Step-by-Step Squidoo Guide for Newbies

Are you ready? Well, let's get started...

Click the lens below called "Free Guide to Squidoo: Calamari!". Once in the lens, you will find links to two eBooks as mentioned below:

eBook #1: "CALAMARI: The Official Squidoo How-To" by Megan Casey and Seth Godin
This is a short manual that will show you, step by step, how to start using Squidoo and will point you to the best resources to get really good at it.

eBook #2: "The Joy of Squidoo" by Seth Godin and Megan Casey
The idea for this cookbook is very simple. Once you see how creatively and successfully other people use Squidoo, you'll be more likely to use it well yourself. You will be inspired by the tasty possibilities.

Squidoo's aim is to provide good quality and unique content to people who are looking for it. This means creating an environment of zero tolerance for spam, so it's vital you understand this important aspect. Please review this lens in detail, in order for you to be a good Squidoo citizen and stay in the community.

When you first join Squidoo, you may be overwhelmed with information, which you can find all over the Squidoo platform. The SquidDon't lens below will provide you detailed information on what's acceptable and what's not on Squidoo.

I would also encourage you to take a look at AJ's Squid Etiquette lens which goes in-depth into etiquette for a successful squid. Both lenses below are very useful and important.

SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural (organic or algorithmic) search results.

This is an important aspect, but I would suggest that for now, don't put too much of emphasis on it. For your first couple of lenses, focus more on "naturally" building your lens with unique, relevant and quality content. For now, you can just take a peek at the first featured lens to get a basic understanding of SEO.

The other two lenses below are for more advanced SEO and will provide you an in-depth look into optimizing your lenses in order to get Google or other search engine traffic.

This lens "Visual Dashboard Tour" will give you a quick tour of what you can expect in terms of lens management. Take the time to understand this basic step so you can effectively manage your lenses.

Squidoo understands the importance of being creative, so they've given us an array of lens types. It allows you to build lenses with a different "look & feel".

This Featured lens gives you a good synopsis on the various types of lenses that you can create on the Squidoo platform.

Are you lost in terms of what lens you should create? Well, Megan Casey (Squidoo's Editor-in-Chief) comes to your rescue - she gives you plenty of awesome ideas - check 'em out in the lens below!

Ok so you're all excited about creating lenses on Squidoo, but what does it take to create a "Quality" lens. Remember "Unique" and "Quality"? If you truly want to achieve the Giant Squid status and attract quality traffic, then you must read this lens. As well as the lens on Writing High-Quality Content, by Giant Squid MiMi.

Didn't I tell you that Squidoo loves creativity? Well, that's one of the reasons Squidoo provides 3 types of builders, which gives you 3 ways to create regular lenses: The Old Lensbuilder, The Magic Buider and The Quick Builder - learn more about it in this lens below:

The lens below by lenmasters Greekgeek covers various modules available on the Squidoo platform to help you create unique lenses - you wouldn't want to miss this lens! Modules are basically sections of lenses. Giant Squid (Greekgeek) walks you through how to use these numerous modules available at your disposal.

Having a great introduction is SO critical. This lens specifically focuses on the "Introduction" Module in Squidoo - this is an important one!

You've heard the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words" - well, it sure is and Squidoo allows you to place images on a few of their modules. This lens featured below is filled with valuable resources on how to get free images and use them in your lenses to make them presentable.

Another amazing way to get free pictures for your lenses is through the AllPosters Affiliate Program. You not only get to use their amazing pictures and posters, but also get an opportunity to earn some extra income.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: ensure that you do not use copyright images on your lenses, unless of course you have the "rights" to do so.

The lens "YouTube Module" shows you how to utilize the power of YouTube by using videos relevant to your lens topic and attract traffic by doing so. Also, check out the Video Module that allows you to embed videos from other platforms like Vimeo, Howcast, Metacafe, Veoh and others. Most people love watching videos, so these are important modules to master and incorporate in your lenses.

This is a very short lens, but a useful one: many newbies ask the question - "How do I edit my lens?" - you can find out how, by clicking the lens below:

The "Lens Health Check Tool" is a really good feature to check the "health" of you lens. Once you create your lens, you can use this "Health" feature to take the pulse of your lens.

HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) is a great way to make your lenses look better - you must learn how to use it! You may want to master just the "Basics" for now and leave the Advanced HTML for later, but this is a great tool in your lens creation arsenal.

Using these advanced HTML features will give a sofisticated look to your lens by creating fancy borders, fonts, etc. Once you master the "Basics" come back here and check these Advanced HTML lenses below:

There are many pitfalls in Squidoo lens creation, which you definitely want to avoid. If you truly want to make exceptional lenses, this is your secret tool...sssshhh!

Ok, you've built a lens or two, so how do you attract interested people? Well, learn from none other than Squidoo's Editor-in-Chief (Megan Casey) and Giant Squids (GreekGeek and JeffWend) in these next featured lenses.