Did you know that you're an expert? No, really, it's true. You may not be a neurophysiologist or a curator of a museum on fine art, but there is probably something out there that you can go on for hours about, something that you know better than anyone else. Maybe you're a a writer, or a championship juggler, or you know all the ins and outs of applying hair dye to stubborn hair. You probably can't stop talking about and all your friends wish you would!



The answer for you is Squidoo! Launched in 2005, Squidoo.com is a free website that anyone can sign up for. This nifty site is composed of pages and pages of "lenses," which are pages created by members choosing to focus on whatever they feel is important. On any given lens, you can find links, Google maps, pictures, lists of books and movies, and much more. You can find a lens on just about anything... and will!

If you feel you have something to share with the world, all you need to do is sign up, free of charge on the Squidoo website. Once you sign up, you automatically become a "lensmaster" and you have a page devoted to the topic of your choice, whether that's how to tie a fly-fishing lure, or how to go from a sheep to a sweater. If you have a website pertaining to your interest already, your Squidoo site can link it and you'll increase your web traffic.

You don't have to be website-whiz to get your lens looking good, either. Anywhere on the site, you can click "build a lens" and you'll be taken to a wizard (no, not Gandalf) that will guide you through setting up your lens, step by step. If you want to get fancier than that, there's always SquidU.com, which is a website run by dedicated volunteers and expert lensmasters who can answer just about any question on the process that you care to ask.

You can also earn money from your lens! As the site is free, a certain amount of advertising occurs along the top and side bars. The advertising is usually specific to your lens' content, like if your lens is focused on the wonders of the ostrich, you'll get advertisements that link to ostrich books and ostrich burgers. If your lens generates a lot of traffic to one of the advertised sites, you'll get a small cut of the profits!

If you look around the site and find that someone else has a lens on the same topic that you want to talk about, go ahead and build your own anyway. There are thousands of different viewpoints out there and it looks like Squidoo is trying to capture them all!

Can you really deny the world your expertise any longer? Go check out Squidoo.com and start sharing!