By now you’ve probably already heard about Squidoo, and how easy it is to set up a Squidoo lens. If you’re a business owner, you may have never thought about using the free service for your marketing and sales.
It''s understandable, because there are several business owners who are reluctant to put their business on social networking sites. The reasons may vary, but the majority of them aren’t sure if their business would be well received by either members or management of the social site.
Squidoo was founded by Seth Godin, who himself is a marketer and entrepreneur. Seth Godin has made it clear that businesses, both large and small, are welcome on Squidoo as long as they conduct themselves in a businesslike manner. So these free mini-site lenses are overall of excellent standard, with high quality and informative content for their visitors.
Of course there are rules that apply to everyone on Squidoo about sending spam, which is against the terms of service. These rules are for businesses and individuals alike. Some social sites frown upon the use of affiliate links, and won’t allow them to be posted on any of the pages that are hosted by the site.
Squidoo is a refreshing change from the stringent and unnecessary rules of no affiliate links, as they allow lens owners to post affiliate links to products openly. Not only are you allowed to promote your business using Squidoo marketing, but it makes good sense to do it!
Search engines usually treat high quality content Squidoo lenses well in the search engine rankings. I have had my Squidoo Lenses sometimes show up in #2 in Google searches only days after I created them. If you have a quality Squidoo page, there’s a good chance it will be indexed in Google very quickly and with a little promotion it will rank fairly high in the search engines depending on the amount of competition in the niche.
There have been many Squidoo pages that rank number one in the search engine results pages. These lenses have been meticulously crafted and offer true value to visitors, so the search engines reward the lens with a higher ranking.
When setting up a Squidoo lens, you have the option to create a lens which allows you to set up what amounts to an affiliate page. This lens can make use of the built-in Amazon, ebay or various other modules to earn commissions. This is a good option to help increase the SEO attractiveness of the lens, as well as generating some extra income for your business, or your nominated charity.
That doesn’t mean you have to put anything on your lens you don’t want to promote. You have a lot of freedom with what goes on your Squidoo lens. You can place a full-page overview of what you and your business has to offer and include photographs as wells as videos via click-to-add modules. You can create a whole series of lenses that act as your online catalogue of products and services. Then just add your email / phone / postal contact details etc. and you have an on-line presence.
Once you get to know the Squidoo user interface, which won’t take but a few minutes, you’ll see just how simple it is to get you business up and running with its own lens. You will be able to link to other lenses, and increase the traffic you get to your business lens.
Others can rate your lens and recommend it to others, thereby exposing your business to even more potential customers. If you’ve been thinking about putting your business on Squidoo, then you should go for it now. If you’ve been putting it off, then you might want to consider the fact that your competitors might be stealing your traffic with a lens of their own. Build your lens and build your business at the same time.
One of the most powerful ways to use Squidoo lenses to increase your buying customers, is if you already have a corporate or business website, or ‘shop arcade’ type of website common to network marketers. This is because you need to actually ‘promote’ your website to ever get the search engines to refer free visitors to your business websites.
And unless you have a LOT of time on your hands to do the internet marketing and search engine optimization required to keep the search engines interested in your website, the best way I have ever seen to drive traffic, increase your page ranking, get great one way links to your site, and at the same time attract pre-sold customers to your corporate site, is by using Squidoo lenses that are created to meet the need of small niche markets that are looking for answers to their problems and information about their personal interests.
If they get value from visiting your lens, they will be clicking through to your website with while tapping their computer screen with their credit card in the other hand.
Many businesses enjoy this privilege, but if you are not sure you have the time and commitment to build great lenses, you can also buy pre-built lenses or buy a squidoo lens to be built specifically made-to-order for your business.
Strategic Services was established in 1987 to provide marketing and promotion consulting services, and Helene Malmsio has now incorporated Squidoo lenses and Google Knols in their internet marketing and website building services. Check out pre-built lenses for sale & building services available here: www.squidoo.com/lenses-for-sale and: best.lenses4sale.ever.com
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