A New Use for your Niche Blog
by: Kimberly Dawn wells
Good niche blogs are hard to find. Many people get bored talking about the same thing all the time, even though they know that their readers want to hear it. And they do. A new online tool is helping niche blogs find their place on the web and helping niche blog readers find the best blogs to read.
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 this web-wizardry translate into exciting news for your niche blog?
If you maintain a blog, you are eligible to have it featured on a Squidoo lens! You dont 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!
Niche blogs are always appreciated both by readers and the search engines. However, maintaining them can sometimes be a drag. By using Squidoo to showcase your blog and create a new following, you can stay motivated and give new life to your well-done subjects. Help your blog stand out by associating it with an expertly created lens at Squidoo its free and you can get started today!