'Squidoo' is one of the buzzwords of modern SEO, and it's regarded as one of the more revolutionary trends in Internet marketing today. It has so far influenced changes in the way people do promotions and marketing online, and could be one of your best tools for establishing a reputation on the WWW. Here's a quick guide to using and manipulating the most fundamental tool on Squidoo - the lens.

What Is a Squidoo Lens?

Lenses are the basic component of the entire Squidoo website. Each lens is a small page full of facts, information and other content that you want to put into it. Think of each lens as your own little blog or personal website, except that it's dedicated to just a single specific topic. Whether that topic is German Shepherds or iPhone applications is up to you.

From plain text to videos and graphic presentations, virtually anything can be placed in your Squidoo lens. That kind of flexibility is one of the best things about Squidoo. You have freedom not just with the topics of your content, but also on the kind of content you upload as well.

Now, the Squidoo website in its entirety is made up of hundreds of thousands, even millions of these lenses, each and every one made by users. This was the kind of Web 2.0 that Squidoo founder Seth Godin envisioned when he debuted his site back in 2005. Even he didn't fully realize the kind of potential Web 2.0 could have for your business online.

How to Make Squidoo Lenses

Squidoo lens creation is as easy as can be; that's probably why millions have already been created and thousands are added everyday. And although there are numerous Squidoo lens creation services online, it's possible to make your own from scratch. All you'd have to do is go to the Squidoo homepage, click on the most prominent button in sight and then follow the simple instructions.

Each step of the way has clear illustrations and very straightforward instructions, so you can't go wrong. Even the initial content input has some guide questions so that you set yourself up with a content-containing page as soon as you're done.

Just creating a lens, however, is very different from making one that's actually effective in promoting your company and generating traffic. Even if you could easily make your own lenses in a minute, it's still a good idea for you to pay for a Squidoo lens service. Sure, it'll be extra time and overhead cost. In the end, though, your lenses on Squidoo will convert so much better because of the industry expertise that you paid for.

Squidoo is currently one of the most popular (and effective) Internet marketing tools around. Understanding the lenses and how they're used properly will be critical if you want to make the most of this free new resource provided by Web 2.0. While just making any old lens is easy, creating an effective and attractive page most definitely isn't.