Squidoo is a new social site with a twist.  The benefit of creating a Squidoo lens is monetary in nature as they share the advertising revenue with you based on the traffic that your page and site generates.  This is an added bonus to anyone who knows how to get some real traffic to their Squidoo Lens.

Before you can begin to build your Squidoo lens you will have to have an account with Squidoo.  You can easily sign up for a free membership with a username and password associated with an email account.  You are allowed to have 10 lens/pages per email account.  You will receive a confirmation email and once confirmed your account will be activated and you will be able to create your own lens.

Before you start creating your own lens it would be a good idea to do some research on the topic that you would like to create.  There are many different niches out there that you can target but not all niches are created equal.  Some have much higher values for Pay Per Click and some have better values for affiliate programs or digital products.  You will have to identify the niche that you would like to create your lens prior to its creation.  This will help optimize the process as well as give you the maximum results.

Now that you have signed up for Squidoo you will want to log-in and go to make a lens.  You will want to optimize it to your niche.  You will have to find some of the top keyword search terms that are searched for by using a keyword tool.  Use those terms in your lens title for example if you have chosen dog training as your niche you will want to include the phrase dog-training as the name of your lens. 

Once you have created your URL you will need to select the category that best suits your niche. Next you will have to select the rating for your lens.  Unless you have something that is x-rated or very adult you will most likely have G rated content. Next you will have to add your keywords to the lens.  This will help the search engines identify what your page is about and possibly help you get ranked for that term.  That is not a give in but it is a possibility.  You should pick your best 3 terms and input them at this stage. 

You should now be given the option to edit your Squidoo lens.  Take a look at the content that you want to add.  A good idea would be to take a look at other sites that are related to your niche to get some ideas as to the layout and the content.  Another smart idea would be to add links to other related sites as well as to your sites as well.  Make sure that they are related links though.  Do not add a sports link to a dog training site.  It would not be related and most likely you will not receive any good traffic from it.

Change the lens to reflect your own personality.  After all this should reflect you and give it that personal touch.  Don’t expect to become a millionaire off of one lens but if you create enough lens’s you can expect to receive a decent residual return over time.

I’ve been learning about web 2.0 and playing around with it for about 2 years now. It is a really effective tool for building relationships, attracting clients, and driving traffic to your blogs and websites. My business is booming and i have a steady stream of leads coming in daily. The downside, it can be a full time job being "social". If I spend 40 hours a week building relationships online, when do I have time to do the work for my clients? When do I have time for myself? I’m working at least 6 days a week right now and spending at least 12 hours each day in front of my computer. Although I love playing with technology and new sites on the internet, this isn’t the perfect lifestyle I wanted to create.

I found a great blog post today Chris Garrett’s blog at http://www.chrisg.com/need-digg-power-account/ that discusses the obsession with trying to dominate the social media pages. It’s very difficult and time consuming to get a post on the first page of Digg or del.icio.us. It’s even harder to stay at the top over time. Chris reitterates the fact the you shouldn’t worry about dominating the social media sites. Just focus on creating high quality content that helps your prospects and customers and the social media gurus will find you.