Squidoo launched in December 2005, and the man behind the idea is Seth Godin, a well-known author of several marketing and business books, and the authoritative figure on small business marketing concepts and ideas. Squidoo, a social networking site similar to MySpace, is a very clever game on one point: highly focused and passionate content. Squidoo can also be a great advertising platform if you do it right using the right keywords and tags. Although still a relatively new site with less than sixty thousand members, Squidoo is actually one of the top 700 sites in the world and every Squidoo page you create gets listed in search engines quickly and easily. Interestingly, Squidoo is actually similar to a search engine, like Google, but according to founder Seth Godin, it acts as a go-between for search engines by giving people an overview of a given topic.
In Squidoo you don’t have a “space” or a profile. Instead, it has what is called a “lens.” A “lens” is simply a page with information on a certain topic. Search engines tend to easily index lenses. The lenses I built just over 2 months ago, for example, already have PRs of 4 and 10. Once you create your first lens, you are known as a lens master. Lenses have the potential to make money from affiliate sales and distributed revenue from AdSense; Squidoo splits the royalties publicly, with the “lensmaster” getting 50% (cash or non-profit donation) and the charity getting 5% direct. The lenses help your searchers gain perspective they can’t get from computer-selected (and often irrelevant) search results. Lensmasters share their knowledge and experience, get recognized for doing so, and can also drive traffic for your other online businesses. Several of my lenses have reached the Squidoo top 100, with one reaching number 1 and staying there for 8 days in a row. After being live for just 30 days, one of my lenses made Lens of the Day, ranked 36th overall, ranked No.3 in Animals & Nature, and became a PR3.
You can create as many lenses as you want, either for personal reasons or for business use. In fact, you can use it to do all of the following:
1) expand your affiliate marketing business,
2) create huge subscriber lists,
3) generate a large amount of targeted traffic to websites,
4) Top rankings on Google for highly competitive keywords.
No matter what internet home business you’re involved in, everyone’s dream ticket is a first page in Google search results. Everyone from the hobby enthusiast to the business person is now recognizing the power Squidoo provides to connect with others who share their interests or who could be potential customers. Each lens carries AdSense ads that are shared with individual publishers and charities. This is especially true given that Squidoo splits AdSense earnings based on traffic, not AdSense clicks (much of Squidoo’s “content” is just blank pages, something Google intends to disprove).
It takes a motivated community to provide the content needed for Squidoo, but anyone can consume the content produced by your community (in the same way that anyone can consume content from About or Wikipedia. The main reason Squidoo is effective is due to its vibrant online community that consistently builds quality, diverse content and links. In the process, the Squidoo community has turned Squidoo into a search engine’s paradise. Squidoo is just one of many things you can do to improve the traffic you get. Starting a lens on Squidoo is very easy to do and can quickly improve your existing income online. Before you start using your lens, you may want to check out The Squidoo Report at [http://www.squidooreport.com]. I found it to be a very insightful and thought-provoking guide to making money with Squidoo.