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How to Build a Squidoo Lens That Drives Traffic to Your Website
There’s no doubt about it. Squidoo is a formidable competitor for most of today’s so-called membership sites. If you haven’t heard of Squidoo you’re probably new to Internet marketing. This traffic generating powerhouse is very much like a chameleon. By this I mean Squidoo is many things to many people.
It’s an online quilting bee to quilters and wanna be quilt masters. You’ll find a huge and active community of crafts people in nearly every variety of crafting.
If you’re into tattoo arts as a voyeur or multi-tattooed aficionado, you’ll find yourself a home at Squidoo. The lists of tattoo related lenses is almost unlimited.
Squidoo is definitely the place for you to build an Internet presence. Large and small businesses get their Internet start or enhance their image and reach by creating a lens. With the mastery of just a few basic clicks and tucks, a Squidoo lens can begin driving quality targeted traffic to the sites of its thousands of marketing pros…and semi-pros.
Squidoo is actually a community. You’ll even have the option of sharing profits from Google ads, Amazon ads and a host of others. You can even post your own custom ads, within limits, and reap 100% of the proceeds.
I could use the next 2000 words to describe all the benefits of a Squidoo lens. However, you’ll get more benefit if I restrict myself to just delivering some basic components. My goal is to point you in the direction of the fastest start-up for your own Squidoo lens. Once you’ve “published” your first lens you’ll find yourself fine tuning it for the next year.
Here’s my “Fast-Five Five Step Plan” for getting your Squidoo lens up and running. That is, running traffic into your main webpages or to your affiliate links.
1. If you haven’t done so already, fall-in-love with something. It can be the one hobby that makes you no money at all but makes hours of your day seem like just a few minutes. If that particular something comes to mind as soon as you read my words, you now have the subject for your Squidoo lens.
If it takes you a little longer to decide, that’s perfectly ok. Just don’t spend more than 20 minutes thinking about the subject of your first lens. In fact, I’ll give you a short cut that will probably make you a lot of money right away. If not it will definitely throw tons of traffic at your lens. We’ll make that number two.
2. Go to Google and find the number one top search driver for the day. A few days ago it was a new sport shoe from Nike. What ever it is, especially if you can’t think of anything else, make that the subject of your lens. Just do it.
3. Google everything you can to find information about this subject and save your notes in a Word file. Consider it a brainstorming exercise and do not critique what you find. Just stay in search mode until you have at least two or three full pages of information.
4. Now you’re ready to open your Squidoo account, which is a very easy process. Be sure to choose the option that indicates you want to earn money from your lens.
5. Next you will want to take your time organizing your information, deciding on a topic for the different sections and save them one at a time on your lens. You’ll notice the myriad options and widgets at your disposal. Click them all and play around with the database until you’re too tired to see straight. Save your edits and critiques until you are certain you’ve got too much stuff on your lens.
Now for the bonus Tip! You’re still not ready to critique. First you’ll want to find pictures to match your article and information sections. This will also serve as a weeding out process. If you can’t find a suitable picture to complement your information, delete the section but save it in your Word file. You can always find a way to use it in another lens down the road.
When it’s all said and done, your Squidoo lens will be unique, informative and profitable at many levels. You’ll notice not many of them are things-of-beauty. Just take a flier at the project and have fun.
“All work and no play usually results in no pay.” There are literally thousands of places for you to post the link to your Squidoo page once you’ve completed your work. Get Busy!
What Is Joomla?
Back in the day it was a challenge to have your own website. Completing your first web page was a feeling not unlike doing your first oil change. Using your physical and mental muscles to complete what was a formidable task pumps adrenalin like few other experiences.
Now days nearly everyone has a website. Doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, school kids, and more. It’s just a sign of the times. However, for those of us who are focused on building an Internet business, just having a website is not nearly enough. That’s where a CMS AKA Content Management System comes into the picture. And that’s what Joomla is all about.
One of the great things I’ve learned about Joomla is you can have a well written and sharp…fresh…professional looking web page with the image of a business that paid over $1000 in web designer and web author fees to get the job done. Now, with Joomla, none of that is necessary. Do you have to be a web-master with skills up the kazoo? Absolutely not.
Content management is leading edge technology that has proven its worth for years. None of the heavy hitters from A to Z would bank the big bucks if content management systems did not exist. Here’s the skinny.
Joomla is your friend and will soon, if you’re really serious about growing a business, be your very best friend. I hasten to add, I am not trying to sell you on Joomla so you’ll buy the system from me. It’s not for sale!
Joomla represents a brand new application of open source code. This means you can use it without paying a dime for the system. You don’t need to know what that means because there are dozens of forums with thousands of friendly folks waiting to answer your questions and get you up to speed.
All you do is download Joomla and it goes to work for you. You’ll find templates that are easy to customize with just the look you want. You can add as many or as few bells and whistles as you please. The system is very user friendly and demos are abundant….and super easy to understand.
Hopefully I’ve triggered your appetite for more. Just take a quick read of the rest of the story about Joomla.
Starting Out
Joomla is a brand new open source CMS that began its rise toward Internet supremacy in 2005. Following a steady course of development and expansion Joomla is now a primary system for literally thousands of developers and companies. Adding us neophytes to the mix makes this a system that is impacting the lives of millions of Internet businesses.
Currently there are three basic platforms of Joomla. The systems are simply identified as major, minor and maintenance.
Joomla is working in many different applications for as many different users. There are those who use it for personal pages. There are business web pages, newspapers, newsletters, magazines, Government portals and much much more.
Is It Very Popular?
Joomla now has more than 100,000 people on its development team throughout the world. More than 40 languages are supported and the numbers continue to explode.
Joomla has its own working groups, much like Microsoft, but different. Its main, core team has subgroups that work through a group leader for continuity. The infrastructure is simplistic and the processes are smoothly established to ensure stability.