Promoting your Squidoo Lenses Through your Blog

How to get more readers and more notice by blogging about your lenses.

By Kimberly Dawn Wells, Internet Entrepreneur, Kimberly Dawn Wells

In the last few years, as blogs have grown from new to popular to mainstream, the number of ways websurfers can find and follow their favorite topics has skyrocketed. Not only can readers on the other side of the world learn about your new job, your sick cat, and the last book you read, they can learn about your Squidoo lenses.

Why is blogging about your Squidoo lenses such a great way to promote them?

Readers love blogs because they have personality, so they're more likely to be read regularly.
Hundreds of websites are dedicated to finding, organizing, and promoting blogs. This translates to hundreds of websites dedicated to doing the same for your lenses.
Many of these systems can be set up to automatically notify and remind readers each time you post. It's relevant and in their face.
Systems like Google Alerts allow users to be automatically notified of new links to news stories and blogs that match their keywords. Again, relevant.
"If you build it they will come" doesn't apply to the internet. Talking about yourself will encourage others to talk about you, promote you, and help you get found.

Now that you have a few great reasons to start a blog to promote your lenses, let's learn how.

Set up a blog

You can get a free blog through dozens of blogging service providers, a few of which are listed below. When you're feeling up to it, you can even get a domain name to point to your blog.
Try: If you're totally new to blogging, test the waters with Blogger.com. If you're a blogging veteran, you may appreciate the advanced features WordPress has to offer.

Commit to posting regularly

The best blogs are those that are maintained over time. Even if you only post every few days, over time that adds up to a lot of information.
Try: Post important events, such as publishing a new lens, and updates every other day inbetween.

Create a Squidoo lens

If you don't already have a lens, you can get started in just a few minutes at Squidoo.com. While starting a lens takes only a few minutes, properly polishing it is an ongoing process. Several learning links are listed below, but there's no better time to get started!
Try: Use SquidWho.com to create your very first lens...on yourself!

Promote your blog using Squidoo lenses

Weren't we just talking about the opposite? Yes, and it goes both ways. Create a lens about your blog, and add text lists, link lists, and money-making modules such as Amazon and CafePress to promote your interests.
Try: Johann the Dog has his own lens, which promotes many of his wares, including his blog. This is just one idea for expanding upon your blog to promote other things you're involved in. http://www.squidoo.com/johann

Get involved in Squidoo, learn more, create more

Once you get past basic lens design, there are a ton of great new things to learn about how Squidoo works and works for you.
Try: Check the links below for several excellent resources for learning more about Squidoo.

Register your blog

There are hundreds of websites designed to track, tag, and promote your blog. Sign up for a few you think will be best for you based on what they offer and the time you have to maintain your listings.
Try: This Squidoo group on blogging resources has some great lenses on promoting your blog: http://www.squidoo.com/groups/blogging/lenses