Squidoo may be a silly name, but this online tool is all business. Anyone can use this Internet space to increase online exposure. The best part is, Squidoo is free and one person can create as many pages (called lenses) as desired. Businesses no longer have to pay to direct traffic to their blog or website. They can climb the search engine results lists without spending a single penny. This is an excellent way for small businesses to gain exposure with a target audience.

How to Market Your Website on Squidoo

Site owners use Squidoo lenses to increase their backlinks, as Squidoo has become a primary online source for information. A highly ranked Squidoo lens makes a website stronger and more visible in search engine results list. As more links owned by the business appear on the first page of search engine results, competitor sites slide down to pages two and lower, causing them to be visited less frequently. The business dominating page one continues to do so through increased traffic generated due to its coveted position.

Squidoo offers modules, widgets, and other features that authors may use to create an amazing lens. Readers are involved and entertained when content includes videos, polls, links to eBay and Amazon, and feedback options. They vote on lenses, making the most popular lenses more visible on Squidoo search engines.

How To Make Money on Squidoo

For business owners to make money on Squidoo, they must know what they are doing. Though Web design experience is not required, creativity and good writing skills are a must. Google AdWords advertisements incorporated into each lens by Squidoo result in a secondary stream of income for the lens creator. Some lens creators generate additional income by creating lenses en masse or using eBay or Amazon modules for affiliate earnings.

An even better way to make money is to create an excellent lens that is read by many people. By arousing interest in readers and directing them to the company website where they can purchase useful products or services, a company earns money from free online traffic. In addition, the site itself becomes more visible in search engine ranks, increasing traffic volume.

Benefits of Using Squidoo

Squidoo offers many benefits, one of which is fast lens indexing. Within just 48 hours, a lens may appear in a Google search results list. This is much faster than the several months many new websites must wait to become ranked by Google and other search engines. Google in particular loves Squidoo, placing a high value on its lenses. A properly created lens usually rises to the top of search results for its keywords.

The fact that Squidoo is free, yet also offers revenue sharing from advertisers makes it very appealing to site owners with small marketing budgets. Squidoo lenses can be combined with article marketing, another free online promotional tool, to get even more love from Google. Create some Squidoo lenses and reap the benefits for yourself.

Social media is a term we hear and see a lot these days, thanks to the increasing popularity of Internet marketing. It combines people, technology, an organization, and communication. Though people use the term to refer to different tools, it is basically any social instrument of communication. In the online world, this is any site that provides information and also interacts with the recipient. While regular media involves one-way communication, the social form is two-way, offering the recipient the ability to communicate as well.

Characteristics of Social Media

Online media that falls into this category has several characteristics in common. It encourages feedback and contributions from interested parties. Comments, information sharing, and voting are a few tools that recipients use to provide their feedback. The content is usually opened to anyone and is considered a conversation, not a broadcast.

Communities quickly form around this type of media, sharing common interests, whether these pertain to a religious or political issue, a hobby, or a television show. In many cases, this media relies on being connected, utilizing links to other people, resources, and websites. It is not unusual for a reader to start on one site and wind up on a completely different site when exploring a topic.

Forms of Social Media

This media can currently be categorized into six types, though innovation makes this subject to change at any time. Social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo allow people to create personal Web profiles, communicate, and share content with others. Online journals called blogs and microblogs like Twitter are two other forms. Podcasts like Apple iTunes are video and audio files available with a subscription.

Wikis, like Wikipedia, are websites that allow anyone to edit or add content to them, creating a communal database or document. Forums are online discussion areas categorized by interest or topic. Content communities organize and share certain types of content. Flickr does this with photographs and YouTube does it with videos. People can easily find bookmarked links on a variety of topics by visiting del.icio.us.

This form of media builds upon the nature of human beings. Civilizations are built on sharing ideas, cooperating, and collaborating, so there is no reason these cannot be building blocks for commerce. These media outlets allow companies to develop relationships with and gain the trust of prospects and customers. This positions the business as subject matter expert, encouraging backlinks, which are an important component of an SEO strategy.

While searching on the Internet, you may have noticed the Google +1 button. This is a relatively new feature added by the search engine giant. By clicking the +1 button, users provide their stamp of approval to Web pages. Word will quickly spread to others in your business and professional networks, encouraging them to visit the page you approved. This tiny button and the new Google + Network are fast becoming powerful Internet marketing tools.

How Does The Google +1 Button Work

Whenever they see the +1 button after an item on the search results list, users can click it if they approve of the link. This is similar to sharing something on Facebook or Twitter. When their contacts and friends search Google, they may see the blue +1, allowing them to identify the best sites on the Web. Users can also share their +1 immediately by adding a comment and sending the item to interested parties in their Google+ network.

All the +1s a user selects are saved in a special tab on the person’s pubic Google profile. This information can either be hidden or displayed to other Google users. It serves as a personal holding place for all the sites a person enjoys on the Web. With the +1 button, it is easy for consumers to spread the word about something they like online.

How Business Owners Can Benefit From Google +1

Business owners can incorporate the +1 button into their Web site by downloading the code from Google. They can also customize their Google +Snippet, a brief description of the content. When users click the +1 button on the site, this page is added their Google + profile for all to see. The pages provided a +1 by social connections also appear beneath search results and ads during a Google search.

In addition to Google search results, a +1 can be added next to news site articles, streamed information, and Google ads. Even if users do not publicly share their +1 tab and do not share the site with anyone on Google+, the +1s are visible to others viewing the same content. This allows a business to make its presence known even if users are not voluntarily spreading the word.

Experts are already weighing in on the impact of the +1 button for search engine rankings. According to some research, it is more popular for retailers than the Twitter or Facebook share buttons. When Google determines search engine rankings, +1 votes play a role. The +1 stats are available in Google Webmaster Tools, showing site owners how many users have clicked the +1 button and the impact it has made on search engine traffic.

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