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.

5.5 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 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 flyer 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!

For more ideas about building and promoting a top level Squidoo lens click here: http://www.squidoo.com/lenscraftingguru