Write Quality Content

Back in the days, when the concepts of SEO and key word research were new, quite a few marketers figured out how to cheat the system without writing quality content. They would find the right key words, follow a set of SEO rules, and write short articles with little useful information but a very obvious link that would send the reader to the site they were promoting. Since they cracked the Google search engine algorithm, their articles would show up  at the top of the search results - exactly where you want to be in order to make money. There are still plenty of people seeing outstanding results because of their ability to meet the market demand by going after the right keywords, but Google has become a lot stricter and is more selective as to who it sends traffic to. At this time, Google wants to see if you have a good following. Are you being informative and engaging the readers, do you have Google +, Facebook, Pinterest, Bloglovin, Twitter followers, do people come back to your site on a regular basis to see what's new? If Google search engine runs into a topic that can be found on a site with little to no reputation and on a site of a blogger who put a lot of effort into building the blog and establishing online presence, chances are that it's the blogger who is going to get the priority spot at the top of the search results. And you really can't argue with that, the blogger did put a lot of time and effort into writing quality content and engaging readers on a regular basis.

If you write for Squidoo, I am sure you know that Squidoo has always been pro unique, useful, updated  - UUU content. But, with the recent updates in Search Engine algorithms, the UUU concept is more important than ever. Squidoo HQ has been stressing out the importance of sharing personal stories and creating "rich" content that only You can produce. Cheating the system no longer works - write quality content, if you want to stay on Squidoo. No wonder that we are hearing this message loud and clear. Squidoo is competing against many established bloggers with a great following. The bloggers attract attention by sharing very personal stories and photos, by being real, and building relationships with their readers. So Squidoo has to stay competitive in order to keep the top spot on the web.

Writing high quality content on a regular basis may be easier said than done. But if you follow these tips on how to Write High Quality Content fast, manage your time wisely, and put a lot of effort into building your presence on Squidoo in your niche, you are very likely to get a good return on time invested.

Update July 19, 2013: got these tips from Ezinearticles by Email and thought they are worth sharing: create quality content in 7 steps.

Return on time invested

Whether you are a full-time blogger, an affiliate marketer, a writer, or if you are simply trying to add a few extra dollars to your income by writing online, remember to ask yourself: am I getting a good return on time invested? I used to ask that question a lot when I was starting out on Squidoo. After almost 3 years of writing online, I am still not completely sure whether I am getting a good return on time invested... But some of that has to do with Time Management. Recently, I have been trying to work on minimizing distractions and increasing productivity. If you are organized, good at managing your time, and articulate, you are more likely to succeed in blogging and writing online.

It is true that some people write on Squidoo just for pleasure, and the money they earn is an extra benefit. But if a good return on time invested and recognition are equally important to you, you may frequently ask yourself: "Am I working towards a fulfilling career or wasting my time?" So how do you measure success? I think it's about making progress - finding a niche, establishing your presence online, building a brand, learning to use Social Media to attract attention to your articles, Squidoo lenses, blog posts... If you have been writing and promoting your work for a while but are not seeing any returns and don't feel like you are making progress, you may either need to regroup and re-access your approach to writing and blogging or consider a different career.

A week ago, I joined this site Bubblews. It was recommended by Potpiegirl, someone I have been following for a little while. I have learnt to be careful about trusting everything affiliate marketers recommend - no offense, but they have to make a living too, and they do sometimes join in on projects and recommend products they are not completely keen on. The site is another place to add to your online presence, build another link to your site or Squidoo profile. You submit short articles with at least 400 characters, view other articles, like, dislike, comment, and watch your bank grow. Looks like they let you include links to other content online, and many people are taking advantage of that. There are quite a few Squidoo lensmasters already writing for Bubblews. The site is already flooded with inspiring stories about people cashing in their fist $25 earnings within a few days. There are hundreds of people literally killing days liking, disliking, connecting, publishing, etc. It may be very much worth it to some people, but it's not going to be a site I will be spending my days at. Although it's good to have an online presence at Bubblews, it is still a very new site that hasn't established authority on the web. I like the concept of writing freely, but I don't feel like I will be getting a good return on the time invested there. Therefore, I will continue to concentrate my efforts on Squidoo and my own blogs, while writing on Bubblews occasionally. On the other hand, for a newbie, Bubblews may be a good place to get started. If the site is a success and you have built up a collection of high quality articles, you may get some good returns later.

Are you getting a good return on time invested? Time waits for no one - awesome video, be sure to click on the link to watch it on YouTube.

Squidoo Tip # 18. Manage your time wisely.

I think that one of the toughest parts of a blogger/ affiliate marketer's job is time management, at least that's what I struggle with the most. When you are your own boss, it's easy to get distracted. You may have plenty of new ideas for a new blog post or a Squidoo lens, but you also feel like there is so much to learn about blogging and making money online, so you read one article that leads to another, and, before you know it, an hour or two have gone by, and you still haven't produced the new content that should make you money. Squidoo is an awesome community, and it's a great place to make connections with other bloggers/ lensmasters, but, once again, it's easy to get carried away and spend most of the day commenting on lenses, participating in the forum, etc. Then, of course, there's Twitter, Facebook, Email, social bookmarking sites, and, hey, you can always do some online shopping, since you are already in front of the computer, checking out these must-have items... Anyone else struggle with time management?

When you work for an established company, there are different departments, and these departments set goals and objectives, and most of the employees usually have a pretty good idea what they have to accomplish in the next day, week, or month. They also have someone they have to report to, and someone who makes sure that distractions and web surfing are cut down to a minimum in order to boost productivity. But when you work for yourself, online, your goals and daily tasks may be somewhat undefined, and the absence of productivity control results in lower productivity. So how do you fix this?

My advice would be to come up with a long-term goal - something you see doable and accomplishable.  For example, you want to boost your Squidoo income by 10 percent. Then figure out what it will take to accomplish that goal. If you are already making $200 with say 30 lenses, then maybe you should aim to build 3 to 6 more high quality lenses in order to make $220 per month. If you want to succeed in blogging, it's a good idea to have a direction and a list of daily/ weekly tasks with set limits on how long it should take you to accomplish each task. Some writers use timers - you set a timer for each task, and once the timer goes off, it's time to move on to the next one. The sense of urgency is a good motivation to help you complete the tasks. I often allow myself to make minor compromises, like taking an hour and a half for a task I wanted to complete in an hour. As long as I check off 75% of my To Do list, I consider it a day well spent.

Do you have Time Management ideas you would like to share? I would love to hear what you guys do to stay on track in your online work. As always, have a productive day!

Update July 18, 2013: Just found this article with 3 Top Tips for getting things done, good advice.

Squidoo tip #17. Keep your lenses fresh, but don't overdo it.

How often should I update my Squidoo lenses? Some Squidoo lensmasters put a lot of effort into updating their lenses on a daily basis. They have come up with great techniques on how to update a dozen lenses in minutes. Although I believe it's important to keep your lenses fresh, I also know you can seriously overdo it. Yes, you may pick up some extra traffic on Squidoo from being moved up in the search results, if a reader uses the "Recently Updated" filter. You can also ping all recently updated lenses in Squidutils. But I recently read that Google may view republishing your posts (lenses) without making any big changes as an attempt to cheat the system, and, therefore, penalize the publisher for it. Also, I would advise against any drastic changes to a lens that gets a steady traffic from Google. A small change may cost you some visitors. A good example is my Best Gifts for 2 year old girls lens that was getting a steady 100 to 150 visitors per day until I made a few changes. The daily traffic dropped to under 50 visitors a day. And, since I didn't backup the lens in any way, I haven't been able to revert the revisions I made earlier.
So what's a good rule for keeping lenses fresh without overdoing it? I think that adding new content frequently is extremely important the first few months after you publish your lens. Add new modules, new links, improve your lens, establish your authority on the topic. By frequently, I don't mean every day. Maybe a couple times a week? Then, once you are seeing good traffic, I think it's a good idea to slow down with the updates and only update lenses a couple times a month. The technique seems to be working for me, but you might see different results if you are working with a different niche. Please do tell me what you think. How often do you update your lenses?

Have a productive day on Squidoo! Happy Tuesday :)

Squidoo Tip #16. Use YouTube videos to promote your Squidoo lenses.

Have you tried using YouTube to promote your Squidoo lenses? I have heard that many people are very successful in driving traffic from YouTube to their websites, so I decided to give it a try. In my newest Squidoo lens How to get rid of fleas on a kitten I featured a YouTube video of my kitten taking a bath in a bathtub. If you click out to watch the video on YouTube, you will also notice that I posted a link to my Squidoo lens in the description of the video. I am happy to see that I already have had a few lens views from the YouTube video, and, as of today, the YouTube video has only had around 30 views. If a video you post goes viral, imagine how many lens views you are going to end up with. Also, it's an extra link to your Squidoo lens, and that's a good thing when it comes to SEO. Here's the Youtube video of Tiger:

Do you have any experience of promoting Squidoo lens with a YouTube video? I would love to hear from you!

Squidoo Tip # 15

Public Domain Image (CCO) from  Pixabay.com

The Squidoo success tip I am sharing today is the best advice I can give new lensmasters who have fewer than 25 lenses. Join RocketSquids! I promise, you won't regret it. The program is designed for new lensmasters who want to learn the basics of Squidoo and get help and advice from experienced lensmasters. Every week, RocketSquids  are given a challenge to create a lens on a certain topic, like "Something I Love". If the lens is submitted by the weekly challenge deadline, it will be featured on RocketSquids bootcamp page. That's when RocketSquid Greeters along with Robin (Community Organizer), Susan (Squidoo Greeter), Kab (RocketSquid Coordinator), and Bonnie (Community organizer and head of the Giant Squid Club) will have an opportunity to visit your lenses and give you suggestions on how to improve them. If you run into any problems or need advice on how to properly credit photos, use HTML in your lenses, or use Squidoo modules, you will be able to ask questions and get answers at RocketSquids forum.

In my opinion, the Bootcamp is the best place to learn "How to Squidoo".  Plus, you get plenty of visits to your lenses, comments, feedback, and you may even get noticed and later featured on Squidoo blog as a new and promising lensmaster with UUU lenses. If you are the type of person who is afraid of commitments due to your overloaded work schedule, no worries. There is no penalty for not turning your lenses in by the deadline. Of course, I wouldn't recommend making it a habit. But if you think you can publish a lens per week at least twice a month, join in!

As always, Happy Squidooing! Please do let me know you stopped by. I will be happy to approve relevant comments with links to quality Squidoo lenses or your blog :)

What happens when you go after super popular key words?

I know it's been forever since the last time I posted, but I am trying to get better about keeping my Squidoo lenses and blogs up to date. There is something that bothering me today, so I figured I will go ahead and share. The topic of today's post - What Happens when you go after super popular Key Words?

So what happens when you go after super popular key words? You get no traffic from Google. NADA... You can bang your head against the wall and jump around in agony, but that's not going to make Google send traffic your way. You may try to build a bunch of backlinks, but, chances are, it is not going to change your situation. I seem to be somewhat grasping the main concepts of SEO and affiliate marketing, but I am making the same mistake over and over again. Here's my latest result of ignoring SEO rules: Best Valentine's Day gifts for Her. Here's how my thinking works. I really like the topic. I can come up with some really good gift ideas. I am going to make a really good lens, and women are going to want to share it with their boyfriends and husbands to give them some hints on what they want for Valentine's Day. Well, guess what, great strategy, BUT I am forgetting that RedEnvelope, AskMen, MensHealth, Esquire, and a whole bunch of other well-established and popular websites with great traffic also think that "Valentine's Day Gifts for Her" is a great topic to post about. So what do I get after several days of picking out gifts on Amazon and putting the lens together, and then promoting it in several different ways? I get a lens that is not recognized by Google in any way and that's nowhere to be found in Google Search Results. Nice, right? About time I should learn my lesson. Wish me good luck! Too often I act on the spur of the moment, and Google does not like that...

Squidoo Tip # 14. Take Breaks from Computer Work

As an active Squidoo Lensmaster, I often feel guilty for taking breaks from computer work. There's always so much to do on Squidoo - build new lenses, add content to the old ones, stop by and comment on lenses by other Squidoo lensmasters, participate on the Squidu forum... And the list goes on and on... I also run an Etsy store, and it certainly takes up a good part of my day. Well, this year, I decided to take a long Holiday break from Squidoo and only logged into my account every other day to refresh a lens or two. Although it wasn't a complete break, it certainly felt like a vacation to me, when compared to the 20+ hours I usually spend on Squidoo weekly. Christmas is a Holiday I cherish - it is time for family and friends. So this year I took my time to do plenty of Holiday Shopping, Decorating, Baking, and Fun Activities with those Dear to me.

If you are self-employed, like I am, there are no paid Holidays and no paid vacation time. You are in complete control of your schedule, but the downside is that taking time off may cost you... At the same time, I am very convinced that taking breaks from computer work helps me get back to reality and then later achieve greater success. Too much time in front of a computer leads to stress and fatigue and affects productivity. Although I did feel like I should have put more effort on Squidoo over the last few weeks, I am happy that I took my 3 week break from computer work and can now get back to it with more energy. My Christmas Break is now officially over. New Year is right around the corner, and now is a good time to set some new goals and come up with a plan to accomplish them.

Hope you all had a great Christmas! I sure did :)

Is it wrong to build Squidoo Sales lenses?

       Is it wrong to build Squidoo Sales Lenses? In my opinion, No. But I have seen some posts by other Squidoo lensmasters who were very negative about Squidoo Sales lenses. They suggest that sales lenses have low quality content that diminishes the quality of Squidoo. Is it right to have nothing but Sales Lenses on Squidoo? Probably not. I suggest that you do have several well-researched high-quality Squidoo articles along with your Sales lenses. The reason why Squidoo lenses rank well in the Search Engines is that Squidoo provides quality content on a variety of topics. And since being part of the Squidoo community is important to lensmasters' success on Squidoo, you do want to contribute to overall Squidoo success. At the same time, I believe that there are two types of Squidoo Sales Lenses - lenses that don't benefit the reader in any way and are made with the sole purpose of making Sales and lenses that solve readers' problems and help them in the decision making process.
     I personally put a lot of effort into making my Squidoo Sales lenses the perfect solution for the reader's query. You may be surprised to find out that I have already spent 7 hours of planning and research on my newest lens Best Toys for 2 year old Girls. From coming up with the idea and brainstorming, to researching the topic, applying personal experience, and reading customer reviews of individual products, it takes time to come up with a solution of the reader's query. My goal is to help Parents, Grandparents, Family Members, or Friends to help pick out the perfect gift, and if I don't succeed in my efforts, I will not get any visitors from Google. Every one of my Sales lenses takes a lot of time and effort, and plenty of continuos improvements and frequent updates.
    Do Sales Lenses diminish the quality of Squidoo? Some lenses do, I agree. But there are also other lenses that offer solutions to reader's problems or point readers in the right direction to where the solution may be found. Sales Lenses also contribute to the Squidoo Ad Pool. For example, my top performing lens Top Christmas Gifts for Girls 2011 gets 5+ Google Ad clickouts per day, making Squidoo $5-$10 or more per day in Google Adsense revenue. So to sum it all up, in my opinion, both, Squidoo lensmasters and Squidoo, benefit from Sales lenses, but it's also important to contribute well-researched quality articles to contribute to Squidoo overall success.

     November 6, 2012 Update: My newest addition: Best Toys for 1 year old Girls has already taken me over 30 hours of research, planning, and content updates. However, it will be the perfect go-to place for anyone looking for the perfect gift for 1 year old baby girls - since I have already picked out the age-appropriate educational toys, narrowed down the choices to the best toys available on the market in 2012, and broke them down into categories to make the selection easier.

Squidoo Tip #13. Own Your Topic on Google

When it comes to getting a permanent spot on the 1st page of Google, Expertise is your key to Success. A combination of Squidoo's high PR (Search Engine popularity) and Topic Expertise is a perfect recipe for owning your Topic on Google. What do I mean by "Own Your Topic on Google"? Make your Squidoo Lens the best resource on your topic available online. If you are sharing "best mac & cheese" recipes, make sure that you have the best collection of  mac & cheese recipes available online. It is great to have 50-100 or more lenses on Squidoo, but it is even better to have 25 well-researched lenses that can answer just about any question about the topic. Google likes aged content - webpages that have been around for a while and have been getting content updates on a regular basis. Don't stop adding content to your lens after you publish it. Add relevant information at least a couple times per month, and you have a good shot at getting Google's attention. Learn everything you can about your niche and the topics you choose to cover, and you will be well on your way to making a steady monthly income on Squidoo.

The Katie Colette Daily

This is just too cool - you can make your own paper from Tweets or Facebook posts!

Make Money with Squidoo. Squidoo Tip #12.



Make Money with Squidoo

Squidoo Affiliate Marketing Tip
If you are new to Squidoo and are not familiar with internet marketing, this information may be helpful: Affiliate Marketing. But basically, affiliate marketers help consumers find goods and services that may be beneficial to the consumers. Many companies have affiliate programs. They provide links to affiliates and pay commissions (typically 4-10%, but may be as much as 75%) for every sale completed through the link. Companies may also provide you with banners, photos of products, and products feed. Squidoo participates in Amazon, Ebay, and Zazzle affiliate programs. When you sell an item using Squidoo affiliate modules, Squidoo gets commissions and then splits the commissions with you.

So what is my Squidoo affiliate marketing tip? 3 days ago I got a $105 check from an affiliate network I registered for several months ago. It was a very unexpected surprise and it made my day. I made only 1 Sale through a banner I placed on one of my Squidoo lenses. $105 for only 1 Sale! So my tip is not to limit yourself to affiliate programs available through Squidoo. My suggestion is to sign up with Several Affiliate networks by providing your Squidoo lensmaster account as your web address, and if you have a website or a blog too, make sure to mention it as well. Affiliate networks are great because you don't have to sign up with every merchant. Instead, you have an independent company track your sales and combine all commissions you get into one check. You get an opportunity to become an affiliate for Target.com, Walmart.com, Kmart.com, GoDaddy.com, and thousands of other sites. You get excellent photos for your Squidoo lenses and are able to give your readers more product options. Here are the Affiliate Networks I recommend:

1) LinkShare
2) Shareasale
3) Google Affiliate Network

I don't like to recommend Clickbank - although many of the Clickbank products offer the most competitive commissions, there are also plenty of spammy products that can trigger Squidoo spam filter and even get your lens locked. There is one product I would recommend to all Squidoo lensmasters - One Week Marketing (great tips from potpiegirl).

Squidoo Tip #11. Build Sales lenses.

There are two ways to make money on Squidoo. You may choose to build Sales lenses and make money with affiliate programs or you can build lenses around a "hot topic" (topic in demand) and make money by attracting visitors to Squidoo site (get paid for Tier 1, 2, and 3 lenses by Squidoo). If you sell Amazon and Ebay items through Squidoo Amazon and Ebay Modules (vs. Affiliate links to sites), you will most likely get nice Top Tier payouts from Squidoo plus your share of Affiliate commissions.


"Hot Topic Lenses"
 Coloring Pages lenses perform very well on Squidoo. They generate a lot of clickouts, including clickouts to Coloring pages websites and Google Ads. The lenses bring in a lot of Google traffic and get high Squidoo rankings even if affiliate sales are low. "Smurfs coloring pages", "Cars coloring pages", "Tinker Bell coloring pages", etc. are built around "hot topics" in demand.


"Sales Lenses"
On the other hand, there are Sales lenses. They are built for consumers ready to make a purchase who need a little help picking out the right item. The lensmasters who build lenses for the consumers (I will repeat myself here) ready to make a purchase are the lensmasters who make money on Squidoo. Let's take my Zippered Pouch Tutorial lens. Although it's informative, it's not a very good Sales lens. People searching for the tutorial are probably not exactly in the "make a purchase" mood. They may click on the Amazon or Ebay items I suggest, but will most likely leave without making a purchase. On the other hand, my Vintage Buttons Wholesale lens is very much geared towards the buyer looking for a good place to buy vintage buttons wholesale. My lens showcases various types of vintage buttons, and since Ebay is one of the best places to buy vintage buttons, I am likely to sell some Ebay items through my lens. Another example of a Sales lens - Dora Gifts for Toddler Girls that showcases Dora the Explorer products.


Comments? Questions? Do you have good Sales lenses? Would love to hear from you :)

Squidoo Tip #10. Be Social...

Is it possible to make money on Squidoo without being social? Experienced Internet marketers do it all the time. I have seen 1st and 2nd Tier lenses that hadn't been updated in 1-2 years bring in enough Google traffic to keep them at their high-ranking positions. The lensmasters are often busy working on other projects and no longer active in Squidoo community.

But if you are just starting out on Squidoo, I strongly suggest that you do spend some time reading and commenting on other Lensmasters' lenses and participating in Squidoo forum (Squidu). You are guaranteed to meet some great people who will make suggestions on how to improve your lenses, give you advice on how to bring in more traffic, and squidlike some of your Squidoo creations. I believe that traffic and clickouts are the two most important stats when it comes to lens rankings. However, if you are a newbie, Squidoo internal traffic, Squidlikes, and Squidoo Angel blessings can make the difference between Tier 3 and Tier 4 lenses (making a few cents and realising the potential of Squidoo and not making money at all).

There are quite a few Lensmasters that supported me in many ways and gave me advice when I first started out. Tipi, LisaAuch, Darcie, Liz, TeamSTM, AJ, and many other Squidoo Lensmasters supported my lenses by Squidliking, commenting, blessing, bookmarking my lenses, sharing them on Twitter and Facebook, and giving me advice.

If you are a Squidoo newbie and are looking for ways to increase traffic to your lenses, I strongly suggest that you become an active part of Squidoo community. You will get a lot in return.

Daily Squidoo Tips: My First Tier 1 Lens

This is a link to a post at a new blog I follow by Squidoo Lensmaster Tilen Hrovatic Daily Squidoo Tips: My First Tier 1 Lens: "My hard work and a lot of coffee finally took me somewhere on Squidoo. By following tips from some succesful lensmasters and building a netw..."

Also, please check out Lisa Auch's new post: Understanding SEO Free - what a find, Lisa :)

Squidoo Tip # 9. Blog to make more money on Squidoo.

Have you realized that most of the people who make decent monthly incomes on Squidoo usually have blogs? Wordpress blogs, Blogger blogs, TypePad blogs, etc... Blogging is really not that hard to get into. Blogger is one of the easiest blogging platforms to work with, and if you have published a lens or 2 on Squidoo, there's no reason why you should wait any longer to start a blog. Although Wordpress blogs are more SEO friendly, Google loves its Blogging creation, so Blogger makes a great choice for anyone interested in getting into blogging. I personally work with both, Blogger and Wordpress.

So why blog to make more money on Squidoo? Several reasons. First of all, valuable backlinks. My Blogger blogs are  Do Follow and by creating links to my relevant lenses in my posts, I create quality backlinks. I also allow and encourage backlinks to other Squidoo lenses in comments (by the way, if you have any problems posting comments with your Google account - make sure that the "stay signed in" box is not checked when you login - Blogger has been having some minor issues with Google accounts comments). The backlinks give you additional advantage over lenses with no backlinks or backlinks from Squidu forum only, so it helps your lenses rank better. As your blog becomes more popular, the value of your links increases.

Also as you can see, in the left sidebar, I created permanent links to my Squidoo lenses and Associated content articles. That's another way that you can get more views for your Squidoo lenses. When it comes to making more money on Squidoo, every visitor counts! And by promoting your blog, you are also promoting several lenses at once, saving yourself plenty of time for creating new lenses.

Finally, as an additonal benefit, you can add Google Adsense to your blog and learn how to Make Money with Adsense and Blogger. If you do decide to apply for an Adsense publisher ID, make sure you have had your blog for at least a couple weeks and have posted at least 7-10 quality posts. Also, before you start displaying Adsense on your blog, read carefully over all the Dos and Don'ts and add a Privacy policy to your blog!

Hope you had a Happy July payday! Would love to hear how you are doing on Squidoo :) Please feel free to comment!

Squidoo Tip #8 - Publish Seasonal Lenses to make money on Squidoo.

Have you started working on your seasonal SQUIDOO lenses? From last year, I remember how many Tier 1 and Tier 2 lenses dropped down in their rankings to make room for seasonal lenses that were getting high Google traffic. It may seem silly to start thinking about Christmas in July, but if you are really serious about making money on Squidoo, now is the time to invest some effort into building Halloween and Christmas Sales lenses - think costumes, decorations, and gifts. Last week I started seeing some unexpected Google traffic to my Tier 4 Top Christmas Toys for Girls Lens (today the lens is already ranked at 14,804). The Christmas gifts Lens performed really well back in October, November, and December. I got Tier 2 lens Earnings and affiliate commissions for 3 months in a row. It was definitely a great achievement for a newbie :)
Do you have a Seasonal lens you are working on? Please feel free to comment on the post and include a link to your Christmas or Halloween lens. Hope you are doing well on Squidoo. I can't wait for the July 2011 Squidoo Earnings!

Squidoo Tip #7 - Increase Clickouts to make more money on Squidoo.

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Squidoo uses the number of Clickouts as one of the parameters in determining your Squidoo Lens rank. Why are they so important? When visitors land on your Squidoo page, they are looking for answers and solutions. And it is your goal to give them the information that is relevant to their searches. Ideally, you want the visitor to spend at least a few minutes reading over your lens and then send them on to a different page - it may be a product you are promoting, or a site that may be interesting to your reader, or maybe one of your lenses on a related topic (hey, a clickout and an extra lens view - can't get much better then that, unless you are trying to make a sale, of course...)

The last thing you want to happen is for the visitor to glance over your lens and click back to other Google Search results. Click backs will have a negative impact on your lens' Google rankings. Google lets your readers decide on the relevance of your lens' contents to the keywords used throughout the lens. By Generating Clickouts, you optimize your Squidoo lens for Search Engines. It is a great way to send a reader on to a different site and keep them from clicking the "Go Back" button. Clickouts will give you a better Google Search placement and will help your lenses make it into the Tier 1 and 2.

In my Squidoo Earnings Diary, I feature my top performing lenses, give links to my blog, link to articles that may be interesting to other Squidoo lensmasters, and feature Amazon products. If someone clicks on a Google Adwords ad, Squidoo will also count that as a valuable Clickout. I also like to take advantage of the Google Search Module to help my readers find useful information on relevant topics.

As always, I hope you are making money on Squidoo. I would like to hear from you - would you like to share your Squidoo SEO tips?

Squidoo Tip #6 - Update Squidoo lens tags to make more money on Squidoo

Have you updated your Squidoo lens tags lately? Tags are an important Squidoo tool that helps Squidoo identify similar lenses and suggest them to Squidoo readers. Google traffic is very important, but you can't ignore the opportunity to attract a few extra readers from direct Squidoo traffic. Let's take my First Dance Wedding Songs lens. There are quite a few Wedding lenses on Squidoo, like for example this Best Mother-Son Dance Songs lens by rms that today reached the overall Squidoo ranking #1. There are thousands of brides and grooms who turn to Google for help with their wedding planning. They land on a Squidoo page that may or may not answer the question they have. Then they see Squidoo Lens suggestions in the sidebar and click on another lens they may be interested in. Or they click on a tag in the Tag Cloud and find a list of Lenses that cover the topic. How do you get Squidoo to suggest your lens to the reader? By selecting the right tags. This Squidoo Tags SEO lens by Squidoohelp is a great reference guide for using Squidoo tags to optimize your lens' findability within Squidoo. What can you do today to get more Squidoo lens views? I suggest you find a couple well-ranked Squidoo lenses in your niche and get some tag ideas for your lens. Find the best tags for your lens and make sure that your primary lens reflects your main topic. The more similar your lens tags are to another lens' tags, the better are the chances of your lens showing up in the sidebar. If you have several Squidoo lenses on the topic, I suggest you make your lens tags similar and add your lensmaster name to all lenses as a tag - to get Squidoo to suggest your own lenses.

Do you have Squidoo Tags SEO tips you would like to share? I would love to hear from you! June 2011 Squidoo payday is coming soon - hope you make some money!

Squidoo is a waste of time...

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today I ran into an article about Squidoo being a waste of time. That's exactly how I felt after my first couple months on Squidoo. $0.25 for hours of work seemed unfair and seeing little to no lens traffic was simply depressing. I can totally see how some people can feel that Squidoo is a waste of time. But I also know of several lensmasters that have 15-30 Tier 1 lenses, along with 25-50 Tier 2 lenses, and hundreds of Tier 3 Squidoo lenses. They get $500-$1000+ from Squidoo per month along with affiliate commissions from Ebay, Amazon, Zazzle, LinkShare, ShareASale, Commission Junction, and Clickbank. Squidoo can certainly be a waste of time, but for the lensmasters who have figured  out the "magic formula", Squidoo is a nice source of income.

As of today, I have three lenses in Tier 1, two lenses in Tier 2, two lenses that keep on jumping between Tiers 2 and 3, and ten Tier 3 lenses. If I was to get a paycheck from Squidoo today, I could probably count on around $100 plus a couple dollars in affiliate commissions for my Amazon and Ebay Sales. $100 per month in Squidoo Earnings is certainly better than 25 cents. Would I say it's a good compensation for the time I spend on Squidoo? It will be, if I manage to keep the traffic to my top lenses steady for several months while also building new lenses. Squidoo lenses are also a valuable tool in promoting my Etsy store, so I always remember about the money I save on blog advertising by publishing my own articles.

How do you feel about Squidoo? Are you wasting your time? or do you think that your hard work will pay off in the future? As always, comments are welcome!