Article Surfing Archive

When I first truly learned about what blogs were and how I could use them to promote myself as an author, I was incredibly excited. I set out creating blogs on everything I could think of. You know what I mean ' you may have even done the same. Of course now, the novelty has worn off, and sometimes blogging is just a chore. Luckily, there is a new reason to be excited about blogs.

Squidoo is an online community of sorts that provides its members, called lensmasters, with web-authoring tools that make it simple and pleasant to create niche websites, called lenses, on topics for which they have an interest or are an expert. Each lens is then ranked according to several factors (traffic, content, ratings) and can be accessed through a search feature or tag clouds, which are groups of relevant keywords that show you by the size of the font how popular they are (truly a fascinating feature!).

When you create a lens on Squidoo, you add pre-formatted modules. Each of these modules is designed to allow you to do something different, whether that be create a bulleted list, write copy and add a picture, insert a video clip from YouTube, or sell items you have created on CafePress. One of the modules is an automatically updating RSS feed. It pulls posts from a chosen blog and displays them in the lens. All of these features allow lensmasters to create highly niche mini-sites that draw visitors for very specific reasons.

How does all of this web-wizardry translate into a rejuvenated joy for blogging?

If you maintain a blog, you are eligible to have it featured on a Squidoo lens! You don't even have to maintain the lens yourself. If someone else has a lens that relates to the topic of your blog, you can contact them and offer your RSS feed. As long as your blog meets their expectations of quality, most lensmasters are happy to oblige, since it could mean a better LensRank and higher commissions for them. Or, of course, you can create your own FREE Squidoo lens and see what happens!

Blogs are here to stay, and as time goes by it will only get harder to find new things to blog about that are interesting to your readers. Help your blog stand out by associating it with an expertly created lens at Squidoo.