Squidoo is quickly becoming a great way to market a business online and earn income via affiliate programs. In case you don’t know, Squidoo is a free resource that allows anyone to build web pages (referred to as “lenses”) about anything and everything. From an Internet Marketing perspective, these lenses can be extremely search engine friendly and drive massive traffic to your website.

Here are 10 strategies to build a great Squidoo lens that will bring traffic and money your way.

1. Make sure you completely fill out your entire Squidoo profile. This includes adding an interesting bio about yourself and a photo that represents you. Doing this will let people on Squidoo know what you’re about and encourage them to read more of your lenses

2. The name you choose for your lens is very important. Your title needs to be unique and catchy rather than bland and generic. The title also needs to point out exactly what the page is about and should include search terms that people would use when seeking out the info you are providing.

For example, the title “Why Dalmatians Are The Coolest Dogs Ever!” beats the pants off “About Dalmatian Dogs”.

3. Write a quality introduction that is appealing and informative to the reader. Your intro should also contain keyword / search terms in order for the search engines to recognize you. Remember that the first line of your intro is often what shows up in the search engines so make sure that it displays your purpose of the lens and targeted keywords.

4. Write killer content that people will enjoy. If you lens lacks content, doesn’t entertain or doesn’t inform people than nobody is going to want to read it. Pick subjects that you know something about and share your experiences. If people see you are excited that will get them fired up too. As always, don’t forget to include your keywords and search terms throughout the copy but make sure you don’t go overboard with this (ie. keyword spamming).

5. Include targeted links to related content. Remember that search engines notice not only who is linking to you, but also who you are linking to. Make sure that when you do link to related websites you use targeted words and phrases as your links. For example, if you are writing about making money on Squidoo your outgoing links should say something like, “For more info, check out this website on Squidoo Affiliate Profits“ instead of just “Click here”. You can also add Amazon and other modules that can help with this.

6. Don’t forget the graphics. Graphics will help break up your content and encourage people to continue reading.

7. Make sure that you tag your lens with 10 to 30 phrases and keywords that people might search for when looking for your topic.

8. Provide a variety of content. Large blocks of text, ads, graphics, etc can easily lose your reader’s attention. Mix it up and spread your lens out.

9. Encourage people to come back to your lens by providing a guestbook and poll. You also want to update or change your content every once in awhile which will help you with the search engines.

10. Make sure you proofread before you publish. Grammar and spelling do matter so utilize your spellchecker and read through your content a few times before you go live. It’s also a good idea to have others read your stuff over to catch anything you might have missed.

So now all that’s left for you to do is take action and start Squidooing! By putting all these strategies to use it won’t take long until you are enjoying targeted traffic to your website or earning affiliate commissions compliments of your new Squidoo lenses.

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What type of business you operate from the home is totally up to you, but there are certain things that you will need to do to help insure its success. While visions of making it big comes immediately to mind for many who choose to run their own home-based business, they often forget that it is a business. Running a home business often gives people the misunderstanding that they can dictate every part of their operation and while there are many aspects of a home business in which they are completely in charge, customers and clients will also have input on many functions.

Tip #1 – Set a work schedule.

The first thing needed to run a successful home business is a set schedule. It may be easy to stay up late to watch a movie and repeatedly hit the snooze button on your alarm clock, but when dealing with clients over the phone you really do not want them to think their early morning phone call rousted you from a sound sleep. While having a lot of free time may be appealing and taking naps in the middle of the day may be attractive, keeping regular hours is important to any business.

Tip #2 – Have a separate office.

Make sure your office is only used as an office. In addition to the tax benefits of carving out a space used strictly for work, you will also have the feeling when you walk into the room in the morning that it is time to go to work. Similarly, when the day is over and you leave the office you need to feel as though you have gone home for the day. Just as you want to keep family distractions out of the office, you need to keep work distractions out of the rest of the house.

Tip #3 – Keep it professional.

Being professional in all business dealings when in your home office will help preserve your image as a business owner. If you cannot afford a separate telephone line for the business, during your normal business hours answer the phone in a professional manner.

Tip #4 – Marketing is key.

Unless your business is the field of dreams, simply building it will not guarantee customers will show up. Advertising ad marketing is essential to any business, even those run exclusively online. Chances are there is no sign in front of your home that indicates you are open for business, inviting passers-by to stop in and see what you have to offer. The only way anyone knows you are there is through advertising.

Tip #5 - Build a website.

Even if you will not be conducting any business online a website can serve as your web-based sales pamphlet and include information about you, your experience and your business. Including prominent contact information on the first page of your website is a key to obtaining more business, but you should also have a contact form available for people to simply send in a request for information or for answering questions.

So you decided to start an online business. The website is up and you’re ready to rock but seem to be missing just one thing… Traffic! While there are many ways to drive traffic to a website, some of the best techniques don’t require a deep pocketbook and can bring your website some incredible results.

Discover 5 easy to implement strategies for increasing your website traffic on a small budget:

1. Offer free reports, eBooks or videos.

Giving away some freebies and including your website URL in those freebies is an effective and low cost way of building traffic to your website. All you do is write some useful short reports that someone coming to your website would be interested in reading (of course the reports will link back to your website). Then you offer your freebies on your website where your visitors must leave their email address and name before they are able to access your materials. This strategy not only builds credibility with potential customers but also helps you build a targeted opt-in mailing list that you can market to in the future. I suggest using an auto-responder service like Aweber to easily ad opt-in forms on your website and capture your prospects information.

2. Blog.

Blogging is an awesome way to bring traffic to your website. On your blog, you can discuss your products and services as well as answer any questions your potential customers may have. Of course, since it’s your blog you can also add banner advertisements and text links back to your website too. By blogging regularly, you will have fresh content that will get your website indexed by search engines which is a free source of incredible traffic. The best part is that blogs are free and anyone can easily set one up using applications like Blogger or WordPress.

3. Publish your own newsletter.

Having your own newsletter where you offer free tips and content on a regular basis can help to not only bring in new visitors but also keep people coming back for more. Your newsletter will contain quality content and news about your industry as well as links to your website. If your content is good enough your newsletters can easily spread all over the Internet. (Again, I suggest using an auto-responder service like Aweber to publish and manage your newsletter.

4. Join forums and message boards related to your niche or website.

Forum marketing is quite possibly the best free way to drive massive amounts of targeted traffic to your website. All you need to do is find online forums that relate to your product or service and then join in the conversation. While you don’t blatantly make posts advertising your website, you are allowed to create what’s known as a signature file that will go at the bottom of every post you make. It’s this signature file that you can put a link back to your website, along with a catchy ad about what you offer. The more posts you make the more exposure and back links your website gets.

5. Exchange links with other websites in your niche.

To execute this strategy all you need to do is go to your favorite search engine and conduct some searches for keywords related to your website. If you can find some top rated websites that compliment instead of compete with your product or service, send them an email or give them a call and ask to do a link exchange. If the services compliment each other and don’t compete you should be able to form some quality partnerships and links back to your website.

In closing, there are literally hundreds of free and low cost ways to start driving traffic to your website. The most important thing is to start executing one of these strategies today and not put it off until tomorrow. With a little bit of work, anyone can turn their website into a high traffic selling machine if they are consistent about executing new traffic strategies on a daily basis.