Squidoo was the brainchild of marketing guru Seth Godin in effort to fill a void that was surprisingly vacant in online media. It offers a free venue for users to create one-page sites, called lenses, about any topic they want…and make gathering content a breeze. If you remember last week’s article on creating a SoyLuscious® microsite and promoting it, you could do worse on either count than start with Squidoo.

One of the best things about Squidoo is that Google loves it. If you can create half-decent optimized content for phrases that aren’t insanely competitive, getting top 5 placement in search results is a snap.

What are Lenses?
A Squidoo Lens is simple a one page site that you create on any topic you care to write about. And not only can you create your own content, you can add video from YouTube, products from Amazon, feeds from blogs and tons of other types of content, pretty much with the click of a mouse. If you can write an email or fill out an online form, you can create a lens without breaking a sweat.

How do you set one up?
First, go to Squidoo.com and register. Pick a subject and click the Create Your First Lens link and just follow the prompts. You don’t even have to add your own content, you could fill the whole thing with blog feeds and other third-party content. Of course, then you really don’t have much control over keyword density, so you aren’t going to get much optimization out of it. It’s best to go in having something to say. Luckily, you do!

What topics do you write about?
Everything you can think of related to your SoyLuscious® business. Create a lense about you, and about your store. Write one about SoyLuscious® Soy Candles, and Candles of Eden. On Scented Soy candles in general. On each of the “flavors” of candle you sell. On each of the myriad different uses of SoyLuscious® scented candles (romance, decor, aromatherapy, gifts [of all kinds])…let your imagination run. Heck, here’s a lens on what to create lenses about! http://www.squidoo.com/lensbrainstorm

Here is a lens on scented wax melts also known as tarts: http://www.squidoo.com/tarts.  Christie, the owner of this page says if you sign up through this link: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/referral/The_Homeopath and let her know, she will link your individual lens page to hers as a featured lens.

Just don’t forget to create a link to your back to site.

If you took ten minutes and created a link a day, at the end of the year, you’d have 300+ “popular” links back to your main site.

Lenses are a simple way to boost the popularity of your site AND to give your customers some really useful information to help build that relationship we’ve been talking so much about.