The Squidoo Bible - Focus Your Lens

Squidoo is one of the most popular social media sites on the internet. In the last two years it has skyrocketed in popularity. It has become one of the easiest (and certainly most economical) ways to broadcast your message, whatever it may be. Your goal is to learn how to do that with stunning success. Consider these key points:

1 - Squidoo is Free
2 - Squidoo is Easy to Use
3 - Lots of People Read Squidoo Lenses
4 - Google Likes Squidoo (and your pages will probably show up in searches)
5 - Squidoo is a Fantastic Way of Extending Your Website's Reach

These demonstrate that Squidoo should be a part of anyone's overall internet strategy. Whether you are selling something directly, earning cash with affiliate links in a niche market, or are simply trying to express a message, a carefully crafted lens can help you.

Click here to see a list of all available Squidoo topics.
Click here to read why people make lenses on Squidoo.

SquiDirectory - A categorized Squidoo directory featuring an interesting variety of different subjects. Make sure to list your new lens here.

Some lenses are better than others. Make sure that yours is not one of those "others." Here are the fundamentals for creating a really good one.

You know what Squidoo is, and you've probably already signed up so that you have your own account. How about your first lens? Have you created it yet? If not, watch this video. It describes the process very succinctly.

Lenses are composed of sections called "modules". In fact, you are reading a module right now. Each module is written (edited) separately. Plan your lenses in advance and take your time. Think of the message you wish to convey and divide it into an introduction, a subdivided main portion, and a conclusion. These will form the basic hierarchy for your modules. Learn more about modules on this page.

If keywords and keyword phrases are important to you - and they should be if you want your lens to be found - plan them in advance. This is a fundamental consideration since these keywords are what people will enter into search engines. Your lens won't pop up without them.

Entering text into your modules is easy, but you certainly want to add pictures to make them shine. Some modules offer you the opportunity to upload an image from your own computer. To have more complete control of your graphics, you will need to insert a bit of .html into your text. This is relatively easy and I'll give you some examples in the next module.

Getting images into your lens modules should really be a high priority. Squidoo does give you the ability to upload an image from within the module edit routine. That causes an image to be inserted as seen here.

The smiley face on the right is 128 pixels wide and was uploaded directly from my computer. Very easy to do, however it does limit you on the size (maximum width = 128) and positioning of your image.

Now, look at the smiley below. It is larger (250 pixels) and is placed on the left, exactly where I want it displayed.

This image was created and uploaded to www.tinypic.com. That allowed me to give Squidoo a link to the image and have it displayed here.

TinyPic.com is particularly easy to use and it is free. Go to the site, browse to the image on your computer then click the "Upload" button. Once the image is displayed, copy the URL for it and put it into a line of HTML as shown below.

You can use any other image hosting site, including Flickr, too. If you have your own website, FTP (the techie way of transferring files) to your host and link to the image from there.


Now, an advanced tip. When you use HTML to link to your pictures, you can use an optional parameter for "alternate text". This is the text that may be found in a Google Image Search (for example). The code below would show the same image, but with alternate text defined as "Squidoo Bible Smiley Face".

There are many other options for placing images in your modules. They can be left, right, with text wrapped around (or not), and they can be links to other websites (your own maybe?). How about your text in a nice background. This is done using an HTML style statement.

<p style="background: url(http://www.squidoobible.com/squidoo-clipart/background01.jpg) no-repeat; padding: 15px; ">Your Text Here</p>

Feel free to use this background in your own lens. Be imaginative!
Get noticed.

Links allow you to give visitors access to your downloads as well as access to other websites. Here are some examples:

Seth Godin (Squidoo Founder) eBook - Three Secrets to Web Traffic

It's a good little booklet worth reading. Here is the HTML code that produced the link:


As noted earlier:
You will find a complete list of .html snippets ready to use (cut and paste) in The Squidoo Bible. Visit this site at: www.SquidooBible.com.

Here's the code that created that link:

With this clever little line of code, you can easily put your text inside a box. Copy it and go.
<p style="border: 3px solid #d50; padding: 15px;">Your Text</p>

Boxes with background colors like this are also effective. They draw your reader's attention without being overly aggressive. You can copy the HTML for this from the free cheat sheet. Click the button below.

If you are an advanced computer user and would like to use advanced HTML, you may find what you're looking for on this lens.

The Squidoo Bible is the PREMIER tool for Squidoo users who want to create more effective lenses. It is a complete multimedia package that includes a 52-page ebook, online videos, and online resource pages. People who purchase it consistently report that it is the best ebook they have ever read. Get yours now.

So far, we've focused on the "dos" - now let's look at some "don'ts".

Squidoo is the perfect venue for online affiliate marketing. This is suprisingly easy to do, and some people experience wild success with it. The really cool thing is that you can get into it with ZERO cost. Using Squidoo you can set yourself up for automatic sales of other people's products, earning yourself a nice commission on each and every one. Just sit back and watch the dollars flow into your account. It can really happen.

If making money is your style, visit my lens that describes the opportunities in affiliate niche marketing.