Squidoo, created by big time entrepreneur Seth Godin, is a free tool that allows anyone to create a single page on a topic they are good at, for free. These single pages, also called Squidoo Lenses, combine together to form a network of user generated opinions or recommendations – called Squidoo. This is why Squidoo is also sometimes referred to as the recommendation website.

Squidoo's social aspects are characterized by an ability to comment on other lensmasters' pages.

Squidoo Lenses contain a variety of content ranging from sports and politics to pet training, hobby ideas and money making.

Lenses by definition are not intended to contain the full content but rather a recommendation that points to another website / blog that contains the content in detail.

This is where the idea of building traffic via Squidoo was born. Because Squidoo is generally high ranked and loved by search engines, people have been writing Squidoo lenses that naturally rank higher then their blogs and pointing these lenses to their blogs.

Note: If you are not able to make a quality Squidoo lens for whatever reason, you can look around the Squidoo community for professional lens makers who can make one for you for a fee. You can also purchase ready made Squidoo lenses from above mentioned expert lens-makers.

Building Traffic Squidoo Style

As an addition to article marketing, Squidoo lenses provide you with an excellent means to drive quality, targeted traffic to your blog.

Because Squidoo is based around the principles of user recommendation, it is very well ranked with Google and other search engines. As a result, the likelihood of a Squidoo lens being indexed within 24 hours of creation is far higher then a new blog.

Additionally, because of Squidoo's high ranking, soon after creation your Squidoo lens can appear in the top results for your target keywords and subsequently drive traffic to your blog (of course, in order for this to happen you must optimize your lens for your target keywords – follow the Squidoo lens creation
tutorials linked above).

For example, if you Google the terms “parked review” (review of the domain parking services of parked.com) you will notice that the author of a Squidoo lens called “parked” has pushed her lens to the first page of Google results. The same principles can be applied to other target keywords.

While creating your Squidoo lens (which provides a summary opinion of a topic you cover in detail on your blog), make sure that your Squidoo lens promotes your blog link in a number of ways. Promote your blog within your lens content as well as on your lensmaster page. Also promote your blog via a
recommendation module in the side column of your lens.

To start promoting your Squidoo lens, you can submit your lens link to various social bookmarking sites, link to it via your forum and email signature and leave it in your blogroll. Additionally, you can leave comments on other lensmasters' lenses. By default, any comment you leave on another lens automatically links to your lensmaster page (profile) and all your squidoo pages.

Note: Be careful not to spam other lensmasters' pages - you can easily be banned from commenting if you do something inappropriate. “Do unto others what you would expect they should to unto you” applies here.

Note: To further add content for your lens, use a Squidoo RSS module to display your blog RSS feed on your lens.