What Is Squidoo, Anyway?

Squidoo is a social media website that combines a searchable, user-generated content database with an interactive platform. Think Wikipedia and a great blog mixed together. The point was to create a community of experts and enthusiasts who talk about the things they're passionate about in order to reach web researchers looking for information on those topics. Word-of-mouth referrals and trusted advice from folks who know. These people interpret the facts and provide meaning so that readers can then take what they've learned and DO something with it.

All in a transparent, interactive setting.

The website itself is designed in such a way that it is well liked by search engines, because the idea is to connect people looking for meaning to the people who can provide it. So, Squidoo lenses are often found in the first pages of Google and Yahoo! Search results, making it as easy as possible for web searchers to find what they're looking for.

 

How Do You Build a Lens?

Lenses are composed of individual modules that correspond with various web page elements - you use modules these to build a web page (lens), even if you don't know anything about building web pages. Think Legos; not the small ones, but the big Duplo blocks for toddlers. The modules are building blocks for the web page, or "lens", so both the informational and aesthetic quality of the lens depends on how you arrange the modules. You can add text, videos, pictures, widgets, and even your own HTML and CSS code to your Squidoo lenses by using the appropriate modules.

So, you add and remove modules based on the look and function you want in your lens. Then, if you know a little bit about coding, you can do some advanced customization. If you don't, no problem.

 

How Does Squidoo Get Traffic To My Websites?

Squidoo is an extremely valuable marketing tool because it has special favor with the search engines, particularly Google. As a huge, growing database of constantly updated, user-generated content that is rarely, if ever, deleted, Squidoo is exactly what search engines want. Search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, Ask.com, and others work to offer web searchers the most relevant, up-to-date information available on any given subject. Search engines recognize that Squidoo is designed to provide relevant and up-to-date information by real people for real people, so it ranks pages from the squidoo.com domain higher than most others.

You can use Squidoo lenses to filter web traffic to your websites by using them like internet traffic cops or information desks - your lenses can act as a first stop on the road to the meaningful information web searchers are looking for. The same way that this ebook is working as the first stop on your journey to learning about Squidoo, your lenses can provide basic information on a topic related to what your website or blog is about, and then lead them to your site for more on that topic and others.

 

How Does Squidoo Make Me Money?

There are actually a number of different ways to make money with Squidoo. First and foremost, there is the Squidoo revenue sharing program. Squidoo gives lensmasters a cut of all advertising dollars brought in from Google Adsense and other such campaigns. The lenses with the highest lensrank(like Google Page Rank, except on Squidoo) earn the most revenue sharing profits, with three different payout tiers that reward the most relevant lenses with monetary compensation. Secondly, there is the referral bonus of $5 you receive whenever a new user who signs up through your referral link makes their first $15. Thirdly, you can make affiliate income through the Amazon, eBay, and Zazzle modules and get paid your commissions by Squidoo. Fourthly, you can ad your own affiliate links and advertisements from third parties like ClickBank, ShareASale, LinkShare, and others.