Squidoo Marketing for Online Entrepreneurs

Making money with Squidoo is easy once you know how. Even if you don't yet have an online business or product of your own, you can still cash in on this social networking site. Here are four ways you can make money using Squidoo today:

Money Making Method #1: Profit from the co-op modules. Squidoo has many modules where you can make money just by using them to funnel buyers through to other sites. Take the Amazon modules, for example - it you spotlight a favorite book and someone reading your lens buys it, you can Squidoo share the profits from that commission (and because Squidoo has so many sales, they get the highest possible percentage in commission).

Money Making Method #2: Make money as an affiliate marketer. Oh the very title makes many Squidoo lensmasters cough up hairballs in disgust, but that's because most affiliate marketers are doing it all wrong. Don't slap up a hard selling pitch on Squidoo. Give your readers about three good (valuable) articles and tips with your affiliate hyperlinks sprinkled throughout. This way you're not spamming the site and giving affiliate marketing a bad name.

Money Making Method #3: Promote your own products and services! If you can write a report or eBook and use PayPal (or another site) as a payment processor, then you can openly brand your product on Squidoo and keep 100% of the profits. You can hyperlink your eCovers or banner graphics as well as make text links to funnel traffic through to your site. You can also sell tangible items and promote your services on Squidoo, too!

Money Making Method #4: Sell the lenses themselves! Many people have a passion for creating good Squidoo lenses. Others don't have the time to do it. You can create lenses and use the lens transfer option to sell (or "flip") the lenses to marketers. Squidoo allows this and in fact has a section for selling lenses on their Squid U forum. However, it's best to invest in a Squidoo lens flipping guide so that you can learn how to sell it for more and to a wider audience than the Squidoo community itself.

As a marketer who is unfamiliar with the site, it's important that you learn how to build a Squidoo lens the right way - so that your lens doesn't get rated poorly or locked down due to a violation in the Terms of Service. More importantly, you need to know how to create a Squidoo lens that serves the purpose of helping foster consumer loyalty to your products and services.

There are two ways you can build a better lens on Squidoo. Learn from the pros who have learned all of the ins and outs of Squidoo and are willing to share their secrets with you - or hire professionals to do it for you.

Remember in the previous article when we spoke of lens flipping? It's possible that you could find an existing lens to buy and simply swap your business links into the lens, save and republish. You could even make an offer to a lensmaster to buy a lens that you find within the community.

There are also Learn Squidoo lens building available where professionals gather some information from you and build a unique lens from scratch before transferring it to your account for you. Be careful that you choose a lens building service where the builders have qualifications that exceed your own. It's not a good idea if they use Private Label Rights content on the lens - you want it to be original and the service should offer perks such as social bookmarking for you and additional exposure.