The best way to embrace a new technology is to explore it carefully. Your first assignment then, is to visit Squidoo.com to find out more about what this site is all about.

By the sites own admission, Squidoo is, “The World’s Most Popular Site” for people interested in building pages reflecting their passions, interests, books, videos or any other material for that matter.

People can use the site to promote their organization, their charity, their favorite book, a book they wrote, promote a cause or more. Sounds pretty neat, huh?

Users call their pages, “Lenses,” which are single page sites on a topic a user is passionate about. Some of the reasons individuals may want to build a page as a lens are:

• To increase knowledge about a given subject. Users that are passionate about a subject can set up a lens page and send targeted traffic to content sites or information sites with information on that topic.

• To get to know other people interested in the same subject. One of the primary reasons for the advent of Web 2.0 is users increasing interest in forming online communities rather than sites controlled by single webmasters.

• To increase one’s web presence, and to gain credibility as a master of a certain subject or information. Each day it becomes increasingly difficult to promote one’s website on the Web. More and more savvy professionals are turning to new forums and platforms to boost traffic and gain credibility in their subject matter.

• To help boost traffic to their home pages, as each web page a user builds can point to the users other web pages or blogs. Most of the web pages built on Squidoo.com are easily picked up by Google search engines and other popular engines, so Squidoo.com provides an excellent platform for building targeted traffic.

• Users can use their “lens” page to earn royalty, for their company or for charity. Squidoo.com offers a built-in system allowing compensation payment made directly to owners of lens pages or to charities designated by owners.

• There is no cost to set up a page with Squidoo.com, one of the reason’s this new technology is so popular. Anything that is “free” on the Web is likely to earn significant interest quickly and steadily.

Setting up a Lens Page

Setting up a page on Squidoo.com is easy. The site provides an automated wizard that novice users can use to create a simple web page. For more advanced users, the site allows you to create your own page using nothing more than a simple framework or template. Most people are able to set up an information page in about five to ten minutes.

You don’t have to create all the content for your page at once either. Squidoo.com makes it easy for you to save your information or basic site, then add more information as you learn more about your subject or have time to expand your web page.

The entire goal of the site was to create a simple and easy-to-use platform for everyday Internet users. Despite its ease of use, Squidoo.com provides some brilliant technology that is powerful for many web-based applications.

More Reasons To Use Squidoo.com

Here are a few extra reasons you may find using Squidoo.com beneficial:

1. If you have a Web site built, you can use your Squidoo.com “Lens” page to attract more visitors and increase your PageRank in Google. Many people find increasing their PageRank one of the most challenging aspects of the business. Squidoo.com helps many people overcome this barrier. As Squidoo.com becomes more popular, so too will your site.

2. You can use Squidoo.com to highlight your favorite blog posts, commenting on them and providing more information about services or other information you offer on your blog.

3. You can use your Squidoo.com page to help promote or earn money for your favorite charity or other nonprofit group.

4. Squidoo.com allows users to post details about their upcoming podcasts and point links to transcripts of podcasts the user has available online.

5. For those people that are avid “fans” of people, places, or things, Squidoo.com provides an ideal platform for sharing personal insights on the object of your affections.

6. Authors can use Squidoo.com to promote their books, providing links to all of their works on Amazon.com.

7. Entrepreneurs can make a few extra bucks by affiliate income when they invest in Squidoo.com.

8. It’s fun, it’s easy and it is a great way to get your feet “wet” when trying a new technology on the Web.

9. You can easily research other people’s passions and interests to get an idea of what is “hot” on the Web.

10. Squidoo.com allows users to share many different ideas often on the same subject, so you have the opportunity to get an unbiased view by collecting, gathering and sorting the information provided from other users.

As a Squidoo.com user, you have the ability to monitor and control all the content that goes on your Web page. This is perhaps one of the biggest benefits of Squidoo.com.

While many people have used personal blogs to promote their material, passions and interests, they find using Squidoo.com beneficial because it is such a well-known platform. Squidoo.com instantly draws more traffic to popular and unpopular websites, so you have a better chance of getting your “voice” heard, seen and visited on the Web.

What We Learned

Squidoo.com is an excellent platform for Web users interested in promoting their passions and interests on the Web. Now that you know a little bit more about what Squidoo.com is, it’s time to learn more about “how” the site works, and how you go about creating dynamic lens pages.

For advanced Squidoo tactics visit the Squidoo Queen website

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