Fast and Easy Money With Squidoo

The reason for this lens is to record my journey in an open and honest manner so that you will see the time and effort that I am investing, it isn't designed to persuade you, or put you off, I just want to provide my perspective and perhaps by doing so, answer some of your questions. - I'll even let you know how my revenue is building with Squidoo.

Am I making money right now? Read on!

Although I'm new to Squidoo, I'm not new to writing, for the past 17 years I have been earning a living as a Ghostwriter and joined Squidoo to write lenses that will make more money, as most of us are.

As Squidoo isn't a get rich scheme, some new lensmasters may be very disappointed that money isn't pouring into their bank account. Some may have probably slowed down in their lens publishing efforts. If you are feeling disappointed with your Squidoo earnings, please read on ....

I would like to offer a little advice and urge everyone to keep adding lenses but keep quality as a priority. You are not going to earn money over night but you will be rewarded for long term commitment - and that is the key.

When I started this lens a couple of months ago I promised to keep you informed of my progress, so as I go through the learning curve of lens building, I'm beginning to see through the confusing haze that most newbies experience and I will endeavor to share this. .

I openly declared that I don't expect to earn any money for a few months but fully prepared to invest the time because I am certain that there is gold at the end of the rainbow. Let's be clear there is no shortcut, no cheat sheet nor any well hidden tactics.

This is where I am; I have 116 lenses, in terms of 'rank', I've had one in the 2000's (level 2), that seems to be on a roller coaster ride up and down the ranks! - Although it is high it isn't really high enough to reach out for the decent share of the money.

So, it is early days and only one lens in level 2, this is a clear indication that I have a lot of work to do. Writing lots and lots of lenses doesn't guarantee money from Squidoo, but writing quality lenses is the right path to take.

In a couple of places in Squidoo, you will find your lens rank, take a look in 'stats' for example, you will see something like this Ranked #174 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #7,527 overall , the last number is the lensrank and I'll try to throw some light on that element.

To make the bigger money with Squidoo we need the lensrank to be in the 2000 range (Level one) , the next level needs to be around the 10,000 range (level two). The next number range is 85,000 which brings you into level three.

On the other end of the spectrum I did have several in the 500,000's - that's terribly low! when I began to understand the numbers and levels I chose to stop piling on the lenses and started to tidy up the existing ones, honing and polishing them was essential. There is no point in stacking bad on top of bad.

Take a look at your 'Lens Progress Bar'. The minimum each lens should be on is 92% nothing less. There is an ongoing debate in the forum about the 92% really being 100% because once you reach the 92%, you need 20 'Squidlikes' (thumbs up) on a lens to push it to100%.

Don't beg other members for 'thumbs up'! By all means introduce your lens in Squidu and take advantage of opportunities to promote it but don't solicit 'likes'.

I've achieved 100% on quite a few. As I systematically improved and update each of the lenses according to the lens progress bar, every one of the lenses that languished in the 500,000 pushed right up the ranks so now I have a few left in the 250,000 range and need to work on these so that they rise through the levels.

All are now 92% and 100%. I'm working on the top ten and the bottom ten at the moment. My aim is to concentrate on getting ten in the 2000 and constantly tweak to improve the bottom ten, which are fluid and constantly change.

Just to give an example, I had a lens in the 500,000's - languishing right at the bottom of all 100 lenses. I worked on it and in a week or so it reached No.3, around number 15,000 - up half a million!, so that enforced the need to keep polishing the lenses.

An interesting observation whilst monitoring my 'dashboard' is that some lenses with very few 'likes', are quite high in my rankings, compared to other lenses that have very many more 'thumbs up/likes' (same thing).

When I look at the 'stats', it shows four tabs;

Summary

Traffic

Earnings

Royalties

The first tab (summaries) shows the lens rank and other information such as 'clickouts' over the last 30 days. These are where people have clicked on a link that you have provided on the lens to another website.

The next tab is 'traffic'. The information you can learn here is;
Visits = the number of people to land on your lens.
Pageviews - the total number of times your lens has been viewed by visitors.

Scroll down the page and you will see the source of your traffic and where it really becomes interesting because it shows a pie chart of the search engines that have sent traffic to your lens. This is the 'source';
Referral traffic comes from blogs, websites, forums and other lenses.
Direct traffic comes from browser bookmarks or typing in your URL.
Search traffic comes from people searching for a specific topic in engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc.

Then it shows the 'keywords' and search phrases used in the search engines that have successfully found your lens.

These keyword phrases have delivered your lens to searchers. If you see phrases that you haven't used then add it to your lens, this is good SEO practice.

The other two tabs we don't need to cover as I am not yet earning money from Squidoo.

If I am reading this right, your lensrank will raise based on search results and active backlinks more than it would with no back links but more 'likes/thumbs up'.

If we all wrote rubbish lenses, Squidoo would be a rubbish dump and worthless.

Nobody would visit and it would die. However, let's look at it for what it is - Squidoo is a community, like any village, people will drop by and greet you - the few weeks I have in this community I've received some very nice comments about many of my lenses. A lot of valuable advice with a developing number of friendships. It really is a positive community.

Every now and again I receive a trophy (23 to date) and in the early days I received words of encouragement from the Squidoo team, so I used to post more and I earned more points, I'm close to 55,000 points at the moment ....but I want to turn points into money. I can't spend Squidoo points!

If each and every one of us took pride in our posts (and most of us do, (that's why Squidoo is so successful), it would attract more and more visitors who would not only enjoy reading our lenses but also click on those links that make us money. They too may also contribute with their lenses. This is how the community is built.

This activity of fresh new original lenses doesn't go unnoticed by the likes of Google, in fact Google loves fresh content and will index it, listing it in search results and attracting even more visitors ...they will in turn click those links that are geared to making money on Squidoo.

Most writers specialize in their field of interest and Squidoo provides the perfect platform to publish their works, they may develop their own followers who drop by to read their next work.

Here's a recap: I started 23rd Feb 2011, I've published 116 lenses, received over 200 SquidooSpirit top 40's , got a 'singing telegram', 2700 lens rated (this means I have given those lenses a 'thumbs up'.) I've also received 250 Squidlikes from giant squids.

I've gained 23 trophies and 105 fans. By joining my fan club, you get notified of updates so that you can, if you wish, monitor my progress.

I genuinely don't expect to earn any money until Summer is over ...and it hasn't begun yet but I'm acutely aware that I have to keep publishing those lenses and updating existed lenses.

The speed in which I have pushed those lenses out has slowed down now purely for quality control. I will revisit each and every lens, use the experience and knowledge I have gained ....all eleven weeks of it!! but I now beginning to understand the various widgets and tools.

So instead of concentrating on building more lenses, I will polish what I already have, but no doubt I'll still publish fresh ones but at no fast pace!

I would like to thank those that not only have 'liked' me, but have offered suggestions such as adding the guest book. I've implemented every suggestion because, you know better than I do.

Hopefully I will be in a position to help others when I too have followed you guys and gained more experience.

Thank you all for your help so far.

It is very ambitious but extremely important to get lenses in the 2000 and less lensrank score. It's hard work too and very much like a roller coaster.

I've noticed with my higher ranking lenses that the 'likes' are not necessarily a major contributing factor in terms of getting up there, the ones with visits resulting from inbound links and search engines are more successful. It is a combination and those thumbs up are important but achieving visitors from search engines is extremely crucial.

As part of my daily housekeeping I look in the 'Traffic' part of the 'Stats' as this gives me an indication of keywords used in search engines. It is a perfect opportunity to update the lens based on new information. I often see a search term that was used and successfully found the lens via Google using words or terms that I didn't originally use as a major tag. So I create a new addition to the lens incorporating those keywords.

Another lesson I have learned is not to divert all my attention towards those lenses right at the top of the portfolio because I have promoted the absolute rock bottom lenses that were languishing in embarrassingly poor rankings such as the 4/500,000 area.With updates and fine tuning I have rocketed those weak lenses to the top.

Often when I re-open theses lenses I see glaring issues that need addressing and I take advantage of the opportunity to add more and tweak the rest. It is a great pleasure to see the lens jump right up the very next day.

What have I learned?

Don't allow poor ranking lenses to languish

Get those 'thumbs up' but spend more efforts in building inbound links and writing quality material.

Focus on getting lenses in the 2000 LR, followed by 10000 or less then 85,000 any lens under that needs a lot more work.

I tend to be on Squidoo everyday, updating and tweaking. A few days ago I went away for a I long weekend and a break from my computer to find upon my return that my rankings had dropped like a lead balloon!

The first eleven weeks that I had been with Squidoo I saw no clues that I had made a penny .... but in all honesty I didn't really expect to whilst I travel through the learning curve.

However, on Friday 13th May 2011, I received my first notification of 'payday'.
It was only $1.28 that went to charity but it is a significant landmark, a breakthrough and positive sign of more to come.

The encouraging aspect is that these earnings are for March and I only started with Squidoo on February 23, so earnings began in just a week or so after joining, but Squidoo's commission settlement period makes it seem longer.

The first payday comes three months after publishing.

Initially I thought that the money had come from the least expected lenses! But in retrospect, I was being paid for lenses that I had published in the first few days, not the latest lenses. So the early lenses were simmering on the back of the hob whilst I stirred the new ones.

I was really genuinely shocked to learn that whilst I've been focusing on lensrank, liking, thumbs up and all the other stuff that I mentioned above - the money came from five lenses that were not at the top, but probably neglected as they were my early ones. One was at No.9, 40, 75, 90, 97. Each earned $0.26. Of which $0.20 from the adpool (a global share), then 1c from Chitika and 5c from infolinks.

This is a stark reminder not to neglect lenses and I need to update and polish them.

The interesting thing is that no money came in from Amazon, eBay etc. Update 18th May sold $32,24 on Amazon.

The following month (10th June) my earnings were $17.00 compare with the first $1.28 it is fifteen fold more!!

There are a couple of options to learn about making money with Squidoo; take the road that I have traveled and learn on the way or invest in one of the many Squidoo books.

Whilst Squidoo is a cosy place to nestle, soon we all have to leave the comfort of our nest. We're not leaving home, just venturing out into the world beyond, but always returning to Squidoo.We have to get out and build external links.

We can promote our lenses internally (Squidu) but it won't feed us, some of my lenses are being indexed by Google, Bing etc but again, we need to get out further and develop some link building strategies.

Don't go to link farms and buy hundred, thousands, millions of back links for a fiver.

I'll happily list the places where I have acquired back links in totally relevant pages and where there are opportunities for you.

Equally, if other members provide comments relating to back link resources, I'll publish them to.

The main thing to remember is that you cannot and must not rely on Squidoo solely - you need to contribute by building back links.

Information About Started as a UK portal but is gradually spreading worldwide.
Here's the trick, don't fill out any forms, just hit the 'contact' button and send your lens URL but say " Friend of UKghostwriter". You'll get your back links! It is hand edited with SEO in mind, not instant.

Another word about Information About, The directory sections are constantly growing, if there isn't a section to suit your lens, one will be created!

Also Social Monkey Easily build 25 UNIQUE backlinks to your pages every day with the push of a button!

Sign up now and start generating quality inbound links to your site today!

Redgage.com is a hub where you can earn money for all the things you're already doing online at places like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Blogger.

Is it possible to create lenses and leave them to earn money on autopilot.?

I chose to leave Squidoo for a week, no updates, no new lenses, I just watched the lenses lose rank, drastically dropping down.

With this in mind, I cannot see this being a lazy way to make money, but I'm open to clarification.

Among the different methods of generating revenue is an Amazon module. There are the six different ones already set for you by Squidoo. Whilst you don't need your own Amazon Affiliate account, you will share the Amazon commission with Squidoo on a 50/50 basis, but be mindful that Squidoo administer the royalties on your behalf.

Amazon
This is probably the overall Amazon module. It provides a couple of options where you can personally choose to display products from any or all of the Amazon departments, albeit books, movies, music and create your own keyword heavy comment relating to it.

Amazon MP3
Great for music lenses. Lets say your lens is about 1960's music, or focusing on The Beatles for example. You can compile a list of songs that your visitors can listen to preview samples before choosing to purchase and download. I also used this module on a lens relating to
Motivation and Success,so you are not restricted to just music.

Amazon Recommendations
With this module you choose your own favourite item, let's say it is a book about making money on Squidoo, called 'Making Money With Squidoo'. Once you have chosen that book, Amazon will automatically select others on the same topic or by the same author. This provides other avenues to generate money.

Amazon Spotlight
A module that provides a platform for you to write an article or review relating to a particular book, DVD. CD or perhaps another product from Amazon such as some exercise equipment or a game. Yours words need to sell, sell, sell so write well.

Amazon Voting (Plexo)
You might have seen this modules on other lenses without knowing what it is. Plexo is like a voting system that allows you to create a list of Amazon products, it could be a list of movies, books or songs and your visitors vote them up and down. Depending on their choice and taste.

Visitors can also add their chosen items to your Plexo module and even copy and transfer it onto their own lens, sending traffic back to you.

Amazon Search
You can display the top Amazon search results for your chosen keywords. Visitors can then refine the search to suit themselves and you get paid commission.