What is Squidoo?

An effective Internet Marketing strategy, Squidoo is a website which allows you to build your own webpages, called "lenses" wth your own custom URL, personally designed and with a ton of features and components.

What are the Benefits of Building a Squidoo Lens

Website Promotion - To promote your sites and blogs and get exposure to large amounts of traffic from other Squidoo members as well as the Search Engines. When optimized with hand picked keywords, and customized and promoted correctly (as described below) Squidoo lenses will rank high and quickly in SERPS, and you will get some great website promotion opportunities for all your campaigns.

Backlink - Get a backlink to your websites/blogs.

Steps to Building an Effective Squidoo Lens

1. Choose your Keywords

Make sure, as always, to research the keywords you want the lens to rank for. These are not necessarily the same keywords as the website your promoting, they could be other good keywords for your niche that you did not use on your website, this way access to your website is all over the search engine results. Read this guide to get tips for keyword research: Step-by-Step Niche and Keyword Research.

Sign up for your free Squidoo account, and you can begin to build a lens.

Creating a Squidoo Lens Step-by-Step:

Pre-Design Squidoo Lens Wizard

1. You will be asked "What your Lens is About, just put in the general subject (we will change it later)

2. What's Your Goal of your Page?: Just choose option 1 (I want to get the word out about..your subject)

3. This step is crucial: Title and URL

Title: Must have your main Keyword that you want the lens to rank for. It can have other words to make it interesting, but title must have your keywords in order to rank in SERPS in Google. The title is coded within Squidoo as the h1 title tag of an SEO Meta tag.

URL: Also must have your keywords, preferably the URL should be the same as the title. If the URL you want is unavailable (because someone else is using it) then just add some other words to it, like your name. For example, if I want Internet Marketing as my URL and it is all ready taken, I may add, Internet Marketing Secrets, or Easy Internet Marketing, etc.

Category: Make sure to pick the best possible category for your lens and rate the lens as appropriate.

4. Another crucial step - TAGS

Add Tags: tags are basically keywords or categories that are appropriate to your lens, all possible good KW that apply to your lens should be added here. The more the better. Tags will allow your lens to show up in Google for those keywords and help people to find your lens. Tip: you can add all the tags you want once you are in the "workshop" window of your Squid lens and are actually designing your lens.

Lensmaster Workshop

Now that you have set-up your lens with the wizard you will be in the Lensmaster Workshop where you can add content and design the lens.

BIO:

Fill in the bio section with a photo (yourself or something related to your niche, you can use your website logo) and then add some content about yourself or your website, or a catchy slogan, this makes your lens personalized and gives you authority.

If you don't do this your lens will literally say "This is my Bio, I will fit in later"...looks really lame!

Modules:

In Squidoo "modules" are sections within your lens. There are many types of modules available, including text, photo, rss feeds, comments, links..etc. (More on modules below).

Unmax your Lens:

Make sure to UNMAX your lens from the box at the bottom portion of the sidebar. This will make your lens less busy and look more attractive.

OPT Out:

Lenses can earn you a little money from ads that are automatically generated by Squidoo if you select that option within your profile settings. But, if you want a cleaner lens, you can forego the few dollars you may earn, if you select "donate all my money to charity" from your profile settings, then the "WHOOPS" box will be available to you and you can select it to OPT OUT OF DISPLAY ADS, and have less clutter on your lenses.

Here is a screenshot of Max and Whoops!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the Lens:

For search engines to find and correctly rank your websites, you need to optimize certain attributes of the Meta Tags, Title <h1>, Description and Keywords, as well as the second in importance, the <h2> and <h3> tags.

In Squidoo, there is no "Meta Tags" section, but Squidoo lenses are automatically coded with Search Engine Optimization tags and so it is important to enter the relevant information correctly.

Squidoo coding for SEO:

Lens Title <h1> = Meta Tag Title

Lens Introduction Module = Meta Description

Lens Tags = Meta Keywords

Module Headers = <h2> tagged

Module Subheaders = <h3> tagged

So in order to have your lens rank in Google and stay there, make sure to fill in all of the above properly with your keywords and main subjects/points so that Google knows what your lens is about and what keywords you want to rank for.

Content/Modules for a Great Lens:

Table of Contents. Important! Select yes under table of contents from the tab under Introduction module. This will display an organized list at the top of your Squidoo lens with the titles of all your modules. Adding a table of content increases the click-through rate and navigation for visitors easier.

Create several text modules. Most Important! This is where you will add content that promotes your website. Break up your content and create several text modules, at least 5, but, the more modules, with relevant optimal headers and subheaders, the better. Make sure to use your main keywords, and a 3-5% keyword density throughout the content of the lens.

Create polaroid (picture) modules. Most Important! Add screenshots or photos that support your content at least 2 or 3.

Links module. Most Important! Linkback to your website and other helpful links and resources that related to your lens subject or website.

Comments Module. Most Important! Make sure to add a comment module, and edit the header with your own blurb, as discussed above. This way people will the opportunity to comment on your lens.

Add Del.ic.ious Bookmark Module - Make sure to select "show popular bookmarks within the module settings.

Add other Modules. Check the entire module selection, there are lots of options, and pick whatever suits your fancy. Just be sure to choose the modules that support your goal, of website promotion, don't go overboard and choose so many that it will take focus away from your lens subject.

Once again, make sure to change the headers and subheaders, with your keywords/subjects for each of the modules (as discussed above under SEO).

Lens Design:

HTML
Squid lenses do not come with a wysiwyg builder, you have to add some html:

Basic HTML tags:
Bold- <b> </b>
Italic - <i> </i>
Hyperlink - <a href="http://yourdomain.com">Anchor Text</a>

For a complete guide to all HTML tags, including color please visit: Basic HTML for Squidoo

Lenses on their own are very basic, which is really okay if you don't want to take more time on design. However, they can be tricked out with different module placement, colors, highlighted boxes, borders for content...etc. Here are some excellent and simple guides to trick out your lenses:

CSS Tricks for Squidoo Lenses | Basic HTML for Squidoo
Advanced HTML for Squidoo - My favorite! Get code for background color and borders.
Bulleted and Ordered List in Squidoo - My favorite!

Remember: Make your lens yours, add lots of modules, information and design tweaks to create a user-friendly information filled lens page.

Promoting Squidoo Lenses for Maximum Exposure:

These steps are crucial in getting the maximum exposure and visitors for your lenses, and these will also help your lens get ranked in Google.

1. Add your lens to as many Squidoo groups as possible (based on subject), there are tons of them for all subjects, and there are also groups that take any lens.

2. Do lens link exchanges (lensrolls) with other relevant lenses. Just select lensroll icon on the sidebar of the other lens and then select which of your lenses you want to lensroll with from a dropdown box, the link exchange is then added automatically by Squidoo.

3. Lensroll all your lenses with each other. In Squidoo this is easily done by selecting lensroll from your admin area and then selecting the lenses you want to roll with from a drop down menu.

4. Add your lenses to these Squidoo Directories and Search Engines:

Squoogle | Squid Directory | Isle of Squid | BUMPzee! | Scrub the Web | Gigablast| Yahoo | MSN | Google | Lensroll.com | SurfGopher | SquidLink

5. Write some articles and point them to your lenses.

6. Social bookmark your lenses, especially the do-follow social sites (see list) all over the place.

Other Excellent Squidoo Resources:

Squidoo FAQ
SquidUtils-Lensmaster Tools

I know this may sound overwhelming, but once you build a couple of lenses it really becomes a piece of cake.

Now, go and Squidoo

When you are building an Affiliate Marketing Website or any type of Online Business site comprehensive niche research is required to make sure that the niche you focus on is profitable, popular and can make you money.

WHAT IS A NICHE?

Basically a niche is a certain segment of the population where you intend to concentrate your Affiliate and Internet Marketing efforts and is the theme/subject of a website or blog.

Some examples of niches include:
Relationships, Skiing, Health, Video Games, Real Estate, Stock Market, Insurance, Stamp Collecting etc... as well as the sub categories or Micro Niches within the major categories.

For example, within the macro niche oh health there are several micro niches which include, weight loss, acne, balding, vitamins, staying young, aging well, conditions/diseases...etc.

Because of the high competition factor on the Internet, it is a good idea that you stick with micro niches, and especially when first beginning your Internet Marketing campaigns.

You can also go deeper into the micro niche with a double micro niche. For example, within the micro niche of weight loss you can go deeper like fat burning foods, low carb diets, natural weight loss supplements..etc.

Finding a micro niches will further cut through the competition factor and yield better results. There are lots of good micro niche markets and the opportunities are endless. And there are affiliate programs for every possible niche.

Deciding on a Niche

There are 3 main factors that should influence what niche you select.

1. Consider your interest and expertise.
This is important. It is a well known fact that in today's Internet environment the content of a website can make it or break it. Considering the amount of work involved with marketing and creating a successful Internet business, if you can avoid adding research of an unknown niche in order to create good content on your website then it is best to do so.

When I first started in this business my first site was about computers, a subject that I knew a little about but not nearly enough to create content with ease. I spent a lot of time on researching material in order to write content for my site, all though this has turned out to be a profitable site and is a very profitable niche, it made my job more difficult.

All I am saying is that if you pick a niche you know and even better have a lot of interest in then that takes a lot of burden off the process.

2. Check out the competition for a niche
This is crucial to your success. As I mentioned earlier there are macro and micro niches. In today's highly competitive Internet stage it is often best to go into the micro niches that yield enough user demand and searches and at the same time do not yield millions of search results (competing websites) in Google (see steps to this below).

3. Is your niche profitable and is there a demand?
Obviously you do not want to build a niche site if there is nobody searching for it or the products that you may promote within it. You need visitors and sales in order to make commissions, and evaluating the demand is the way to determine, or predict how many you might possibly have (steps to this below).

Niche Research Tools:

Micro Niche Finder Tool is a great tool that can help you find niches, it is not free but it can save time and provide comprehensive and excellent niche information.

Some great free tools to see what the hot searches on the web are:
Google Trends and My Simon Top Product/Service Searches.

Get a feel for the hot items within the niche and what people are talking about and buying by checking out these resources:

1. Read Industry Blogs – Search in Google by entering "blog + your niche" Check out the top blogs in your niche.

For example, If you are going for a gadget/tech niche you can visit Gizmodo.

2. Visit Niche Forums - Search for "forums + your niche"
See what people are talking about within your niche on the top forums. Find out who the customers are, what they want, what they need, what are they looking for, what are their biggest fears and difficulties etc...

Keywords and Niches

When people search for something online the words they input into the search engine are keywords, which then yield relevant website results for those keywords in the search results. So I want to use the most searched for keywords for my website so that I expose my niche website to as many search engine searchers and therefore as many visitors as possible.

Niches and Keywords are Synonymous.

This part is very confusing in the beginning, but a niche is mainly the theme/subject of your website and keywords are just how the niches are searched for by Internet users.

Gaging the Number of Internet Searches (demand) of a Niche with Keywords

For example, if my micro niche is weight loss then my keywords will revolve around weight loss, and I will do my keyword research by entering the main keyword weight loss and then seeing what keywords people are searching for within that main keyword/niche.

The screenshot, shows some of the keywords that come up when entering the main keyword "weight loss" in SEOBook Free Keyword Tool (partial screenshot of keyword results).

So my niche is "weight loss" and all the words circled in green are the keywords that people are searching for in that niche and that I can use on my website to allow people to find my site from search engine results.

Another example is to look at it backwords: Let's say my niche is weight loss and I use a keyword that does NOT show up in the tool, then my website will sit in search engine results for that keyword, BUT no one will search for it and therefore no one will ever find my website. Make sense?

Here is the Niche Nutshell:

Niche = Keywords = Website shows up Search Engine Results = Website Visitors

Optimal Niches Should Have:

At least 10,000 searches per month combined for all keywords you may use within the niche. So, according to the above keyword research results, I know that the niche of "weight loss" is a good niche, because all the available keywords add up to at least 10,000 searches (note: the screenshot only shows a few keywords, the list runs long beyond what is showed).

I use and highly recommend Keyword Elite and SEOBook Free Keyword Research Tool and Wordtracker Keywords (free trial). Wordtracker also has a free keyword tool that is less comprehensive but is a good product at: Free Keywords at Wordtracker.

Gaging the Competition of Keywords within your Niche

Competition from other websites is another crucial factor of your niche/keyword research.

The best way to gage the competition is by doing a simple search in Google like this: allintitle:"keyword" (the allintitle and quotes narrows the results to true competition of websites that actually have that keyword as the title of their site as opposed to just a mention somewhere within their content). and then seeing how many websites return in the results.

So I picked the keyword "weight loss pills" from the keyword tool results up above and plugged that into Google and what I get back is 35,300 competing sites, for that keyword.

Recap:

The SEOBook keyword tool showed a total of 1266 daily searches for "weight loss pills" and the competition is 35,300 sites.

What does this tell you?

That "weight loss pills" is a great keyword within the weight loss niche, because the searches are high and the competition is relatively low. And, actually "weight loss pills" could be a double micro niche and you can build a whole website just around "weight loss pills."

Analyzing Competing Websites:

It is also important to look at page 1 results in Google SERPS for competing sites.

Some things to look at:
Page Rank - If page 1 of SERPS is full of high PR sites and big guns within the niche then it will be way too difficult to get to page 1 which is ultimately the goal.

Conversely if there is nothing but PRO-PR2 then it will be fairly easy. Make sure that you only consider those sites that are direct niche sites, as opposed to say article sites and indirect sites that happen to have some content related to the niche.

Age of Sites - Age of the sites is important in that Google will favor older more established sites.

Overall, you want to stay away from keywords that generate lots of results on page one of big gun sites, like PR4+ or more than 3 PR3 sites. In this case, look for the micro niche keywords within that niche.

Keyword Research Numbers:

You want to have at least 10,000 searches combined for all keywords you want to rank for within the niche.

If you are new to this business, I would suggest less than 25,000 "allintitle" in competition results so you can learn how to rank and get your feet wet anything over that will be more difficult and something to tackle once you have experience

.

Good Luck!