Make Money Online

Squidoo Bucks or Squidoo Sucks?

Squidoo, a way manypeople use to make money online in case you don't know is the brainchild of Seth Godin, founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry's "leading interactive direct marketing company" which was acquired by Yahoo in late 1998.

He has an MBA from Stanford, and was named "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week.

According to the Squidoo site "Squidoo is the world's most popular site for people who want to build a page about their passions. Highlight books, blogs, vids, online shops, or just spread the word about stuff you love (stuff you love? how do these 'people' know what stuff you love? - I hate sloppy English - Ed.). Bonus: you raise money (for you or charity) at the same time! It's fast, free, and supereasy."

Squidoo has what they call 'lenses' but what everyone else calls 'pages'. You sign up to Squidoo (free) and make yourself a page using their modules. Each page you create acts as an advertising/marketing space for you to sell stuff which belongs to other people (e.g. Ebay listings). You get a commission if a sale is completed as a result of the referral from your link. There are also Adsense ads. and you get a share of the total Adsense commissions.

I signed up a long time ago, but found the whole site so slow and clunky I decided it wasn't for me. Recently however I read a post on Andy Beard's blog which made me have second thoughts. So I went backto Squidoo (and discovered I had made 44 cents in my absence!) and made myself a couple more pages (sorry 'lenses'). I have since been eagerly awaiting for something to happen, unfortunately I think I must have been shunted off into some backend of cyberspace on Squidoo as there are precious few visitors (6 in total I think) and no clicks on anything.

My ranking has improved, however, my Louis Vuitton page Squidoo Designer Labels is now number 1842 in 'shopping' and my Franck Muller page Squidoo Franck Muller USA is no. 4004 also in 'shopping'.

I have also done some research and discovered that some people think that 'Squidoo sucks', one such person even created his own Squidoo page to let everyone know - Squidoo Sucks - and even Michael Arrington of Techcrunch is fairly negative on the whole ventureSo, as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out, I'll give it a few more days to see if there is any change, and to decide whether it is worth investing any more time in it. Maybe you have to wait a while for the surge to happen? Certainly there are people who report positive experiences with Squidoo, but mine so far has been uninspiring to say the least.

If you visit my Squidoo pages the extra visits may improve my page rankings! And if you click on 'favorite' that would probably send them even higher!

If any of my esteemed readers has had any experience of Squidoo I would be most glad to hear of them and any tips they may have. Have a nice day !

Tags:
squidoo bucks squidoo sucks seth godin techcrunch michael arrington louis vuitton franck muller

4 comments:

sethgodinJun 26, 2007 09:03 AM
Thanks for giving it another try. I fear, though, that you're missing the point. Just as a blog doesn't get you traffic or cash without effort, a Squidoo page (sure, you can call em pages if you want, we don't mind) doesn't work without promotion. There are plenty of people who are earning hundreds of dollars a month, or even better, donating it to charity.

PS Your link to Arrington is more than 15 months old.
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The Old VicJun 26, 2007 09:28 AM
Hi,
Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. I understand that it won't work without promotion, it's just that it's not clear where it should be promoted nor what form the promotion should take? Promoting it at the moment for me would be to promote the possibility rather than the reality. Some people say it works, some people say it doesn't. My two new pages have only been up a couple of days and so far there has been very little activity. The tone of my post is slightly negative because of other posts I read, some of which are actually on Squidoo itself. Yes Michael Arrington's post is old, perhaps he'll drop by to leave an update. The post was of course also deliberately provocative, in order to encourage people to have a look and to leave comments. But my question is genuine, I would really like people to leave comments about their own experiences with Squidoo. I was convinced by the Ebook I read on Andy Beard's blog, but so far have seen little evidence of any results on my own pages. So the post was also a means for me of trying to get feedback from other users. Hopefully I will be able to write another post in the not too distant future with a more positive tone.
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Julie ZbeetnoffSep 17, 2007 09:29 PM
Hi Vic;

I am a new Squidoo-er. I put up a squidoo lens months ago not really sure how the whole system worked and like you read an e-book that piqued my interest. Basically the concept is that you test a bunch of different niches and wait around to see if any attract any interest. Then if this happens you develop that particular niche. When I first started out I was creating pages about traffic generation for affiliate links as that is my specialty and I was mainly concerned about promoting my blog. Now I am thinking I would like to make a little cash so I am trying out some niches. One is Plus Sized Clothing for teens. Another is tips on packing a suitcase for your vacation.

In the past few weeks I've made 10 cents from the co-op another 1.71 from a book or something.

I am not sure how these others are drawing in hundreds but I did see some pretty spiffy sites in the top 100. I can also tell these sites took a lot of effort and were not put up in the predicted 8 minutes.

I plan to hang out there. See what others are doing and saying. Look at the top lenses and try to learn from example.

What I would really like to know is how much these top sites are actually earning? So much promise of bucks out there on the net but I find myself still slaving away for peanuts.

Some day I hope to get that break that they all speak of.

Be sure to keep us posted of your Squidoo success. I am sticking to my one page a day. I will come back in a couple months time and let you know how it is going.

Julie
theTrafficMaster
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The Old VicSep 18, 2007 04:01 AM
Hi Julie,

Thanks for the interesting comment. Your experience with Squido seems to be much the same as mine and one or two other people I have heard from i.e. revenue of around 50 cnts or 1 dollar after a lot of effort, where are these people who make hundreds from Squidoo ? None of them have bother to react to my post or leave any comments. I did do an update which I don't know if you have read - http://www.netmonetization.com/2007/07/seth-godin-sinks-squidoo-spammers.html -
I have also just checked out my Squidoo stats - the first time I have looked in a long time - and just discovered I have rocketed up to $5.90 ! A tenfold increase from where I was before - I don't know why but I'll have another look at the stats to see if I can understand what happened - I might even go back and update ny lenses ! I'll go have a look at your lenses when i get a minute - Let me know how you are getting on.
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