Blogging With the Squidoo Platform
The popularity of blogging has gained tremendous momentum in recent times and shows no signs of slowing down.
Blogging had a slow start in the 1990s, but blog usage spread rapidly in 1999.
The immense popularity of quality blogging sites as well as the quality content provided in these blogs, has contributed to their success.
Today even the top search engines like Google and Yahoo have tweaked their algorithms to give blogging sites preference in search rankings.
If you're new to blogging, a blog is another term used for Weblog, which is essentially a webpage of content in written, picture and/or video form.
Cluttered Information Today with the phenomenal popularity of the internet, the World Wide Web has become a very cluttered place filled with all sorts of information.
In my opinion, I would consider most of it is junk, but in making this statement, I don't mean to say that there isn't good quality content available on the internet.
The point I'm trying to make is that there are millions of people around the world looking for quality information through searches using search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Blogging has become a way to help those individuals with great quality content become visible to those seeking it.
Blogging allows you to do express yourself as an individual through diaries and journals.
It gives you the opportunity to write about your experiences or opinions on topics that matter to you and those interested.
You can use it in your business to keep your customers updated.
You can interact with like-minded individuals and so much more! There are several popular blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, TextPattern, YouTube, NucleusCMS and others.
However, today, I want to introduce to you a community blogging platform called Squidoo, which you may or may not have not heard about.
What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a free community blogging platform, which helps you build webpages about things that interest you like hobbies you may have, or book/movie reviews that you would like to write about, or just interact with real people and be part of a community.
But, Squidoo goes beyond being just a free blogging platform, it gives you the opportunity to earn money for yourself or raise money for your charity.
Though, most importantly, Squidoo is a community.
How is Squidoo Able to Offer this Service for Free? Squidoo gets paid by Amazon, eBay, Google and Glam to post links and to run ads through Affiliate Programs.
I'm sure you've heard the term "Affiliate Program", but just in case you haven't, it's a commission-based program through which an online store like eBay will pay a commission to sites that refer people who buy their products.
This Affiliate model has been around for years, but Squidoo was one of the very first to bring all these affiliate programs together in an easy-to-use manner.
Google uses sophisticated and automated software to match ads with the content on Squidoo webpages.
So, when someone clicks the ad on the webpage, Google charges a fee to the advertiser.
The fee will vary depending on the type of the ads.
So for example, if an ad is viewed through Google Ads or a product is purchased through eBay on one of Squidoo's webpage, Squidoo gets paid.
On each payment, Squidoo donates 5% to charities; 50% is paid to Squidoo users or their charities (they choose) and the balance 45% is used by Squidoo to pay off their expenses.
Pretty neat, eh? Squidoo's Lens Modules Like I mentioned earlier, you create webpages on Squidoo called lenses.
Squidoo has developed hundreds of modules to help bloggers (or Squids, as they are called in Squidoo) to create various types of lenses.
In some of these modules you can: - add text (plain and HTML), - create a table of contents, - upload pictures from your desktop or from Flickr or your website, - include YouTube videos, - display relevant products from eBay, Amazon, CafePress, etc.
- include links to websites, - take polls, - solicit customer feedback through the Guestbook, - include donation modules, - display Google search boxes and maps, - create photo galleries, - include weather reports, - Wikipedia, - and so much more.
Blogging had a slow start in the 1990s, but blog usage spread rapidly in 1999.
The immense popularity of quality blogging sites as well as the quality content provided in these blogs, has contributed to their success.
Today even the top search engines like Google and Yahoo have tweaked their algorithms to give blogging sites preference in search rankings.
If you're new to blogging, a blog is another term used for Weblog, which is essentially a webpage of content in written, picture and/or video form.
Cluttered Information Today with the phenomenal popularity of the internet, the World Wide Web has become a very cluttered place filled with all sorts of information.
In my opinion, I would consider most of it is junk, but in making this statement, I don't mean to say that there isn't good quality content available on the internet.
The point I'm trying to make is that there are millions of people around the world looking for quality information through searches using search engines like Google and Yahoo.
Blogging has become a way to help those individuals with great quality content become visible to those seeking it.
Blogging allows you to do express yourself as an individual through diaries and journals.
It gives you the opportunity to write about your experiences or opinions on topics that matter to you and those interested.
You can use it in your business to keep your customers updated.
You can interact with like-minded individuals and so much more! There are several popular blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, TextPattern, YouTube, NucleusCMS and others.
However, today, I want to introduce to you a community blogging platform called Squidoo, which you may or may not have not heard about.
What is Squidoo? Squidoo is a free community blogging platform, which helps you build webpages about things that interest you like hobbies you may have, or book/movie reviews that you would like to write about, or just interact with real people and be part of a community.
But, Squidoo goes beyond being just a free blogging platform, it gives you the opportunity to earn money for yourself or raise money for your charity.
Though, most importantly, Squidoo is a community.
How is Squidoo Able to Offer this Service for Free? Squidoo gets paid by Amazon, eBay, Google and Glam to post links and to run ads through Affiliate Programs.
I'm sure you've heard the term "Affiliate Program", but just in case you haven't, it's a commission-based program through which an online store like eBay will pay a commission to sites that refer people who buy their products.
This Affiliate model has been around for years, but Squidoo was one of the very first to bring all these affiliate programs together in an easy-to-use manner.
Google uses sophisticated and automated software to match ads with the content on Squidoo webpages.
So, when someone clicks the ad on the webpage, Google charges a fee to the advertiser.
The fee will vary depending on the type of the ads.
So for example, if an ad is viewed through Google Ads or a product is purchased through eBay on one of Squidoo's webpage, Squidoo gets paid.
On each payment, Squidoo donates 5% to charities; 50% is paid to Squidoo users or their charities (they choose) and the balance 45% is used by Squidoo to pay off their expenses.
Pretty neat, eh? Squidoo's Lens Modules Like I mentioned earlier, you create webpages on Squidoo called lenses.
Squidoo has developed hundreds of modules to help bloggers (or Squids, as they are called in Squidoo) to create various types of lenses.
In some of these modules you can: - add text (plain and HTML), - create a table of contents, - upload pictures from your desktop or from Flickr or your website, - include YouTube videos, - display relevant products from eBay, Amazon, CafePress, etc.
- include links to websites, - take polls, - solicit customer feedback through the Guestbook, - include donation modules, - display Google search boxes and maps, - create photo galleries, - include weather reports, - Wikipedia, - and so much more.
