name, then using the baby's first name in the title is a good thing too!

Step 2 - Chose what your aim is with the new Lens 

For the step 2 you are given 4 choices. You need to clock on one of them:

- I want to get the word out about "Your Lens Topic (Your Baby's name i.e.)" (easiest option)

- I'm gonna sell "Your Lens Topic (Your Baby's name i.e.)" stuff and earn $$, for me or for charity (money maker!)

- I want to make a list of my favorite things about "Your Lens Topic (Your Baby's name i.e.)" (most popular)

- I just want to do my own thing.

Chose the first option, because this will show you some of the options and you can later still decide not to use them all. Having a basic set-up is helpful to start with!

Step 3 - The Web Address for your Lens 

This is important, the URL can not be changed later!

Chosing the web address for your lens is also important, as this will help people to find your page. Make it easy to read and remember!

When picking your Squidoo URL (or link) just fill in the blank where it says www.squidoo.com/_______.

So if your lens title is "Baby Name", then it's a clever move to see if the address "baby-name" is still available. Soemtimes the more popular words and names might already be taken by an other lensmaster, then you need to try a variation.

Variations could be
- "babyname" (a bit less easy to read, but still short and sweet)
- "my-baby-name"
- "sweet-baby-name"
- "baby-name-boy"
- "baby-name-girl"
etc. get a bit creative, I'm sure you'll find a good web address!

the address you will be entering into the browser will be http://www.squidoo.com/baby-name.

The URL, i.e. the web address, can not be changed anymore, so it's worthwhile to spend a few minutes if your initial name can not be had anymore.

Next you need to pick a category for your lens and to rate it. If you're not sure, waht to rate your lens, read up on the Squidoo Ratings policy. Generally it's safe to say, that if your lens is about your baby, you should opt for
"G RATED MATERIAL".
.

Step 4 - Tags / Keywords - Help others to find your Webpage! 

Tags are keywords, the same stuff you use in the Google search field when you are looking for soemthing special. Squidoo functions quite the same. In the search field that is shown on the top right spot on this page you can add a keyword, and the Squidoo offers you a list of lenses that are about this keyword.

So make the tags relevant and match your web page. Now we can add the first three tags, later we will add more (maximum 40 keywords or tags). The tags also help Google and the other search engines to find your lens, once you publish it.

Step 5 - Chose who earns the Royalty for your Lens 

Yes, you can actually earn some money from Squidoo!

Where do you want to send your royalties?

Yep, your Squidoo pages could earn royalties! Yes, really, Squidoo it totally free. For some lensmasters, the money they earn is just a drop in the bucket. Others are earning hundreds of dollars every month, thousands of dollars a year. For them or for some great charities.

These are the options that Squidoo offers you:

- Donate to the Squidoo Charity Fund (Every month our Charity Board votes on what org gets these donations)

- Donate to a specific charity

- I just want cash. (you get your money sent every month, two months after the lens earned it)

- You can also chose a combo of cash for yourself and charity money.

Step 6 - Tell Squido who you are and where to send the money 

This gives you your access code to come back and edit your webpages

OK, this is the last of the six steps, you'll be further adding content to this page in a moment: You're almost the proud owner of your very own webpage.

Next up: editing your lens, adding cool content, and making it something you're really proud of. Lenses with lots of useful and unique-to-you content perform best.

You just need to add

- Your Email address:
Squidoo is good about not spamming. They say that they never ever share or sell email addresses. They just use this to confirm your account, so make sure it's correct! (I've never received any spam from them, so you can go ahead and add your primary email address where you get your regular email, so you will not miss important infos and updates!)

- Your Screen Name: This is the name that shows up on your pages. (mine is 'herbie66')

- Your real name: (First name; Last name)

- And a good Password: (Use a mix of CAPITAL and small letters mixed with a few numbers, i.e. form a sentence that you can easily remember and use the first letters of the sentence for form the password
(Here's an example, don't use this one though!: Fast 7 buses to transport Big men = F7bttBb)

Now you only need to accept the terms and read through them so you understand what Squidoo does and what Squdioo will not allow. You'll see this is a really friendly environment!

- Yep, I accept the Terms of Service! (And will check my email for an account confirmation email from Squidoo).

- Yes, I want to get the Lens of the Day newsletter

- Yes, I want the SquidU Review newsletter: tips on traffic, money, contests--from fellow lensmasters!

And finally you need to enter the checkword to prove you're not a robot signing up:

Enter the word in the image you see to the left (this is called a captcha - but don't worry about the name, just read what it says and enter the word into the field)

Step 7 - Orientation - Find out what this all means! 

Your 'Workshop' is now ready to be filled with content!

How To Use The Top Of Your Workshop 

The Text Links:

At the very top of your page you have a few text links:

- Log Out
- My Dashboard
- SquidU
- Make A Lens!

They do exactly what the text tells you. The dashboard is the control center, to manage the different webpages / lenses, once you have more than one. Believe me this is addictive!

In the dashboard you also will find links that let you have the statistics of how many people have visited the page etc.

SquidU (Squidoo University) is a great place to learn more and find out how this all works, but let's keep that for when you have made your first lens and seen how easy this is!

'Make a lens' is one possibility to start a new webpage / lens, just like the one you're building right now.

As you see, easy, straight forward and clean. I love the simplicity of it, even though I'm a webmaster who also builds really complicated websites. Squidoo is good for beginners and pro's alike, they have gotten just about everything right!

The Yellow Buttons

Below the text Links come three yellow buttons:

- "Add Modules"
- "Reorder Modules"
- "Keep this Draft"

The "Modules" Buttons we will not use right now, because you alread have plenty of modules to work with. Later you can click on the button "Add Modules" to add more modules to your lens.

We will also be using "Reorder Modules" to change the order in which the modules are presented on the page, again a bit later.

Finally there is the "Keep this Draft" button. That's quite important, because it lets you save your work, even if it's not yet fully finished. Like this you can come back and finish later and don't have to publish a half finished lens. Below you see an image of the green feedback textblock that will confirm to you that the draft has been saved. This confirmation is shown when you click on the "Keep Thsi Draft" button:

The structure of a lens 

A Lens is a cumulation of plenty of different modules

A lens is composed of different modules, there is, in theory no limitation to the number of modules, there are Squdioo lenses that have many dozen modules, there are others that have just a few.

There is a minimum of three modules and the intro module, for a lens to be considered ready for publication, though.

This means a lens needs to have a minimum of 3 modules plus intro module and it can have an unlimited number of modules.

In our draft we have a whole bunch of different modules that we will now have a look at. You do not need to use all of them, but toi start with it's a good idea to test them all and learn how they work:

The Title of your Lens - How To Edit It 

The Principle behind all modules: Hit Edit - Do what you need to do - Hit Save

With the exception of the URL (Web Address) of your lens everything can be changed and is dynamic. So if you start now and save something, you can come back and change it at any time. Great, isn't it?

The image above shows you the Title Module before you hit "Edit" and after you have hit "Edit" (below the yellow strip:

Now you also have a text editing field open where you can change the text, or correct it. Once you're satisfied with the changes, click on the red "Save" button and wait a few seconds, and you'll be back in the first modus, where the Module is shown as it has been changed, but without the editing field (like the one above the yellow strip in the image).

If you change your mind and finally do not want to change anythins, you simply click the grey "Cancel" button and things remain as they were before.

The title is important, as I mentioned already above, so make sure you make it attractive and relevant. Also try and keep it short, long titles will wrap and in my oppinion don't really look good.

Introduction, Contents & Discovery Tool - The first thing visitors see 

This is wher you make the first impression and where a visitor will decide i he wants to continue reading and exploring.

The Introduction Module has a very high importance. If this module is boring, not attractive or inviting, people will click away.

Therefore you want to make sure that this part of your lens tickles curiosity and has a nice, on-topic image that attracts the eye. Look at the introduction to this lens, did it make you want to explore further down? Guess, yes, if you're still reading now :-).

Let's look at the input fields we have here:

- Lens Intro Title
- Lens Description
- Lens Photo

Lens Intro Title
Think 'Newspaper'! If you look at a newspaper, the titles are always written in such a way that you want to read on. Try and make your title attractive in this way.

Lens Description
Here you add a few phrases that give a short overview and tell the visitor what to expect here. Tell enough to make them curious, and keep some of the really interesting stuff for the modules further down.

Lens Photo
Here you can upload a photo from your hard drive, the program reduces it in sioze automatically. Try and keep it relatively small. Photos taken directly from a digital camera will not work, as they tend to be way larger than the 1 Megabite maximum size Squidoo can work with. Read on below how to reduce a photo's size if it's too big.

The Table of Contents Tab 

Squdioo makes the table of content for you, with one click!

Titles for Modules - Important! 

Never leave the default titles!

An other oversight that happens to many lensmasters, is to leave the titles of the modules as they are when you first pull them in. These titles mean nothing, as they are just the descritption of what sort of module this is.

Always change the default title to a meaningful, keyword rich title that tells people what to expect. Look at the titles of this page, they help you orientate yourself. Even though there are many modules, they are clearly labeled and you can navigate up and down and know always what you are looking at. Make this work for your lenses too!

A Neat trick to keep the Overview : Colapsing Modules 

If you compare the image above with the image 'Now We're Building: Step 7 - Orientation and Overview' further up you'll notice that in this view you only see the titles and no content.

You can colapse any module by hitting the small grey dart in front of the title. That colapses the module. Hitting it again will opne it up. Especially for large lenses it's easier to work, when you have them colpased, or at least some are colapsed. You'll have to figure out what's best for yourself and your style of lens building.

What's important is that you realize you have this possibility.

The RSS Module - Pulling in Content from other sites 

... and a short intor how to DELETE a Module

If you have a blog you like, or you want to pull in an other feed that contains information relevant to your lens, then this module can do it.

If RSS does not mean anything to you, or if you don't have any outside infos you want to add at this time, then you can also click this module away.

As this is your first lens, we will do exactly this. It's possible to add an feed later, when you know a bit more, for now we will see how to delete a module:

Behind the orange "EDIT" button you see an orange circle with a cross in it. That's the DELETE button.
Be careful about hitting it by accident, you will oce all content of that particular module and Squidoo can not bring it back!

As we have not added anything to the module yet, go ahead and hit the orange "DELETE" button now. Below are two images that shwo you what happens:

1. You are asked a second time if you really want to delete the module. And when you hit "Yes"

2. Squidoo confirms that the module is now deleted in a green text box.

The Text / Write Module - Where you write 

This module looks very similar to the Intro Module, and it works the same. The only difference is that the Intro Module must be on top and can not be moved. It also has the Table of content function.

The Text Module is just that, without any other fancy stuff. It can be moved about anywhere you like and you can have as may of them as you need.

Title, Text and Image have their own input fields, and once you are done with editing and uploading the image, you can simply hit "Save" and the content is visible in your Workshop.

The Amazon Module - Recommending (and Selling) Amazon Products 

You will be an Affiliate Marketer with this module:

The nice thing about the Squidoo modules is, that they make life really easy. You don't need to sign up anywhere, you don't need to learn how to add HTML links and all that techie stuff.

... But you actually can act as if you knew all this!

The Modules do the hard work for us, all we need to do is chose the products and make sure they match the topic of the lens. If you're talking about your baby, you may want to add a few books and/or DVD's about babies, pregnancy, nutrition or whatever else you talk about in your lens. Let me show you how easy this works:

The Title
We've talekd about the title already, jsut make sure it's good and to the point!

The Subtitle
Soemtimes a title alone is not enough. I even say it's always better to have a subtitle too. The subtitle is like the italic text you find immediately after the title and before the actual newspaper story: It's a further teaser to pull the reader into the full text.

The Description
Refer to the products that you are pulling in from Amazon and say why you think they are useful / interesting / helpful.... tell the visitors what problems were solved by them, what questions get answered, in short: Show them the benefit of these products (maybe from your personal viewpoint, or somebody else who recommended the products).

If you don't have a good idea now, leave the description, it's not absolutely necessary.

Amazon picks the Products for you! 

Make sure that always the top 3 to 5 products are showing

This module is amazing and holds a lot of possibilities. You best play around a bit to see what works best for you. I sugest you first learn how to work with the modus where Amazon choses the products you define with the keyword(s) in the field "Enter your Search Term".

Try a single word first, then "SAVE" to see what comes up. If the result is not according to your expectations, try a two word combination, first by just adding the second word, or if that does still not work well, by setting them into qiotations.

Thus if you were looking for pregnancy books, you can do this by first trying out the single word:
- pregnancy

When the results are not good enough you might try
- pregnancy exercise
or
- pregnancy exercises

And if this is still not good enough, add the word like this:

- "pregnancy exercise"
or
- "pregnancy exercises"

You have also the option to choose in various sections of Amazon or in all of Amazon.com by setting the departement in the field "Choose your product type".

Go ahead and play!

Define How much information you want to add to the prodcuts 

When you hit the tab "Display Option" you can define how much information you want to show.

The absolutely minimalistic option is to chose "yes" at the bottom of that screen where it asks "Use Thumbnail view?". Test this and say 'yes, then "SAVE" and see how this looks. Soemtimes this can be quite useful.

Personally I like to show a bit more infos and I chose 'nope' and make a tick everwhere else, with the exception of the 'Used Price'.

It's your choice! Again, play aroudn a bit and you'll get the feeling for it fast.

Updated Photos from Flickr on a daily basis! 

Squdioo helps you also to keep your content fresh. just like with Amazon, the content is automatically updated on a daily basis (unless you chose an other intervall).

With Flickr it works the same as with Amazon: Your Search Term determines what is shown. Play with the module and see what it finds!

Important: Don't forget the Title and Subtitle!

Adding Modules - With a few clicks you add plenty of different Content Modules 

There are so many, I doubt that many lensmasters know them all!

The Yellow Buttons

Remember we talked about these earlier: Below the text Links come three yellow buttons, one of them is labeled:

- "Add Modules"

Click this yellow button and what you'll see is the screen as pictured above. Note that there is a link at the bottom of the page, leading to page 2 of this section! (This is overlooked sometimes)

Try the Tabs on top of the Module Picker to Discover ! 

The Module Picker has tabs with different sets of modules. There are plenty and you'll pass hours playing with them. For now we'll go for one specific module that you certainly will use a lot when you make a baby lens. It's the "Polaroid" module to showcase one picture in a nice way. The Screenshots below illustrate the process visually, I'll comment at the end of the series.

To find the Polaroid module it's easiest to go for the list of alphabetically ordered modules and then click on the letter "P":

Adding and Moving Modules 

The Polaroid Module is a good example how this works. You can pick any module or several modules at the time, then hit "Preview Lens Layout" and move the modules about as you like.

When you're done hit "SAVE" and the new modules will show up in their proper place in the overview:

How to Upload Photos to the Polaroid Module 

The Polaroid module is what I use to show you the screen shots in this lens. Squidoo takes the photo you upload and adds a 'paper frame' around it, muhc like the old Polaroid instant image cameras used to produce.

So if you have pics of your baby, your belly or any other great shots, they look truly great like this!

One thing you need to keep in mind: Keep the title short. Mine here are going over the one line length and I do this for clarity in my explanations. If you have a nice photo it's always possible to keep the title to one line only. Looks MUCH better!

Adding YouTube Vidoes to your web page 

Your own videos or the ones of other people:

There is the word that a picture can say more than a thousand words, well video multiplies that once more and one could say 'Video can say more than a million words'. Would it not be nice to be able to see your videos in the page you build, or videos of other people?

Integrating these videos can be complicated, but here it's just a matter of a few clicks.

The You Tube module looks very much the same as the others we looked at. I don't think I need to go into much details to explain. You have the option to have Youtube chose the videos (with sometimes a bit strange results...) To chose yourself or to chose a Youtube user account to pick the videos from.

Below are the screens as they open up when you chose one of these options:

Help When Selecting YouTube Videos yourself 

Finding the right video directly in Squidoo:

When you chose the option "LET ME PICK", Squdioo asks you to enter the URL (web address) of the YouTube Video you want to show on your page.

These are rather long and complicated strings of numbers and letters, displayed next to the videos on the YouTube site.

But you don't have to hop over to YouTube to pick a good video. Just click the textlink below the input field for the URL that says "Help me find a video".

A new window opens up that offers a field where you can enter the search word. When you hit the blue button "Fidn It!", a list with videos pops up and you can simply chose the one you like by clicking on the orange "Add this Video" button.

Nifty, isn't it? I love this feature! It's availalbe for other modules too. The Amazon module has a similar link to help you find products. We did not use it when you filled in your Amazon products, because I wanted to guide you step by step into the way Squidoo works. By now you're nearly a pro already, so we are exploring new functions as we go along.

Having Other Comment on your Webpage 

This is the Web 2.0 feature - Or simply put: People will be able to communicate with you on the page!

Having a guest book was a big thing ever since web pages exist. Then came a time when robots used guest books to spam and put all sorts of nonsense on other people's pages. But nowadays these guestbooks are great and safe!

So having a guestbook on your webpage allows others to comment and tell you what they think and experienced. You have the possibility to allow or disallow every single comment so you don't have to worry about stuff on your page that you don't want there.

Let's look at the option you have with this module, it offers a few more ways to be tweaked. Title, Subtitle and Description we know from the previous modules, so no need to explain these again.

Here is what I usually put for my guestbooks and how I set the options:

Who Do you Want Commenting?
This can be set either way, if members of your family and friends anre not also Squidoo lensmasters, it makes sense to opt for the "Anyone who visits my lens!". See how it goes. If you have too many spammy messages, simply show the members of your family how to register for a Squidoo account (They don't need to build a page to become registered users) and then chose the other option. Like this they can comment end exchange and you have eliminated the problem.

When should their blurbs be approved?
A Blurb is a short message they write into your guestbook. It's usually prudent to set this to "Ask me First" (The dart at then end of the input field opens the options there are, chose what you want by marking it with your mouse and clicking on it).

Send you an approval email for pending blurbs?
Leave this on "Yes". It's nice to get a notice when somebody left a note. If you are getting too many you can always go back and turn this off.

Show how many blurbs per page?
Set this to a number between 5 and 10. More is usually a bit distracting. The other comments (blurbs) are then put on a second and following pages and can be seen when the visitors go to this next page on your website.

Show commenter photos (thumbnails)?
LEave this to "Yes", they add color to the page and it's nice to see a face that goes with an comment.

Strip all HTML out of blurbs?
Change this to "Yes". It takes away the incentive of getting a free backlink to their webpages for people who only comment to gain links to their pages.

Let's Delete Two more Modules 

Adding Blogs / News that are updated to your web pages 

Publishing your Web page / Lens 

This is the message you will get:

Squdioo will confirm the publication of your lens once you push the red "PUBLISH" button:

Okay, so you made a lens. And you probably hope someone other than your hamster will see it. What to do?

1. Email it. To your friends, your mom, your boss. Don't be shy about bragging, you deserve a little limelight!

2. Blog it. Post your lens to your blog. Send a note to someone you admire who runs a blog on your topic, and ask them to check out your lens. Sincere flattery gets you everywhere.

3. Link it. Link to the lens on your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, Flickr profile, eBay auctions, email signature. Create your own little traffic network and get discovered in more places. Wouldn't you like to get found more online?

4. Group it! Find a Group that's busy talking about your topic and request to join. Get friendly, get relevant, get feedback, get found. (To add your lesn to a group you need to wait for about 24 hours, until Squidoo does it's daily update run to include it into the index. Only then will the links to add a lens work. Use the time until then to email a few friends and family about it!)

5. Compete. Stop by the Lens of the Day Group for inspiration from winning lenses. And if your lens is up to snuff, enter it in the contest.

The Lens Building Process Is EASY - You can do this too! 

Adding Pizzazz to your Lens 

The great modules that help enhance your lens

Squidoo has not just the basic modules we have had a look at, but there are plenty of really great additional tools, that make your lens look a lot more attractive still.

Some of these little gems are a bit hidden and not easy to find, so here's how you find some of them:

One very effective module is the "StickyNote".

The hidden path to the Sticky Note 

OK, as you can see in the Polaroid above, to grab a StickyNote, you need to first hit the "Add Modules" yellow button on your lens, and then click on the tab "Widgets" in the screen that pops up. Now you can either search for it page by page (the numbers on the bottom of the list) or go immediately to page 5 and click on the "Add" link behind the word StickyNote.

OK, now you have it ready and a click on "Save" will put it into your lens workshop so that you can fill it with the text you want: