Squidoo - Setup An Account And Create A Lens

Today's lesson is all about using Squidoo and is presented by Michelle MacPhearson. Squidoo is seen as an authority in the eyes of the search engines, which means that any links that you get from a Squidoo page will most likely carry more weight with the search engines than links from sites that don't have high authority. This makes Squidoo an important part of your link building strategy.

Michelle kicks off the lesson by showing you how to sign up with Squidoo and then walks you through the four steps of creating your first Squidoo page, which Squidoo calls a Lens. When signing up for Squidoo, skip using the Facebook Connect option and instead sign up the traditional way. This gives you the opportunity to choose a username that relates to your micro-niche.

Michelle also outlines how to ensure you use your main keyword phrase for what the lens is about, the title of the lens and the Squidoo URL that gets created for your lens. In the last two steps of the lens creation process, Michelle shows you how to insert tags for your lens.

Once your lens is created you are presented with a range of options for various modules and features that you can add. Michelle provides a brief overview of the modules and features and shows you how to edit your lens to include all of the most relevant elements. Michelle also recommends the use of the guestbook and RSS modules and she takes you through the process of setting each one up correctly, along with a few general rules of thumb regarding other modules.

In the last part of the process in setting up your lens, Michelle walks you through the editing of your lens text module to include a unique article about your micro-niche that you have written. Michelle also offers a few suggestions of how to make the article search engine friendly, including using an anchor text link in the article itself and how get an included photo in the article to link to your site as well.

Actions For The Day - 1. Sign up for Squidoo using the traditional method and create a lens using your main keyword phrase. 2. Edit your Squidoo lens to include the Guestbook and RSS modules. 3. Edit your text module to include a unique piece of content you have written (including anchor text URLs). 4. Publish and view your finished Squidoo lens, then check all of the links to make sure they are correctly pointing to your site.