How To Setup Your First Squidoo Lens

Before we get started creating a Squidoo Lens, use this link to setup a username and password at Squidoo. Then follow along and build your first lens (web page). You should focus on a topic you are knowledgeable about, so that writing about it is easy.

Go here to sign up for Squidoo so you can make your first lens page.

Now that you are signed up, it’s time to get your 1st lens page created. A lens is Squidoo’s term for your webpage, and that page is about any topic you choose.

Log in to Squidoo, and create a Lens. To do this click on the Squidoo logo and then you will see a button on the next page marked “Build My Own Lens” or “Create lens”. You should arrive at Step 1.

Step 1: Choose what your lens is about. Here is where you select a good title for your lens. Decide your topic, whether it is “How to Win at Chess” or “How to Find Good Deals Online”. It doesn’t even have to be a “How to” it can be about any topic you choose, with any title. Such as “Paris Hilton Gossip” or “My Favorite Books” or “LA Lakers Fan”.

Step 2: The best choice for Step 2 is “I just want to do my own thing”. It will give you a basic lens page, and you can then pick and choose what other items you want to add to it later.

Step 3: Edit your title, URL and keywords. You can change your Lens Title here (you can do this later too). You also pick your lens’ URL, which will be “www.squidoo.com/yourlens” with yourlens being whatever you choose. Make it relevant to your title as you can. For example, if your lens is about finding deals online, try using ”www.squidoo.com/finddealsonline” and so forth. Try to make the URL words you choose fairly easy if you want to make it easy to type for others to find.

You will also pick your lens category from a dropdown. There are about 20 or so categories ranging from Entertainment to Technology to Business to Sports. Choose the category your topic fits best in.

Choose the rating for your Squidoo. G Rating means anyone can look at your Squidoo, while R and X are similar to the movie ratings. Keep this in mind, that to get a wider audience, use the G Rating unless you are making an adult themed page.

Step 4: Help people find your lens. Here you can choose the single best keyword for your lens. A keyword will help others find your page on Squidoo. Choose a word that best describes your topic here. If your topic is football players, choose football or sports. You then have the option to put 3 more words describing your topic. While it’s optional, its recommended to add 3 more words, because it will help more people searching for those words on Squidoo find your page.

From here you should get a Edit view of your Squidoo lens. You should just see “Introduction”. You can add a brief description of your page by clicking “Edit”. Add a relevant picture from your computer with the Browse/Upload feature you will see. Make sure to click on “Publish” now. Your Squidoo lens page is live for others to see!

How To Build A Squidoo Lens And Profit From It

Now that you’ve set up your first Squidoo lens with a basic introduction, it’s time to take a look at the meat of your page; the various modules you can add to give your page life. A “module” is basically a section of your Squidoo lens page. It allows you to add everything from Text paragraphs to pictures from Flickr to YouTube videos to eBay and Amazon products.

The cool things about the products you add is that you can even earn part of a commission if someone buys one of the products you display on your page! You can add as many modules as you would like, but don’t go too crazy.

Here is a breakdown of 9 basic and popular modules to add and what they can do for your page.

1) Text Module - this is the most basic and useful module to use on your Squidoo lens. You can use it to make various sections describing your page topic in detail. One thing I also like to do is add custom images into these sections (from a hosted area on the net such as photobucket or Flickr). To add an image you Edit the Text Module and paste in the code:

<img src=”http://www.yourphotohost.com/yourimage.jpg”>

Replace the link in quotes above with your image’s specific url location. Keep in mind there is a width limit of about 450 pixels on your text module. You can then add a cool looking banner header and then write some text underneath it.

Or put a picture relating to your topic and then write a description. The text module is very useful for adding various sections to your page. It also allows for HTML code so that you can change the color of text words, make them bold and more! After you finish putting in your necessary text or image codes in the module click on “Save” to make sure you don’t loose your work!

2) Link List - This module is a helpful way to highlight links you’d like to share with your Squidoo page viewers. If you are writing about your favorite travel locations, you may provide links to various travel sites or tourism info. Links are easy to use, you just need to find the site url link (at the top address bar of your internet browser) and say “Add Link” when you go to edit the module. Give your link a title that describes it well and then write a brief description if you’d like. You can add as many links in the Link Module as you’d like.

3)RSS Module - This is for adding a RSS news feed to your page. A RSS feed displays updated headlines based on a particular news topic or blog. If you have your own blog, this is a great way to show viewers of your Squidoo page your latest entries! Yahoo offers a nice page of RSS news feeds to choose from, and you can even search for topics you’d like to display the latest headlines on. Yahoo RSS is at : http://news.yahoo.com/rss

When there, you can right click on any RSS button you see and say “Copy Shortcut” or “Copy Link”. You will need that link to paste into the RSS feed link for this module. You can also write a brief description about the news feed if you choose.

You are given the ability to display excerpts from the headlines of 100 words or more, can choose how many headlines you want displayed, and how often you want the headlines to update on your page.

4) Guestbook - this is a basic guestbook which allows viewers of your Squidoo page to leave you feedback and comments. It’s up to you if you’d like to receive feedback. Sometimes this can lead to spamming and other times it can help your Squidoo page get more attention, links and traffic.

You can leave the first comment yourself to set the tone for the group. You can also add a description to let people know what sort of feedback/comments are acceptable.

5) Amazon Module - This module allows you to pick products related to your topic that you might want displayed on your page. You can make recommendations, for example if your page is about debt relief, you could display books about becoming debt free. Or if your page was about gardening, you could display products related to gardening from Amazon.

The cool part of this module is if someone visits your page and clicks on the product, and decides to buy it from Amazon, you will receive part of a commission for the sale (which you share with Squidoo). This can be a valuable module depending on your topic and what you decide to sell. For this, you can set it to have Amazon choose products based on the keywords you type in.

Or, you can choose to find direct links to the products you want to show, or the ASIN (Amazon ID) from the product’s page on Amazon. To get either the product link or ASIN, simply go to Amazon, type the product name in and go to its page. Then either copy the link for that page from your browser’s address bar up top.

Or you can get the product ASIN by scrolling down on the Amazon product page and copying the ASIN (or ISBN if it’s a book) code # you see. You then provide either the product link or ASIN in your Amazon module. You now can display your favorite products right on your page!

6) Ebay Module - This module will allow you to display live Ebay auctions on your Squidoo page. If your topic was about video games, you may want to have the latest Xbox 360 video games on display. If a person found your page off the internet, they may see a deal they like and buy the game (or any item). You receive commission on these sales as well.

The cool thing with this module is you can let ebay pick items to display based on keywords you enter (such as harry potter collectibles or dvds, etc). You can also choose specific auctions from Ebay to display. Or you can pick your favorite seller on ebay (which could be your own ebay store if you have one).

You can also customize the minimum or maximum number of bids for the auctions, the time left to bid and set it so only auctions at specific price levels are shown.

7) Flickr Photos - this is a great module if you have photos on a Flickr account with tags related to your topic. You can tell the module to display photos from your Flickr account based on any tags or direct links to the photos/images you enter. It can also display the most relevant and or popular photos on Flickr so that others can view them.

8 ) YouTube Video - this is a newer module you can add but is pretty fun to use. You basically can add 5 YouTube videos per YouTube module on your page. Technically you could have 20 or more videos on your page if you wanted.

The thing to remember with these is YouTube videos can slow down a page, so having too many could cause a slowdown when viewing your Squidoo lens. You can also set the size of the video and display type. For example you can have smaller screen YouTube videos, or allow the videos to link straight to their larger YouTube video on the YouTube site.

To put videos onto your Squidoo lens you will need the url link from each YouTube video you’d like to add. To get this go to YouTube and find a video you like. When you view that video, look to the right for the URL and Embed codes. You should see “URL” with the url link next to it.

Copy and paste that link into the “Add Links” part of your YouTube module. You can add up to 5 YouTube links here, just make sure each is on a separate line. Once you have them all in place click “done adding”. You can also put a description above your video(s).

The other neat function of this is that it can allow other people to add videos (if you choose) and allow people to vote on the videos you have displayed. They can also grab your video list for display on their own computer, which can bring your Squidoo page more traffic.

9) Del.icio.us bookmarks - Del.icio.us is a social networking type site that allows people to collect bookmarks of sites they enjoy. With this module on your page, you can display some of the most popular and relevant sites for your topic.

You have 2 choices for what to display here:

Bookmarks by username - if you have a del.icio.us account simply enter your username, or the username of a friend/colleague here to display their favorite site bookmarks. You can sign up for a free del.icio.us account at del.icio.us.com

Bookmarks by tag - choose 1 or more keywords related to your page’s topic (for example: horror movies). Enter that in here and del.icio.us will provide 5, 10, or 15 bookmarks that are popular on the subject.

This is a good way to provide useful and relevant links to people who view your page and keep them coming back for more! You can also set how often you want your bookmarks list to display, as the most popular bookmarks on del.icio.us are subject to change by the minute! You can set it to update every 6 hours or even weekly!

There you have 9 popular and useful modules to start making a great looking Squidoo lens page! There are many more choices to check out when you click on “Add Modules” and many are self-explanatory. There are other modules that allow product displays that pay you commission, including iTunes!

If I were to recommend just 4 modules to start with, I’d recommend:

• Text Module
• Link Module
• RSS Feed
• Guestbook.

These four will get your on your way because:

• The Text Module allows you great freedom to display information and hosted images.
• The Link module gives your viewers helpful links and can help your Squidoo page receive more traffic.
• The RSS news feed will update periodically, keeping your page fresh, so that users can return for new headlines and info.
• And finally, the guestbook will allow viewers of your page to leave great comments and feedback!

Remember to always click on “Save” after editing any module. You also have the power to move the module order by clicking on the arrows you see next to the module name. Add as many modules as you feel necessary for your Squidoo page to show your passion for the topic!

Source: hitsusa.com