Leveraging Squidoo For your Home Business

Yesterday I blogged about Squidoo and your Home Business. How exactly can we leverage Squidoo to the advantage of a Home-Based Business? The short answer: Inbound Links!

Squidoo is what you can arguably call an 'Authority Site'. Without getting into too much detail about that subject, just remember that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines show lots of love to Authority Sites and that means links from them are highly valuable.

All you have to do is put a link in your lens to your site. Assuming the content is relevant, you get the immediate benefit of an inbound link from an Authority Site. You can use the Links Plexus, the Links List, or just place your link within text content in a Text Module. Once you have a link on your lens, however, you need to get Squidoo to show your lens some love. There are various ways to do that.

Focus on Quality - This is no different than elsewhere on the web. Focus on creating a quality lens and you'll see your lens attract visitors and your Squidoo ranking will rise.

Keep the Content Fresh - Squidoo lenses should be maintained for content freshness like any other page. Have some time sensitive information on your lens or recent news bits about things relating to your lens topic. Update them often and you will see benefits from repeat visitors (that includes people as well as search engine spiders).

Tag onto the Featured Lenses - There are several ways in which Squidoo promotes lenses. The first one you want to pay attention to is the Top 100 lenses. These lenses are the most popular within Squidoo and get extra exposure as a result. See if you can find a lens in the Top 100 that's relevant to your subject and see if you can add your lens to it. (Most lens-masters allow user additions to their lenses). By the way, the Top 100 changes a lot so check back often. The other featured lens you want to watch is the "Lens of the Day". Same idea here: look for one that's relevant to your subject and see if you add your lens to it. Then enjoy the extra exposure it brings.

Join a Group - Squidoo also has Groups of lenses that are centered around a subject area. Find a group that's relevant to your topic and use the add feature to request that your lens be added.

Use the Guestbook - Squidoo has a built-in Guestbook feature. It's a module usually present in every lens. Find lenses related to your topic and sign their Guestbooks. By sign the Guestbooks, I mean add something of value to their Guestbooks - not just "nice lens".

Squidoo is a great way to get some targeted inbound traffic for your home-based business website as well as some valuable inbound links. There are also affiliate income opportunities on Squidoo if that's your thing. Here are some valuable Squidoo links:

Everyone is an Expert by Seth Godin
Help and FAQs
Lens of the Day
Top 100 Lenses
Squidoo Groups

Tags: Squidoo Links, Squidoo Lens, Squidoo Home Business, Squidoo Content