Do you have a Squidoo lens yet? I don’t, but I’m thinking about creating one (or more).
I usually don’t jump on the bandwagon right away. I wait until I hear enough good things about something before I take a look. And I think I may have reached that point with Squidoo.
For those of you who don’t know, Squidoo is the creation of marketing guru Seth Godin. It’s free and easy for anyone to create a “lens,” or web page, on a particular topic. But why would you want to do that?
If you currently have no online presence, I’d generally recommend starting a blog before branching out into things like Squidoo. But if you already have a blog up and running, Squidoo can help give you a traffic boost.
Marelisa mentioned in a comment here that her Squidoo lens called “100 Things To Do Before You Die – Create Your Bucket List” is giving her 5 to 10 visits to her blog every day. That’s because Squidoo is one of the 300 most popular websites in the U.S., with a mammoth Google PageRank of 7. Create a good lens, and you’ll probably get some people clicking through to your blog.
There are also some potential financial benefits. Squidoo automatically puts ads on all lenses, which generate revenue when someone clicks on them. 5% of the revenue goes to charity, 45% goes to Squidoo, and the remaining 50% goes to either you or a charity of your choice. I wouldn’t count on making more than pennies though.
Do you have a Squidoo lens? If so, feel free to give your link and tell us about it in the comments.
You know Hunter, I read about Squidoo quite some time ago and even went on their site. I wasn’t sure what it was all about, so I’ll be watching to see what your commenters have to contribute.
I also didn’t know it was Seth’s “baby”.
By the way, do you know if we would have to worry about having duplicate content (online) if we used a post from our blog?
Barbara Swaffords last blog post..Free n Easy Friday Finds
Hi Hunter!
Squidoo is the real deal. Seth Godin is at the helm an he provides cutting edge business savvy to Squidoo.
Everyone has passions. So create a lens on anything from candles to cookies.
I hope you jump aboard!
Thanks,
Kelly Wissink
Kelly Wisisnks last blog post..How You Can Get Rid of Japanese Beetles
Never heard about it until now. Am off to check it out. Thank you!
Vereds last blog post..The Blurry Line Between Online and Real-Life Relationships
Hi Hunter, the lens you mention here, http://www.squidoo.com/100things is actually in the top 100 squidoo lenses right now and the traffic to that lens–and from that lens to my blog–is increasing. Squidoo is free, easy to use, and you can make cash by adding affiliate links (including amazon), sell stuff from e-bay, and so on. It’s lots of fun too. Thanks for the link!
Marelisas last blog post..The Elasticity of Time (Part 2)
Before I was on Hubpages, I was on Squidoo. My preference was to be on Hubpages because Squidoo required its users to update their lens at least once every week. I just couldn’t commit to going into my Squidoo account in that frequency. I am not sure if the same guideline still applies as I haven’t been on Squidoo for quite some time.
Hubpages or Squidoo are great if you want to rank highly on certain keyword phrases. Their s sites are well spidered, being constantly updated with fresh content.
Evelyn Lims last blog post..Experiencing The Gap: The Space Between Thoughts
Most of these comments got caught by my spam filter…maybe Squidoo is on the naughty list?
@ Barbara, I think duplicate content would be a concern. Whichever version the search engines consider the original would get the normal traffic, and all other versions would be penalized. Unfortunately, the search engines are sometimes wrong about which version is the original, so you could hurt your blog’s traffic by posting the same thing on Squidoo.
But from what I’ve seen, Squidoo seems to be more of a portal than actual content. People point to things of interest, but I’m not really seeing posts there. Another thing is that some people will rewrite their posts before posting them elsewhere, so the search engines don’t consider it duplicate content.
@ Kelly, nice to meet a Lensmaster! I’ll certainly check it out.
@ Vered, come back when you’re done looking and let us know your thoughts!
@ Marelisa, I didn’t know you were in the top 100. That’s amazing! I’ll use your lens as inspiration for my own.
@ Evelyn, thanks for telling me this. I hope this is no longer true…once a week is just way more than I want to commit to. That would be unfortunate if this still applies.
Hey Hunter!
Thanks for this post.
I have been researching on a lot of these Web 2.0 stuff in detail ever since I started putting Inspired Marketing together.
There’s just too many tips for me to put here and a lot of people already wrote all this somewhere so I thought I’d just put a link in.
http://www.squidoo.com/workathomewithsquidoo
Good stuff.. And click on the recommended lenses there and you’ll get deeper… Just don’t go too deep down the rabbit hole like me lol
To Constant & Never-Ending Improvement,
SaiF
SaiFs last blog post..1st Inspired Action Scholarship Winner Announced
Hunter: I put a lot of effort into my lens at the beginning but I haven’t touched it in about 5 weeks. What they recommend at squidoo now is to update the lens once a month (I’m planning to update this weekend).
Marelisas last blog post..The Elasticity of Time (Part 2)
@ Saiful, thanks for the link!
@ Marelisa, OK, once a month is a lot easier to keep on top of. Definitely doable.
@SaiF: Thanks for the link!
As far as updating your lenses, Squidoo does not have an requirement on that. They suggest that you update your lenses every 30 days. However, I personally only update my lenses when I have something to add or need to fix some broken links. Also, I have one lens currently ranked #9 overall and I haven’t touch it in months. There are so many other factors in addition to freshness (traffic, earnings, rating, comments, clickouts, etc.) that help make a lens successful, so I wouldn’t worry too much about how often you update.
@ Janet, thanks for that info. I’m glad there’s no requirement for updating lenses. I think it makes sense to update them whenever it makes sense, not after a certain number of days.
Squidoo can certainly give good traffic if the article is good and is written for both search engines as well as people.
@ Pushkar, that’s what I hear. It’s got the PageRank already, so if you throw in some other factors it can do well.
I have a squidoo lens, but still trying to figure out how to market it and drive traffic…I dont have a lot of content yet so that may be the issue.
@ Carla, lack of content could very well be the issue, or maybe it’s your keywords. I think the most popular lensmasters put some time into marketing their lenses as well.
Wow great site. I am currently working on my squidoo site as well . http://www.squidoo.com/flowerscare feel free to check it out great site i subscibed.
Charles´s last blog post..Send Flowers to Make Someone Feel Special