Welcome to the first day of the ‘Squidoo for CHD’ challenge.

Today, you will:

* Open your account with Squidoo
* Research keywords for your lens
* Plan your content sources
* Learn the basics of building a Squidoo lens

Ready to begin?

Great.

We’ll start with keyword research before opening a new Squidoo account. That way, you’ll be able to choose a user name and biographical description that fits your niche or brand better.

Step 1: Set your sights on your target - a.k.a. ‘Pick Your Keywords’

Getting good ranking on search engines, which translate into a lot of traffic, is a ‘words game’. You pick the keywords to go after - and get ranked for them.

You want to go after keywords that are NOT very highly competitive. More than 50% of all searches on Google are for keywords and phrases that people look for ONLY ONCE IN A DAY.

This is in contrast to the popular ‘top keyword’ lists which show up on searches several hundred or thousand times daily. And targeting this ‘long tail’ of keywords is a smart strategy, because competition at the fringes is so little.

Take advantage of the ‘long tail’ with your lens! Aim for keywords with less than 500,000 results on Google. You could try this with more competitive keywords too, but it may take a bit longer to see results.

Research until you’ve found 5 to 6 words/themes that are all related or interlinked to the topic of your Squidoo lens. Try and make sure that one is a 3-word (or longer) phrase, one is a 2-word phrase and the rest may be single words.

There are many tools you can use to carry out your niche research. Some helpful ones are:

Nichebot - http://www.nichebot.com
Google Adwords Keyword Tool - http://adwords.google.com
Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool - http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Here’s a good sample list from one of my Squidoo lens projects:

1-word keyword: infoproduct (105,000 results)
2-word keyword: sell infoproducts (44,000 results)
3-word keyword: create and sell infoproducts (215,000 results)

Step 2: Open Your Squidoo Account

Sign up for your own Squidoo account at: http://www.Squidoo.com

You will be asked to pick your username. It helps if that is also related to your theme or niche, and contains your most important keyword(s) or your brand or business name.

Don’t build your first lens just yet, we’ll get into that tomorrow. However, you can pick the title/name of your first lens by typing one of the 5 keywords you chose in Step #1.

You may find the exact title that you want is not available. Try variations. Or additions - e.g. if you don’t get ‘trafficsecrets’, go for ‘trafficsecretsreviews’ or ‘trafficsecretsanalyzed’ or ‘trafficsecretsopinions’

Make sure you do not infringe on any trademarks, or you will be forced to surrender your lens after working hard to popularize it.

Remember to add ‘TAGS’ that label your lens, and include your top keywords in these boxes.

Step 3: Plan your content sources

Your content sets your Squidoo lens apart from anyone else’s.

Plan it carefully and well. Think about this as a project where you are building an ‘authority site’ in your niche. Squidoo has staying power. Chances are the work you do today will pay rich dividends a few months or years from now - and keep doing so for many more.

Also, if you mess up and create a low value lens, you will miss out on the most popular form of marketing - viral pass-along. People will refer others to your lens ONLY IF you provide overwhelming value through your content.

Decide if you will be writing fresh content by yourself, or outsourcing it to professional writers, or using modified versions of content you own/buy rights to. Do not even consider copying content from other places on the Web and pasting it into your lens. Of course, you can study them and create modified versions tailored to your needs.

While planning your content sources, also keep in mind that Squidoo lenses can be refreshed periodically, updated and expanded. So make plans for content updates even before you start.

Step 4: Learn Squidoo basics

There are some excellent tutorials on Squidoo itself - you can find them at:

Squidoo FAQ: http://www.squidoo.com/pages/faq

SquidU: http://www.squidu.com/

Do Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/dosquidoo

That’s all for today. Tomorrow, you’ll begin building your first lens.

The “CHD Social Media Challenge” is a project to spread Congenital Heart Defects awareness. There are 4 mini-tutorials and 1 firesale making up the ‘challenge’. You can join in and help too - click here to see how.