What's A Lens? Free Squidoo Advertising, Part 2.

Hello Fellow Affiliates (and MLM'ers too),

In today's post, I talk about how to create a lens at Squidoo, advertising your business online for FREE ! You can get big exposure, if you're published as a top lens.

Here's how you start.

A lens is your own page and while it does cost you time and effort to construct -- by using Squidoo, you get to put yourself online for no charge. Because this is an extensive network at Squidoo, you can see other lensmasters at work to emulate the best.

Why Add Squidoo?

The most powerful businesses advertise extensively. They take advantage of social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, Linked-In and more). They forms posts in networked forums, they write press releases and more. But, as part of showing you how to form a network where anyone can more easily find you, this is 1 bus stop of many.

Goal of This Post -- Getting Maximum Exposure

When you form a lens showcasing your business online, if you do a 'whiz bang up job', you'll be featured as the lens of the day by Google! That brings you 200,000 people to your front business door. So if you like this idea, read on.

In my prior post, I introduced Squidoo, talking about what it is.

• Recap -- in case you didn't see the first post, Squidoo is a BIG network where multitudes of people advertise themselves at personal and professional levels.

How you put yourself out there in cyberspace is up to you..., but I will give you a BIG HINT.

• If you're advertising your business, you have to find a way to talk about yourself, your products and services along UNIQUE lines. This means anything you put out there should carry YOUR NAME. This is very important to establish and build credibility, thereby drawing others of like mind to you.

Here's What I Mean By creating a UNIQUE lens -- HINT: Head to the store and look at all of the magazines. Notice how topics of interest are split into categories. These are sub-niches of a larger niche group. Your goal is to find a niche you're passionate about...then zeroing in on a sub-niche where you don't have a lot of your competitors. Example: One of my MLM contacts zeroed in on dentists and surgeons. He called himself a medical consultant but he was able to move his health/wellness product with these folks because the product specialized in anti-oxidants and peridontal health.

• You can write about anything that you want in your lens (or lenses) as long as you don’t break Squidoo's terms of service (adult content, spam, fraud, etc.).

• The “KEY” to creating a successful and highly visited lens is to target search terms that are not so competitive within the search engines...(GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN). For newbies, these search terms or words are known as 'keywords'. You're looking for a sub-niche or a group that's smaller than the big, big niches. So instead of advertising to health and wellness people, you might be targeting people who want to solve their joint aches, for example. This is a micro-niche that will be far less dominated than say...the big weight loss crowd.

• Details of how to find these golden keywords can be tricky because these keywords are then placed inside of your article content to maximize the number of people reaching you. It's called optimization. When you publish your lens at Squidoo, my corporate office prohibits me from spilling all of the beans up front. But, I can offer you a link!

http://www.squidoo.com/ gives you more information....

To Get a Complete Skinny on How To Go Do This Right --

CLICK BELOW:

Internet Marketing A Solid Way

Without this information, you don't want to go it alone because hopping online and "just doing anything" is what 90% of most new Internet Marketers do. That decision could cost you time, effort and money!

Read on for more Squidoo creation.

Now You're Adding Modules

Modules are units units you see on one page. You're adding these units to your lens to create structure online, so things aren't scattered. Said another way, a Squidoo article, or “Lens” is created by piecing together “modules” so you can pick/choose modules working best for you.

_______________________________________________________________________

By sharing these details, it's most helpful to focus on modules affiliate marketers/MLM'ers need most --

• Introduction
• “Text / Write”
• RSS Feed

When you first create your lens, some modules already have options. You could say that they are pre-populated, but you can keep these options, delete them, or start from scratch.

Add any module you wish but it's highly recommended you keep --

• Introduction
• Text / Write Modules
• RSS Module

You can delete Amazon and Flickr Photo modules.

Introduction Module --

The intro is present on all of your lenses and it's important.

• Click "Browse button

Add an image by simply uploading that image from your computer. Ask a friend to help if you're not sure how to do this.

• The image should be relevant, showing your business along one point.

(For example, you don't want to place a photo of a wrench if you're moving gloves.)

Creating the Text / Write Module --

The Text / Write module is the most common one you'll use as an article marketer. Article marketing is a way to grab people's attention, moving them to your blog, lens or website.

The text/write module displays a headline about your business, text, images, and added HTML links. If you're not sure what HTML is, again find someone who's a computer guru because it takes time to figure out how to generate this code, cutting and pasting it into place.

Newbies -- if you're not sure what to write for content, you're looking at other people's lenses at Squidoo, studying them, seeing what others in similiar categories publish. This can be a challenging time for you but the key thing here is to find a source offering a lot of information you can publish and to hang in there. Never give up!

• If you're an MLM'er, you can use corporate information along general lines. You can't mention company products names or logos. Look for other MLM'ers at Squidoo! See what they're doing.


• If you're an affiliate, affiliate promotions allow you to cut/paste content up to a certain point, then offering your link. Key thing here is to talk about the things people don't know, leading them up to your offer.

Read on...


To Optimize Your Lens --

Use Multiple Text / Write modules

• to build multiple lenses instead of using just one lens....

Reasoning: Headlines and breaks in text allow the reader to scan your page without having to read every single word. It allows you to utilize Optimized Headlines to grab the attention of the visitor!

Another reason for using multiple text modules -- it stops spammers! Squidoo asks lensmasters to have at least 4 lens modules. If you publish a lens with fewer modules, it will only achieve a very low Squidoo rank.

I will continue this post on the next publishing...so stay tuned!

To find out more, click below:

Internet Marketing A Solid Way

Supporting Your Success Using Proven Means,

B. Brinkmeyer, MBA

Create A Squidoo Account - Advertise Your Biz

Hello Fellow Affiliates,

Greetings today. Did you know thousands of businesses advertise themselves online for free, using a neat tool called Squidoo?

Here's how it works:

Create Your Squidoo Account

* Benefit from free advertising
* Create your account by tapping into a big stream of traffic (prospects)
* If your lens is interesting and you win for the week, Google will publish you at no charge
* That means 200,000 people could be looking at your business!

Here's How in 4 Basic Steps:

1) In your browser, enter http://www.squidoo.com/

2) Click on “Sign Up” in the upper right-hand side of the page and follow the instructions. This will open your account.

As you open your account, you will be asked to create your first “Lens”. You'll want to use general content about what you may offer but don't just start with "buy my product -- you need it" approach. You have to find something that will catch the eye of your audience, so that they can find out precisely why they should listen to you, following your recommendations.

Here are examples to help guide you through this process:

Step 1: What's Your Lens Topic?

My Lens is About: Wealthy Affiliate Review

(This is an educational for Internet Marketers I'm promoting on this blog, as you can see by the title of the blog itself).

At Squidoo, you'll see people promoting everything from "Roasting Your Own Coffee Beans" to "Why You Should Hire Me" to "The Top 10 Books That Changed My Life"... and more. What's your topic?

Click on Go To Step 2.


Step 2: Choose How To Promote Your Lens

What's the goal of your lens? What are you going to do with it?

In this step, many Internet Marketers will usually think in terms of an end result, like capturing names and e-mails of people you'll add to an autoresponder list or network marketing list.

Examples: Jane Goodall -- supporting her non-profit list, a gal promoting her book, a guy who's moving traffic (inquiring minds) back to his blog, or a teacher who makes learning fun for his students by playing with lens creation. These are the 4 common ways people use lenses.

You'll see a menu of choices to choose from:

a) I want to promote everything about Wealthy Affiliate Review.

b) I'm going to sell Wealthy Affiliate stuff for $$ and earn it for myself, or for charity!

c) I want to make a list of my favorite things about Wealthy Affiliate Review. (most popular choice).

d) I'm going to do my own thing.

Click on Go To Step 3.


Step 3: Form a Title and URL (what's this if you're new?)

Tip #1) Pick a title that's catchy. I formed a lens on "What It Felt Like To Get My First Black Belt". Tip #2) When picking your Squidoo URL, the http:// that's the name you see on every site..., located at the top of the web browser, the URL is a pathway which helps you advertise yourself in other places like http://www.plaxo.com/ or http://www.linked-in.com/, or http://www.ezinearticles.com/.

The URL identifies whatever you're advertising. It could be something like ww.stripsomefat.com (I made this up). Fill in the blank following www.squidoo.com/_________. If the lens is about antique stereos, then fill in that name using no dashes, spaces or weird characters.

So my URL would be something like -- www.squidoo.com/barbaraswealthyaffiliatereview (I made this up -- it's not real yet).

Then, choose a category that's most simliar to whatever it is you're promoting.

My category is How To & Education.


Rate Your Lens -- put a movie rating on your content.

Is it safe for everyone? You'll see a menu of choices.

Click on Go To Step 4.


Step 4 -- Help People Find Your Lens

Keywords (or "tags") help people find your lens. These are the words people will enter when they're looking for a solution to a problem. You have to think in terms of a the consumer, where they're experiencing a difficulty of some kind but you're there to provide the answers.

If you're in an MLM - you don't want to use keywords describing your compensation plan. You want to use words that will solve an ache in a knee joint or help someone resolve their debts through debt consolidation, for example.

If you're an affiliate marketer - you want to tap into keywords describing benefits. Shy away from specific corporate product names or logos. Then move into what's in it for someone else. If it's "overweight troubles", you would talk about "The Top 10 Effective Ways To Shed 5 Pounds In 2 Weeks for your lens title. The keywords could include something like weight loss for less, effective weight loss, or lose weight without diets. These are your keyword phrases.

Examples to move my Wealthy Affiliate would include keyword phrases such as:

Wealthy Affiliate Review
Internet Marketing University
Making Money Online

Then you enter the code at the bottom of the lens, hitting DONE!

You've just formed your first lens. Don't forget to check the Squidoo confirmation in your regular e-mail box, to confirm lens creation.

I will offer more news on this topic in the next day or so.


If you want to find out how I'm generating a lot of content along Internet Marketing lines, feel free to check out this valuable resource online.

Click below:

Internet Marketing A Solid Way

Supporting Your Success Using Solid Internet Marketing Means,

B. Brinkmeyer

Introduction to Squidoo -- Part 1

Greetings Fellow Affiliate Marketers,

Making money online doesn’t need to cost you an arm and a leg in advertising costs. Actually it doesn’t have to cost you anything at all! All of the major search engines are now giving natural search rankings to websites with quality and freshly updated content. So, if you want to get free natural listings in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines, all you need to do is learn how to become an efficient article marketer using Squidoo.

This brief introduction focuses on using Squidoo.com to quickly build articles (or "lenses" as Squidoo calls them) to earn you $1,000's, all without having to spend a dime in advertising.
1) Here, you'll learn exactly why Squidoo is strongly recommended for article marketers, 2) how to master the tools available to you at Squidoo, and 3) how to optimize your Squidoo lenses so they get picked up by Google!

Article marketing with Squidoo is a great starting point for any marketer! It can help you earn seed money which can then be spent on other components of your business (like PPC...pay-per-click advertising), while earning a continual stream of income from your articles.

I will offer parts 2 - 5 in the coming days ahead as we piece together setting up an Internet business online.

Click on the link below to find out more:

Internet Marketing A Solid Way

Supporting Your Success Using Proven Means,

B. Brinkmeyer