How to use Squidoo to make money - Become an Affiliate Marketer with Squidoo - Make money at home

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Ranked #558 in Work At Home, #51,395 overall

Yes, you can make money online. Lots.

There was a time when I didn't believe I could really make money from the net either. I had a vague idea about the way it was done, but no clue how to begin. I would google things like 'how to affiliate marketing' hoping to find nice simple explanations, and useful instructions - but instead I only ever found the sales pitch - 'buy my book and you'll be rich in no time.'

Well, I never fell for that stuff. And THEN I found SQUIDOO. Squidoo is brilliant in so many ways. But best of all, here I found bunches of pages from friendly, helpful people, who explained things to a newbie like me without wanting to suck money out of me first. May the Squid Gods rain money upon them. (And you too!)

I learnt many tricks from helpful Squidoo lensmasters. I followed many of the links to useful reading they suggested. I did, in the end, buy some extremely useful ebooks. And I did start making money.

Here what I learned - a gumby's guide to making money online. I know that it will help you too.

The Basics Step 1 - Find a niche - What do you want to sell? 

What do you want to sell? If you're just starting out, it's best sell stuff that you know about. Also, this home-based business thang is about doing what you want to do. If you think selling get rich quick schemes is soul-destroying and immoral, don't do it. If planning kid's birthday parties is more your thing, go for it!

Think about what you like and what you know. Is there a subject you can talk about for ages? Well, you're the expert. That's your niche. If you can be an authority on a subject, you will have a natural tone as you write about that subject, and you will earn your reader's respect and trust.

If you're stuck for ideas, there's lots of help out there. Some clever folk have even tracked down the niches that are most popular, that make the most money. Do some research, or learn from an expert.

The Basics Step 2 - Get yourself a Squidoo account and make your first lens 

Squidoo is an absolute godsend for those of us who know nothing about making websites. Squidoo is FREE and enables you to make as many websites as you want. (The folk at Squidoo call their websites 'lenses' - you're looking at one now.) And it's very easy to make a stylish looking page very quickly - so you can get on selling stuff fast.

The best bit about Squidoo lenses are the easy to use 'modules' that you use to help build your page. There are CafePress, Amazon and Ebay modules that are just sitting there waiting for you to come along and fill them with product - and earn commission.

So, what are you waiting for? Go on! Sign up to a FREE Squidoo account and get started on your first lens now. Make one, make a bunch. Play around and have fun.

Remember - you can use the selling modules Squidoo supplies, or you can insert your own product links from any affiliate network into your lens and make money that way too.

The Basics Step 3 - Sell stuff - Clickbank, Shareasale, Commission Junction and more 

Affiliate Networks - find stuff to sell

Affiliate marketing is all about selling other people's stuff and earning commission on the sale. There are a number of 'affiliate networks' that you can join for FREE. These give you access to millions of products you can then start to promote and sell.

Some of the biggest and most popular are:
Clickbank
PayDotCom,
Commission Junction,
LinkShare,
and
Shareasale.

Clickbank sells ebooks and ecourses - anything that can be delivered electronically. These kinds of products have the highest commission rates - often 50% and sometimes as high as 75%. This is probably the best place to start.

Commission Junction, Shareasale, and LinkShare sell real stuff - actual physical products - books, clothes, furniture, cars, you name it. Of course, it depends on the product, but commissions range from 8% to about 20%.

The system works like this:
You surf on over to clickbank and create a free account. Then you search the 'marketplace' for a product that suits your niche - lets say for example, cooking with chilli. You find an ebook called 600 Chilli Recipes for Chilli Lovers. Sounds like madness, but you then click on "create hoplink", you insert your clickbank nickname, and clickbank generates a link that you can insert in your webpage just as I did above.

Now, if anyone clicks on that link, and buys the product through that link, I get 70% commission on the sale. It doesn't get much easier than than.

Second Verse - Same as the First 

The big tip is: DO IT AGAIN.

Now you have one lens, go and make another. And another. And another.

Many lensmasters will tell you they might make between $10 and $15 from a single lens in a month. Now, that's not going to make anybody rich. But that's just from one lens. Make 20 lenses and your monthly tally is looking healthier. Make 50 lenses and your little hobby is starting to look like something that could really change your lifestyle.

My advice: master affiliate marketing on squidoo first. There's many other ways to do this: google adwords is just one of a hundred other methods. But save yourself the anguish of all that research up front. Start promoting products through squidoo now, and as soon as that first cheque comes in, you'll be pumped to try something new.

Here is some more reading on how to make it big through Squidoo. These are two products I've personally bought and devoured, and I recommend them.

Squidoo Queen
Squidoo Queen V2.1 contains all the latest must have methods to produce money on complete auto-pilot.

By keeping things simple and taking things back to basics, I know that anyone can use this system to start making money within a few days!




Social Networking on Squidoo
This is the number one ebook on Squidoo. The Squidoo Queen is great and I love her attitude, but Social Marketing on Squidoo is absolutely tops. If you're going to spend your pennies, this is the book to get. I can't recommend it much more highly than that.

Seth Godin - Number 1 Squid - Squid Guru 

Seth is the man behind Squidoo - none of us would be here without him. Here are some of his words of wisdom. They are really really good.

Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

Amazon Price: $15.57 (as of 07/06/2009) Buy Now

The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

Amazon Price: $9.56 (as of 07/06/2009) Buy Now

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

Amazon Price: (as of 07/06/2009) Buy Now

Tell the world about your lenses!

There are lots of ways, but if you want to drive customers to your lens quickly, then Craigslist works like magic.
Learn more about Craigslist marketing here.

More reading from other Squid-Meisters who KNOW 

GreekGeek's Squidoo Tips: How to Get Your Lens Found
Ten easy steps to lay out breadcrumb trails that bring web traffic your way.
Learn Affiliate Marketing : How I Made $7,000 Online in My First 60 Days
With no prior experience I made $7,000 in my first 60 days affiliate marketing and currently average over $700/day! Want to know how?
How to Increase your Clickbank Commissions
This lens is for all newbies and not-so newbies who are interested in earning money online with Clickbank but have not yet had much luck with it.
Submit URL: Getting your Squidoo Lens noticed.
On this lens, you'll find some links to places you can submit your Squidoo lens URLs to search engines, directories, social bookmarking sites, and other web 2.0 sites.

Did you find the information here useful? What successes have you had so far? 

I'd love to know if you found the info here helpful - and that it's helped you get started on your new affiliate marketing career! Good luck to everyone :)

Lensmaster

Albert Smith wrote

Great lens with good information about using Squidoo as money maker..

http://www.hiddenbrains.com/

Reply Posted March 17, 2009

traffik wrote...

Great lens. I love the way that it flows and your careful use of images. I also love squidoo !!!!

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ReplyPosted January 26, 2009

____Cate wrote...

This is a great lens! Very informative! Glad I stumbled upon it!

ReplyPosted January 03, 2009

oneweekmarketer wrote...

This is a very informative lens. I was intimidated by Squidoo for a long time, but finally sucked it up, and created an account. I never realized creating lenses would be so much fun!

ReplyPosted October 21, 2008

moneyman17 wrote...

Your tips certainly are top-notch. so i want to Invite you to visit and submit your articles to
Online Article Directory
visit my lens
Articles Marketing

ReplyPosted September 30, 2008

 
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So, what's everyone up to? 

One thing I like about the Squidoo community is how much support and help there is out there. But I'm always interested to know about people's successes and hesitations. Success stories always inspire me, and equally, understanding other people's hesitations makes me remember we're all the same deep down.

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