An important aspect of successful network marketing is the ability to identify and use marketing resources that are both low cost (preferably free) and effective. If Squidoo isn't on your current list of resources, it should be. Here are seven tips on how to successfully use Squidoo in your network marketing efforts:

1. Do a good job on your Squidoo lens. Make sure you fill it with interesting and helpful content. Readers will rate your lens so give yourself every chance of receiving good ratings as they influence the amount of readers you will get.

2. Make your lens search engine friendly so that people searching on particular terms will be able to find your lens via search engines. The first step to achieving this is to do your own keyword research before even creating your lens. You can discover the most searched terms on Yahoo and Google so that you can write your content to reflect your target audience's interest. You can also check Squidoo's own tag clouds which show which words or phrases are most highly searched. Include your chosen keyword phrase in your title and add them to your lense's tags. Squidoo allows you to have forty tags per lens so it is a good idea to find keyword phrases to take advantage of all tags. This will make your lens even easier to find.

3. Don't be afraid to say you are an expert. We are all experts at something! You can sell yourself and your expertise in Squidoo's bio area. Include your photo and make sure you are using a professional username.

4. Squidoo provides a social networking opportunity so make sure you make it easy to get your readers involved. This is an important free marketing tip for Squidoo as your readers can increase your traffic by recommending your lens. Here are some great ways to get your readers interested:

- Be controversial. Don't be afraid to provoke debate or disagreement. Your aim is to get people involved.

- Utilize the Guestbook module to stimulate debate.

- Allow other people to link your lens to theirs using the Plexo module. Doing this will help your lens ranking increase while at the same time providing access to more content for your readers.

5. Update your lens regularly with new content. An easy way to keep your lens updated with new content on a daily basis is to use the RSS module. You can have your lens updated with RSS feeds from your own blog or from other blogs in order to keep the content fresh.

6. Attract return visits. One of the easiest ways to keep your readers returning to your lens is to set up an autoresponder by which you can notify them of changes. If you have your own blog you can link from it to your lens. If you guest blog you can include your lens URL in your bio information. If you comment on other people's blogs or in forums you can provide a link to your lens in your signature.

7. Take advantage of pinging and social bookmarking services. By using sites such as Only Wire and Social Poster to bookmark your lens or the RSS services of blog pinging sites such as Pingoat or Pingomatic you will be able to create back links to your Squidoo lens. This is a great way to generate traffic to your lens.

A Squidoo lens provides a wonderful opportunity to market your network marketing product, service or business. If you follow these free MLM marketing tips you will reap the rewards of a highly effective yet free strategy.