Sensible Squidoo Marketing Strategies

What Is Squidoo?

Squidoo is a social networking site that's the creation of Seth Godin, who is a best-selling author, entrepreneur and renown speaker. If you aren't familiar with social networking, it means people coming together in groups to act as a community around one common interest.

There are several types of social networking sites on the web, which include interests such as religion, dating and politics. Social networking sites are very popular now and almost everyone online has experience with at least one social site - whether it's Squidoo, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Squidoo is a unique social site that allows its members to come aboard and build their own web page, which is called a lens. Members can build a lens about almost any topic as long as it isn't illegal.

Lenses can be made as personal pages to connect with other people and share your details with them, they can serve as marketing machines, or they can be made about a civic group or church. Just about any organization that would like more exposure can set up a lens and be capable of sharing their information with the world.

Building a lens on Squidoo is really easy with its step-by-step build-a-lens interface. To create a lens of your own, all you have to do is follow along with the easy to use guide and enter details of what your lens will be about. Once you've entered all of your details, all it takes is a click of the mouse to publish your new web 2.0 page.

Once you have your lens created, you're free to fully customize your lens with videos, articles, visitor polls and much more. Squidoo gives you the option to easily make your lens a cash generating machine, which is something that makes it unique among the many social sites online. As a lens owner, you have an option to add advertisements from vendors such as Amazon to earn a commission on sales generated from your Squidoo lens.

If you wish, you can create lenses solely for charity. Money that's generated from commission sales and Google AdSense ads are given to a charity of your choice. Many people use this option to help raise funds for charitable organizations.

The search engines tend to rank well-created, informative Squidoo lenses favorably in their search results, especially Google. This allows individuals to build lenses and get them in the search engine rankings fairly quickly. This is great for webmasters who can create lenses and point them towards other existing websites they own.

There are Squidoo lenses for just about anything imaginable, from home business how-to lenses to gardening to model railroading. Just about anything you could be interested in would make a great topic for those who share your enthusiasm.

If you haven't had the pleasure of creating a Squidoo lens, you're truly missing out on a really easy method to create a web presence in mere minutes. You will also be able to connect with others who share your interests and trade ideas about your passions and hobbies - all with just a few clicks!

Can I Market My Business on Squidoo?

By now you've probably already heard about Squidoo, and how easy it is to set up a Squidoo lens. If you're a business owner, you may have never thought about using the free service for your marketing and sales.

It's understandable, because there are several business owners who are reluctant to put their business on social networking sites. The reasons may vary, but the majority of them aren't sure if their business would be well received by either members or management of the social site.

Squidoo was founded by Seth Godin, who himself is a marketer and entrepreneur. Seth Godin has made it clear that businesses, both large and small, are welcome on Squidoo as long as they conduct themselves in a businesslike manner.

Of course, there are rules that apply to everyone on Squidoo about sending spam, which is against the terms of service. These rules are for businesses and individuals alike. Some social sites frown upon the use of affiliate links, and won't allow them to be posted on any of the pages that are hosted by the site.

Squidoo is a refreshing change from the stringent and unnecessary rules of no affiliate links, as they allow lens owners to post affiliate links to products openly. Not only are you allowed to promote your business on Squidoo, but it makes good sense to do it!

Search engines usually treat high quality content Squidoo lenses well in the search engine rankings. If you have a quality Squidoo page, there's a good chance it will be indexed in Google very quickly and with a little promotion it will rank fairly high in the search engines depending on the amount of competition in the niche.

There have been many Squidoo pages that rank number one in the search engine results pages. These lenses have been meticulously crafted and offer true value to visitors, so the search engines reward the lens with a higher ranking.

When setting up a Squidoo lens, you have the option to create a lens which allows you to set up what amounts to an affiliate page. This lens can make use of the built-in Amazon, eBay or various other modules to earn commissions.

That doesn't mean you have to put anything on your lens you don't want to promote. You have a lot of freedom with what goes on your Squidoo lens. You can place a full-page overview of what you and your business has to offer and include photographs as wells as videos via click-to-add modules.

Once you get to know the Squidoo user interface, which won't take but a few minutes, you'll see just how simple it is to get you business up and running with its own lens. You will be able to link to other lenses, and increase the traffic you get to your business lens.

Others can rate your lens and recommend it to others, thereby exposing your business to even more potential customers. If you've been thinking about putting your business on Squidoo, then you should go for it now. If you've been putting it off, then you might want to consider the fact that your competitors might be stealing your traffic with a lens of their own. Build your lens and build your business at the same time.

Marketing to a Niche Market on Squidoo

Breaking into a new niche can be accomplished quickly and cleanly by using the tools available on Squidoo.com to create niche lenses. These lenses can then be used to send traffic to your product site or to an affiliate site.

Once you've signed up for a free Squidoo account, you'll have access to a very powerful niche marketing tool, which you can use to put up as many new niche pages as you can possibly imagine.

Squidoo not only allows you to have as many free lenses as you want per account, but you can also have as many user accounts as you like. This plays very well in the strategy of niche marketing. Having the ability to own more than one user account at Squidoo will enable the smart niche marketer to use separate accounts for each of the niches being marketed to at once.

Since you can have an unlimited number of accounts, you'll be much more organized and be able to focus more tightly on your target audience's needs. By choosing a niche topic and developing a list of keywords for that niche, you'll be able to take each keyword and build a lens around each individual word or phrase. This will also enable you to create lens tags, which will be narrowly tied to each of the lens topics.

You can further tighten your niche marketing effort by joining Squidoo groups that are related to each niche. You can find Squidoo Groups by going to Squidoo.com/groups. Within these groups, you'll be able to make contact with others who are promoting a related product or service.

You'll then be able to leave a review of their lens and a nicely worded request to visit your lens in return. Carefully word the comment you leave on other lenses and work your lens link in casually so that the lens master will approve it. This lets others see the comment you left and visit your lens, too.

You can also use RSS feeds to create feeds for all of your lenses and tie them into your blog that so you get instant updates on your lens. After you add the RSS module, all you need to do is copy and paste the feed from your blog into the module and you're all set.

This will help get more traffic to your main site, making it more likely that you'll get a sale. Creating a niche lens on Squidoo can act as a pre-qualifier for traffic. Anyone who is interested enough in what you have to offer will click through to your main order page or affiliate site.

One thing to remember is just because you're on Squidoo, it doesn't mean search engine optimization is out of the window. You should treat your Squidoo lens just as importantly as you would any other niche site you would create on your own hosting account.

How Profitable Is Squidoo to Online Sellers?

Squidoo offers its users several avenues to make money online. It's one of the few social networking sites that have a built-in co-op system which will allow users to split commissions made from sales of items from sites such as Amazon.com.

It also has a revenue sharing system from Google AdSense, so you can potentially make profits without having any type of product of your own. The only thing about using the co-op method for generating cash online is that you'll have to create a substantial amount of lenses or generate a mountain of traffic to see any amount of money accumulate.

If you're thinking of using Squidoo for profits, you would be much better served by building lenses that are either a direct sales page, or set them up as affiliate pages for products that you're currently promoting.

Since Squidoo has made it very simple to do your own thing when creating a lens, you have complete freedom in how the page is set up from the point of creation until it's a finished lens.

Squidoo makes the perfect partner if you're promoting a business that you own yourself such as a freelance writer or graphic artist. The popularity of Squidoo plays in your favor with the search engines, and can potentially get you in front of the eyes of millions of people, some of which are guaranteed to need your products or services.

One of the strong points of Squidoo is that you can make as many lenses as you need, as you need them. Squidoo doesn't charge a fee for using their service, so it's ideal for any business owner who has no experience in building websites but would like a web presence. You can literally set up a Squidoo page in just five to thirty minutes, so there's no real excuse not to have your business on the Internet.

Since Squidoo is a social site, it uses the tools of the trade to get your lens circulated among users, and expertly attracts search engines. Users of Squidoo have the option to rate your lens and to mark it as a favorite so they can come back at a later date, or even share it with friends.

If you already have a website for your business, Squidoo can definitely help you in search engine rankings and in getting traffic to your main website. You can inform your target audience about the solutions you provide in the form of products and services and hyperlink the content back to your own domain.

Squidoo makes an excellent addition to your existing business website, and can bring both extra traffic and extra profits. One big factor in your success with Squidoo is how you present yourself, so you must create your lens as you would any other serious business web page. Make use of all of the tools at your disposal to create a professional looking lens, and you'll be very satisfied with what Squidoo has to offer your business.

SquidU Is Continuing Education for Lensmasters

When starting out at Squidoo, you should make a stopover at SquidU, which is short for Squid University. You'll find a wealth of information about building lenses and getting the most from your efforts. One of the hallmarks of SquidU is the friendly and helpful nature of the staff and overall community.

The first thing you'll probably notice is the Squid University site is laid out to clearly show what's available. SquidU is on its own site, located at SquidU.com for easy reference. From the home page, you can easily spot where you need to go if you have questions regarding lens creation, promotion or even to get a critique of your latest lens creation.

SquidU has a very active and supportive forum community. If you have questions or would like to just hang out with other lensmasters, you can do it within the forum. There are sub forums that cover every major aspect of lens creation and also a place to list your lens for sale, should you wish to part with one. The forum is very active, so if you have a need, you're likely to get an answer fairly quickly.

The Answer Deck houses all of the most frequently asked questions about Squidoo and lens creation. This should be your first stop if you have a question - you may be able to get an instant answer because so many before you have had the same burning question.

The questions cover such topics as how the royalties earned are split and received, common newbie mistakes, using certain modules correctly and general how to questions which everyone seems to have at one time or another.

The Learning Library brings frequently updated articles about lens publication, charities, moderating groups and more. Here, you'll learn how to max out your lens and make a good impression when your visitors start arriving to your lens.

You'll find a helpful glossary to enlighten yourself to the entire new verbiage Squidoo has introduced along with its lens building process. This glossary is invaluable to the newbie!

The Lensmaster Lounge allows lensmasters to come and show off their latest lenses and ask for feedback. It's a great place to see what areas you may need to strengthen in your lens.

Overall, if you're into building Squidoo lenses, you won't find a better place to go kick back and learn, while making a few extra friends. The community there is close knit, but very welcoming to newcomers.

There are moderators who visit and hang out with the regulars, and you'll find them to be courteous and helpful. Even if you've been building lenses from the beginning of Squidoo's days on the 'net, you'll benefit greatly from becoming a regular at SquidU.