Is Squidoo A Get Rich Quick Scheme?

If you look thorough the posts at the SquidU forum you'll unfortunately see a lot of posts from lensmasters that have become become upset with the lack of success at Squidoo, even after making over 20 lenses and being on Squidoo for over 6 months, so what is the magic formula that makes success more likely on Squidoo?

Research, Research, Research!!!
The single most important action you can take before you click on the 'Create a Lens' button is to research your target audience. What's the point in making a lens about Dancing Hippos if nobody will ever be searching for it! I've seen lots of advice that says create lenses on things that interest you, and to some point that is true, but you really need to think 'outside the box' in order to make your passion succeed as their are, possibly, hundreds of lenses on your chosen topic already not to mention the possibility of thousands or millions of pages already on the web!

So what do you enjoy? Travel? Animals? Food and Drink? Movies? OK now there is another trick, or maybe its a tip, but either way you will need to follow this rule to enjoy any kind of success on Squidoo. Write lenses that have a "long shelf-life" or, to use a well known term, "evergreen". Topics that rarely go out of style and are always in the publics mind do much better than topics that come and go or only fit in a certain window.

For example a lens on "The Best Valentines Gifts for Her" would only pick up traffic and/or sales for about two months out of the year and only if your lens can be found under the huge pile of pages that are already out there! On the other hand if you write a lens on "Top Tips on Trimming Cats Claws" you are more likely to see success as it's a topic that new cat owners will be looking for and is a lot more 'Niche', which we'll talk about more soon.

In the previous module I mentioned that to succeed at Squidoo you need to find a "Niche". If you're about to run to your favorite search engine to find out what Niche is then STOP RIGHT THERE! In the most basic terms a Niche is a small or very small part of a bigger topic. As an example of a niche think of Women's Bounce Venus as a sub niche of running shoe, which is a sub niche of the Adidas sports brand. Basically the further you drill down into a topic the more niche it becomes.

So move away from the computer, grab some paper and think about what you want to write about. Maybe you love pets, or maybe a particular type of food and then drill it down as far as you can go. Maybe you like Chinese food. Drill down again and write about your favorite chow mein recipes or your favorite rice recipes. Write about the best Chinese restaurants in your town or city, but just make sure you remember the first rule about what people are searching for, because if nobody is looking for it online you'll never get any traffic!!

There isn't really a definitive answer for this. Personally I've been around Squidoo for a while now and although the majority of people are struggling to make any money on Squidoo, there are those that have made hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars within 6 months!

I'd have to say that the majority should be taken into account and Squidoo shouldn't be considered 'Get Rich Quick' by any means. It takes hard work, dedication and maybe a little luck to make decent money on Squidoo, but if you aren't treating Squidoo as a primary means of income and you follow the two golden rules (#1 Find a Niche, #2 Make sure people are searching for it) then there really is no reason why, eventually, Squidoo couldn't become a worthy income stream for all your hard work.

If there is pressure to make Squidoo your main source of income you may find it discouraging at first, but give it at least 6 months before you consider any earnings as rising to the top of the pile can be a full, time consuming, job all on its own! Dedicate at least 2 hours every day to your Squidoo activities, whether they are lens creation, promotion or research and before long things will come together for you!

Good luck on your Squidoo journey and feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.