Give Me Five Minutes and I’ll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too!

 This is a lens I made to show someone how easy it is to make one!

One of my online friends said, "it's just too overwhelming to learn something new!" But I said, "Squidoo is so easy and it really only takes 5 minutes to get a basic lens started."

The good news, there really isn't anything much to learn! I'll quickly create a new lens to show you how:

Step 1: So, what's your lens about? Fill in the space telling what your lens will be about.  For this example our lens is going to be showing you how to build your own lens so and we want to be specific here and we type "Give Me Five Minutes and I'll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too!"Click the Go to Step 2 button to proceed.

Step 2: What do you want to do with your lens? In this step you'll be asked what you want to accomplish with your lens.  Choose of of the following:

a) I want to get the word out about Give Me Five Minutes and I'll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too! (easiest option)

b) I'm gonna sell Give Me Five Minutes and I'll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too! stuff and earn $$, for me or for charity (money maker!)

c) I want to make a list of my favorite things about Give Me Five Minutes and I'll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too! (most popular)

d) I just want to do my own thing.

Then the Go to Step 3 button to move forward.

Step 3: Your Title and URL The next step in the process of creating a Squidoo lens is to set up your title and the website address of your lens.  This step is broken up into 4 categories.

Lens Title: This is set by default with the topic you chose in Step 1, however you can change the title if you would like by clicking in the box with your current title. Give Me Five Minutes and I'll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too!

Pick your URL: Your URL is your website address.  Be careful to choose wisely, because once you set this you won't be able to change it later.  Your website address will start with www.squidoo.com/.  The text after is what will identify your lens from everyone else's at Squidoo. Ours is www.squidoo.com/five-minute-squidoo-addict

And pick a category for your lens: Choose from the drop down list the category that your lens fits in the best.  We'll choose - How to

Please rate your lens: Choose the most appropriate rating for your lens from the drop down list.  We're going to choose "G Rated Material - Safe for all ages and eyeballs."

Once you've completed all of the above steps and feel comfortable with your URL, go on to step 4 by clicking the button that tells you to do just that. 

Step 4: Help people find your lens. Keywords (or "tags") are really important in helping people find your lens. In this step we're going to make it as easy as possible to help people who use search engines to find information on the web to find your lens.  We'll do this by entering keywords that identify your lens.  Enter the best one (which by default is set to the topic you choose in Step 1) first.  Then if you'd like to increase your chances of people finding your lens, enter up to three other keywords.  We'll add - start squidoo, how to make a squidoo lens, lensmaster project

Move on to the next screen. Click Done and you are ready to dress up your lens!

If this is your first lens you'll now choose how you would like to be paid from your lens.  Yes, you can earn money with your lens! How cool is that?  Read through each choice and choose the one that's best for you between the following: Donate to the Squidoo Charity Fund, Donate to a Specific Charity (which you can choose from in the dropdown list), I Just Want Cash, or A Combo of Cash and Charity.  Proceed to  the next step when you've made your choice.

Here is where you will enter all your personal information including your e-mail address, name and password so that you can access your account. Don't worry Squidoo doesn't share this information or make it public! Once you've filled in all the required information, click the Done button. 

Step 5: Edit your modules. Start with your introduction module; that this one that you are reading now. Just click on the edit button and write a bit about your topic, you can always come back and edit it any time.

Congratualtions you have successfully set up a Squidoo lens!  From there you can edit your lens as you wish.  

Note: I choose: c) I want to make a list of my favorite things about "Give Me Five Minutes and I'll Make You Addicted to Squidoo too!" (most popular) which will give you a bunch of modules to work with, don't worry it's super easy!

Then you can make a list

Add your Rss feeds

Add some Amazon stuff related to your topic

Add Photos from Flickr, YouTube vids, iTunes ect

Don't forget your guest book!

There are whole lot of modules that you can add or delete and organize as you please. But you don't need to use them all right now.

Go ahead make your lens! Have fun, then come back here and sign the guest book for link back to your awesome lens!