Squid-what? Okay, I admit, it’s a crazy name—but the sound marketing concept behind Squidoo can’t be argued.  And with Squidoo building itself as an authority on the web it is another cool place to promote your online brand.

Launched in 2005, Squidoo.com is a web 2.0 website that specializes in hosting personal web pages for anyone who has 10 minutes to build one. Instead of referring to them as plain old “web pages,” though, Squidoo has dubbed them “lenses,” as each one focuses on a particular topic or idea. 

Anyone can create a lens, for any reason. Whether you want to share your opinion on the latest Jodi Picoult novel or air your grievances against the electric company, Squidoo gives you a quick and easy venue for getting your message out to the masses. And it’s so easy, even your grandmother can do it.

Squidoo lenses are ridiculously simple to set up, requiring absolutely no technical knowledge or programming experience.  And best of all, Squidoo offers easy add ins for bringing the Web 2.0 world together on your lens.  With a few click you can easily add youtube videos, Flicker photos, polling surveys, google blog searches, RSS and much more to your lens.

In addition to providing a virtual soapbox, Squidoo can also serve as a highly effective and risk-free marketing tool for your online. Below, I have compiled the top 9 reasons you should create a lens to help give your online business a boost:

1. To increase traffic to your site. Squidoo lenses can include inbound links to your website, boosting your site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines and increasing your overall link popularity. Plus, the lenses themselves are indexed by search engines, so your personal page can achieve a high ranking with strategic keyword placement.  Get a few links to your Squidoo lens and you can easily get your lens to rank in the organic search results for moderately competitive keywords.

2. To save money on advertising. Unlike costly print ads and direct mail campaigns, creating a personal Squidoo page won’t cost you a dime, ensuring your ROI will never dip below zero.  It takes about 10 minutes to build a Squidoo lens and you can really boost your credibility and brand yourself as an expert in your industry.

3. To highlight multiple aspects of your business. You can create as few or as many lenses as you want. It’s possible to have hundreds of different lenses focusing on different components of your business, all driving traffic back to your website. For instance, if you sell various models of barbecue, you can create a lens highlighting each model or model line.

4. To piggyback on other Squidoo pages. When your lens is nestled among hundreds of thousands of other interesting lenses, it’s more likely to benefit from the traffic generated by those neighboring pages. It’s the same concept as two houses for sale on the same street—there’s bound to be some overflow from prospective buyers who visited the other property first.

5. To generate royalties. It’s up to you whether you receive them as cash or roll them over into your favorite charity but you can get paid for your lens. Squidoo is widely renowned as a quickly growing fundraising mechanism.

6. To sell stuff. A great way to get your feet wet in the e-commerce arena, Squidoo lets you sell items from Ebay and Amazon and earn royalties from each sale.  It also lets you have direct affiliate links to any of the affiliate programs you endorse.

7. To conduct surveys for your business. Squidoo pages are a great way to gauge consumer attitudes and reactions to new products and services.  The Squidoo polling feature is really easy to set up and put you on the fast track to surveying your customers.

8. To test new branding strategies. If you’re considering a website redesign or company logo change, a Squidoo page lets you first gauge reactions to it before pulling the trigger.

9. To interact with potential consumers. Visitors to your lens can add their comments, links, and reactions. Every time an update is made, it makes your lens that much more appealing and relevant to search engines.

If you’re still on the fence about Squidoo, we’ve got just one question: what do you have to lose? It’s free and easy—two of the most desirable qualities in the arena of Internet marketing.  I highly recommend it!