In this week’s issue of the  Food-Writing.com ezine, the author wrote a wonderful article about picking your niche within a niche.  (If you enjoy writing about food I highly recommend that you subscribe to this ezine.  Check it out HERE.)

Of course the article speaks specifically about food writing but it got me thinking that the same concept could be used for writing Squidoo lenses on any topic.

The idea is to take your chosen niche topic and narrow it down even further. 

With respect to the article, let’s say FOOD is your chosen niche topic.  Your “niche within a niche” could be PIZZA.  So instead of writing one lens about PIZZA in general, you write many very focused lenses such as, Why You Should Use Whole Wheat PIZZA Dough, Baking Brick Oven PIZZA, Lowfat PIZZA Recipes, Choosing the Best PIZZA Products, Spice Up Your PIZZA, I Could Live On PIZZA, The Best PIZZA Movies, PIZZA Collectibles, etc. etc. etc.

If you carefully choose a niche-within-a-niche-topic that you’re really passionate about, your research time will be next to nothing and you’ll be able to create oodles of outstanding lenses in no time.  You’ll soon become an expert and greatly increase your lens count as well as your Squidoo earning potential. 

Let me point out that the KEY word here is passion.  As a Giant Squid Organizer, I’ve looked at thousands of lenses and what I’ve noticed from each and every lensmaster, Giants and New Squids alike, is that the lenses that were built with passion really stand out.  That’s not to say that a good lens can’t be built on a topic you don’t really care about, but the passionate lenses seem to GLOW with Awesomeness.  The passionate lenses send out invisible tentacles that pull the reader in as they silently demand, “Read me from top to bottom!” 

Don’t believe me?  Take a look at the Top 100 Lists and I bet the majority of the lenses found on each and every one of them was built by someone who truly loved their topic.  

What are you really and truly passionate about?  Grab a piece of paper (You can use that coffee-stained napkin sitting beside your keyboard) and do a little brainstorming.  Quickly write down the things you sincerely love.  Dig deep but do it fast – without any destructive rationalizing. 

Now, looking at your list, choose the one thing you’ve written that you feel you are the most knowledgable of and start building lenses.  It’s that easy!  I guarantee that if you’ve chosen honestly, the ideas will begin to flow furiously and even though those lenses might be some of the fastest you’ve ever built, those lenses will glow with your passion, pull your readers in (as well as the search engines) and quickly grow your Squidoo.com earning potential.

Has this technique already worked for you?  Are you going to try it?  Share your thoughts in the comments section here.