What is Squidoo?

What is "Squidoo?"

If someone asked you "What is Squidoo?" or how to get a squidoo lens, would you know how to answer? This page discusses why every internet marketer needs to have a squidoo lens and how to use it.

It is a relatively new site where anyone (like you and I) can create a free web page about our interest or passion. Seth Godin, a marketing hero of mine, came up with the idea. Squidoo is an example of a community-driven web 2.0 site.

Squidoo pages are called lenses and are really easy to create. It doesn't take any technical skill to create a lens. It is mainly point-and-click and there are many different kinds of modules you can incorporate that create an interactive and visitor friendly site.

Squidoo Modules

Some of the important modules you will want to include on your page are:

1. Text blocks - This is where you put your articles or blog entries.

2. Polls - There are interactive poll modules you can incorporate so you can keep your finger on the pulse of your web page visitors. Get them involved. They will love you for it, Squidoo queen.

3. Guestbook - Allow your visitors to comment on your lens to keep things fresh. encourage visitors to include a link to their own Squidoo site. In this way, you begin to create a lens web. The interactivity and linking will increase the likelihood that your lens will get read.

4. There is a YouTube module so you can have YouTube videos on your page. You can pick specific ones or you can let YouTube pick them for you and display them without you haveing to do anything except turn it on.

Using Squidoo to Make Money

There are also modules that allow you to link to different online vendors like ebay, amazon and others. It is a great way to monetize your lens since you get a commission of all the money your page generates. Anyone can make money with a well traveled Squidoo lens!

Squidoo is a great tool for you if you support charitable causes. 5% of all proceeds go to charity and you can even decide to send all your commission to your favorite charity if you like.

This is a great fund-raising tool for charities also. They can set up a lens and make money with Squidoo. Then, they can encourage all their contributors to set up lenses on Squidoo as well and have each Squidoo site funnel its commission to the charity.

Using Squidoo to Drive Traffic

Squidoo has the added super-bonus of sending highly targeted traffic to your web site for free!

Google and the other search engines love Squidoo lenses and will send traffic their way. A good lens based on a long tail keyword can easily achieve high page rankings on the search engines.

You can set up a whole network of lenses targeting various keyword phrases. With some work you can get serious search engine traffic to your lens and then to your main site. Offer quality content on your lens and then drive your visitors back to your main site. Like this:

"Don't forget to visit our site at internet-marketing-4-small-business.com!
We have a lot more information on how to market your web site online. Articles, blogs, ebooks, you name it we cover it. Click here to open our page in another window now."

Always mention your main site in your Squidoo site. That is the whole purpose for creating a lens. Yes, it is great if you make a little money through your lens, but your main objective is to take all the traffic your lens generates and direct it to your main site.

What is Squidoo keyword targeting?

You can have lenses on Squidoo for every keyword phrase you are targeting. You can create a network of targeted lenses to pull in traffic and send people to your web site.

If visitors like what they read on your lens, why wouldn't they want to visit your web site to get more good information?

What if your targeted phrase is taken? Not a problem, since lenses on Squidoo can easily be sold or transferred, even fully developed lenses can purchased for the right price. And buying a lense that is already generating good traffic will save you a lot of work.

Join Squidoo

Besides allowing you to contribe to charity, make money for yourself and generate large amounts of targeted traffic to your web site, Squidoo establishes you as an expert in your field.
Squidoo Secrets

Seth Godin, the man behind Squidoo has written a book on how to get the most value out of your squidoo lens and discusses Squidoo marketing. It is a great read and you can download the free ebook below.

Click
to download "Everyone is an Expert," a free ebook by Seth Godin.