My Squidoo Earnings Diary. How much money can you make with Squidoo?

First online Earnings are a great motivation to writing more articles on Squidoo! It doesn't matter if it is $10 or $1, or like in my case $0.75. Yes, the first earnings that showed up in my Squidoo account were only $0.75, but I felt like I won the lottery! Sure, I know of other ways to make money online, but actually being able to collect profits from writing on Squidoo was a very exciting event for me! At the time I only had 4 lenses with only 20-30 monthly views per lens. What did the $0.75 do for me? It made me realize the earnings potential on Squidoo - Yes, you can make money with your Squidoo lenses, but it does require consistent work and dedication for substantial profits to start rolling in! Somehow, I never really thought about Squidoo lens as a blog - but I am now realizing that's exactly what it is! You don't build just one lens with a couple paragraphs and expect tons of profits from it. Instead, you start out small and add content to your lens every day, or every other day, or once a week. You just have to be consistent!
Here's my plan for increasing my earnings on Squidoo - favorite this lens and check back often to learn how my Squidoo Earnings Challenge is going.
I will: publish new lenses, be consistent about adding new content on a regular basis, be active on Squidoo forum and learn from Squidoo Lens Masters while also trying to help others, earn points and level up by being an active participant at Squidoo community, do key word research and use the key words that will drive traffic to my Squidoo content.

11/22/2011 This is going to be my last post in the Earnings Diary Lens. I started this diary to document my journey on Squidoo and share the steps I took to start making money on Squidoo. Although I am nowhere close to where I would like to be, I am making money on Squidoo and hope that my Squidoo Earnings will grow every month. On November 15th, my Squidoo Earnings were almost $120 for the month of September 2011. I am hoping to get over $200 next month. When I first started out, I spent 15-20 or sometimes even 30 hours a week, staying up at night and trying to figure things out. My posts below show you exactly how I got to making money on Squidoo. I still spend at least 20 hours per week on Squidoo, but my earnings are certainly not the $0.05 cents per hour they used to be. I put a lot of effort on Squidoo, and 1.5 years later, I am finally starting to see some rewards. Squidoo is a good place to earn part-time income, and I can now really see how some people are making a full-time living with their lenses. Hope my diary below helps someone get to where they want to be :)

12/14/11 Just wanted to update this lens with my December 2011 Earnings :) I actually got $297 for the month of October - a lot more than what I hoped for. Should I say, I love Squidoo?

10/13/11 And it is Squidoo payday today! For the first time, my earnings reached and went over $100 for the month! I made $109.74 for the month of August (Squidoo quote: "Here are the Squidoo royalties that your lenses earned through August 2011, paid out today (after our standard 60 day processing period)."). Happy to see that even my 4th Tier lens brought in $0.10. The 1st Tier Pay is unreal - $56.51 for my top perfomer (it includes a couple dollars in commissions). I am also getting a $80 check from an affiliate network for sales generated through Squidoo lenses! A breakdown of my Squidoo earnings will be coming soon.

09/07/11 Looks like Squidoo Earnings are showing up in the lens' stats - looking forward to Squidoo PayDay! Lately, I have been spending very little time on Squidoo. My other projects are keeping me busy, and as much as I want to build 100 lenses, I am not really making much progress in that direction :( I am glad to see a somewhat steady traffic to my Squidoo lenses without much work on my part - just adding an extra paragraph or a new module 2-3 times per month - keeping them fresh. Yesterday, I got an affiliate commissions check from Linkshare - $105! Yahoo! Doing something right :)

09/16/11 Yahoo! $75 for me on September 15th, 2011 payday! Affiate marketing and blogging are so much fun. Will be posting a breakdown of my earnings soon. 1st and 2nd Tier Earnings just keep on growing! Almost $45 for a Tier 1 lens is awesome! And that's before Halloween and Christmas - the time when Squidoo makes the most money...

08/03/11 It is nice to know that you can be away from Squidoo for a week, and come back to Squidoo Dashboard to see that your Tier 1 lens is still in the top Tier, Tier 2 lenses gave up the positions just a bit, and Tier 3 lenses are still seeing visitors. My favorite part about Squidoo is that you can work at your own pace and on your own schedule. Your lenses keep working for you when you are asleep or away on business or vacation. I certainly need to get back to building more lenses.

08/06/11 Another one of my lenses made it to 2nd Tier - I believe it's because of all the attention it's been getting from Google (google traffic). And my wedding lens has finally brought me the 1st sale - I sold 6 song downloads!

08/11/11 August Squidoo Payday is almost here - can't wait! This is the 1st month I am going to get paid for a Tier 1 lens :)

08/17/11 I have been pretty busy and had very little time to work on Squidoo. Squidoo payday came early this month, and I was very happy to see the blue box. My June Squidoo Earnings were almost $60! Yahoo!

08/23/11 It's getting harder to get Squidoo lenses in the Top Tiers. There are quite a few people who have figured out the Squidoo Algorithm for Success and replicate successful lenses. I hear that many newbies give up before making any money on Squidoo. My advice would be to keep trying, keep learning, do key word research, build backlinks... It's all about figuring out what Search Engine Optimization is all about.

08/28/11 Was away from Squidoo for several days due to Hurricane Irene evacuation. Good to see that lens traffic is still here :)

07/08/11 Just went to the forum and found out that May 2011 earnings are showing up in the Lens Stats - Earnings tab. Although July 2011 Squidoo payday is not here yet, you can already estimate what you are going to make this month :)

07/14/11 And it's Squidoo payday! Yeah! $43.57 in Squidoo Earnings for the month of May. Will be posting the breakdown of my earnings soon. I had some good Affiliate commissions in May, and I hope to make even more money on Squidoo next month, since one of my lenses was in Tier 1 for the entire month of June. Hope your Squidoo payday is a happy one :)

07/22/11 Today I am updating every single one of my lenses, pinging them at Pingomatic, building a few backlinks, and may be will have time to start on a new lens. I also made some changes to this lens - don't know what Squidoo spam filter didn't like about it - hope it doesn't get locked...

07/25/11 It's always exciting to see Google start sending traffic to your lens :) My YKK zipper color card has started seeing some Google Traffic - as of today, it's #5 on Google for my key words. Little victories are always worth celebrating!

07/28/11 My Christmas lens has made it to Tier 2! Super excited :))

06/02/11 Yahoo!!! $4 in Amazon commissions showed up in the stats for one of my lenses this morning. It's a Tier 3 lens, and the Amazon commissions are really making up for the Tier lens earnings. I am really thinking about going with a different strategy and putting efforts into making sales and not worrying about the Tier rankings. My Tier 1 lenses move around in rankings a lot, and they constantly slip in and out of the Top Tier. From what I see, steady lens traffic will keep the lens in Tier 2, but a steady Tier 1 spot is hard to keep...

06/03/11 One of my lenses had over 10 Ebay sales for the month of May, and I was really looking forward to finding out what Ebay Signup bonus is all about. So I Googled and checked out this Money Making Modules lens by SquidooKimberly, and turns out that the Ebay Signup Bonus goes in the general pool, unless you are a GiantSquid... Bummer... There's a reason to work on new lenses...

06/13/11 After being away for the weekend, I returned to find the $25.36 in Squidoo Earnings for the month of April! This is the highest payout I have received from Squidoo so far. The $25.36 includes 3 Tier 2 lenses - I got $8.73, $7.53, and $5.49 for my 3 top performers. I was also surprised to learn that my wedding lens got $1.40 while in the 3rd Tier, due to Chitika and Infolinks payments while the rest of My Tier 3 lenses got only $0.28 a piece (8 Tier 3 lenses). Two of my Tier 2 lenses had Amazon and Ebay sales, that's why the amounts are different. I am pretty happy with my April Squidoo Earnings and can't wait to find out what Tier 1 lens payments are like :)

06/24/11 Nice to know that traffic to my top performing lenses stays somewhat steady without much effort on my part. Life is keeping me busy elsewhere, but, hopefully, soon, I will be able to do affiliate marketing full time!

06/25/11 Just got 500 points from Squidoo - it's been exactly 1 year since I joined Squidoo - time surely flies!

05/2/11 My business and my management job have been keeping me away from Squidoo, but I am going to spend more time on Squidoo this month. I believe I have all the tools I need to succeed, so now is the time to put my ideas in writing. New lenses and a blog will be coming soon :) I am ready for the Tier 1 lenses.

5/6/11 2 days ago, I published a new lens that compares Squidoo and Yahoo Contributor Network (formerly Associated Content) - it's currently rated at 101,750 on Squidoo. I lensrolled the lens to a couple other "money making" lenses and submitted it to Lensroll.com - one of the best places to get a quick backlink to a Squidoo lens. Curious to see how fast the lens is going to climb up in rankings. And as promised, I have started a blog. I will be making the blog a "do follow", and if you are looking for some extra backlinks for your Squidoo lens, please feel free to leave me a comment or 2 :) Squidoo Tips and Squidoo SEO

5/11/11 I want to thank the Squidoo community and all of my Squidoo fans for reading, commenting, and Squidliking my lenses. I really appreciate you taking the time to visit my lenses. My newest lens (published about 11 hours ago) has already got 7 Squidlikes, 4 comments, and 1 Facebook Share. Thank you so much! Hope you all see some good Squidoo earnings this month ( May 2011 payday is coming soon - should be any day now!)

5/12/11 I now have 100 Squidoo fans. A great reason to celebrate!

5/13/11 I am making some progress building lenses. I published a new lens yesterday and finished working on the Zippered Pouch Tutorial - this one took me a long time to put together, but I am sure it was worth it :) With the lens earnings showing up in the edit mode stats for a while and with 15th falling on a Sunday, I am guessing we might see May 2011 Squidoo earnings today :)

5/13/11 And I was right - today is Squidoo payday! I made $17.08 for March 2011 for 2 Tier 2 lenses and 10 Tier 3 lenses. Pretty happy with this month's Squidoo earnings!

5/14/11 One of my lenses is in 1st Tier. I know it's a hard spot to keep :) Steady traffic is what I am hoping for :)

5/17/11 I had 151 visits to one of my lenses today! Wow, that's what I call traffic! Super excited :)

5/18/11 Although one of my lenses is getting a very heavy traffic - anothed 150 visitor day, Squidoo is in no rush to let it slide into the 1st Tier. I haven't completely figured out why... Hoping to have a second lens in Tier 1 soon!

5/19/11 Second Tier 1 lens! A little unexpected, since I was thinking the Wedding lens was going to make it to the Top Tier first, but I will take it :)

5/24/11 After a few days of low traffic from Google, my traffic stats are starting to look a little better! With 2 lenses in 1st Tier, and 1 lens very close to Tier 1, I would really love to keep the traffic steady...

5/28/11 Happy to see my "Zippered Pouch Tutorial" 1st in Google Search results! Sharing my new Backlinking strategy on my blog: Squidoo Lens backlinks

5/30/11 Hard to believe that May is almost over. Looking back to my May 2nd post, I have accomplished my goal of sending a lens to the top Tier. In fact, as of today, I have 3 Tier 1 lenses. What's next? Well, ten Tier 1 lenses would be nice - hey, a girl can dream :) Looking forward to the June 2011 Squidoo payday.

04/04/11 Looking forward to the April 2011 Squidoo Earnings! Although I know I haven't hit the jackpot yet, it's nice to see that some of my lenses are getting some major attention from Google :) 41 visitors to a lens in one day - that's surely a record for me! Key word research surely pays off, and now I know for sure: if Google likes you, it will reflect in your Squidoo lens rankings.

04/08/11 Wow, one of my lenses has been getting a sale or 2 a day! I now can really see how some people are making good money on Squidoo. Little earnings add up, and Sales certainly help with the lens rankings.

04/14/11 Happy Payday! My Squidoo Earnings for the month of February are almost $12! That's the month after I took a month-long break from Squidoo, so I think I did pretty well. I had only 1 lens in the Tier 2, and this month I am already up to 4 Tier 2 lenses. I am hoping to have a lens or 2 in the Top Tier 1 in the next month or so - having a few lenses in the 1st Tier makes all the difference: 4-5 top Tier lenses and you are making $100, not counting affiliate commissions. Curious to find out how much you are making on Squidoo per month - Please leave me a comment! If you are new to Squidoo and looking for infromation on how much Squidoo pays per Tier, here's what my Tier 2 lens' Earnings look like this month: 02/28/2011 Infolinks $0.95 + 02/28/2011 Ad Pool $3.94 + 02/28/2011 Chitika $0.17 - I got $5.06 for the lens from Squidoo and almost $2 in Amazon and Ebay affiliate commissions.

04/20/11 Love seeing Sales after not checking in on Squidoo for a couple days! I made a couple changes to one of my lenses and saw a couple sales within a few days. I am reading Seth Godin's books, and I love how he talks about Simplicity and the "Banana". I had too many "bananas" in my lenses, and I had to take out a couple, to make the one "banana" more obvious :)

03/04/11 Looking forward to March 15th, 2011 Squidoo pay day! Getting Sales from my Squidoo lenses for 2 days in a row - very encouraging.
03/05/11 Another Ebay sale through one of my lenses yesterday - Sales for 3 days in a row is certainly an accomplishment!!! Added bookmarking widget to a few of my lenses. My Squidoo friend Darcie suggested it a while ago and it turned out to be a lot easier then I thought it was - just go to "Add Modules" and find "bookmarking widget" under "B" :)
03/07/11 Working with the Sidebar widgets - hard to believe I didn't realize "managing widgets" in the sidebar was an option. Also, took Squidutils' suggestion to clean up my tags, especially the "primary tag." I think I am a few steps closer to my goal to make money on Squidoo. One of my lenses is on the first page of Google for my key words :)
03/10/11 March 2011 Squidoo payday is almost here. It may happen tomorrow or maybe Monday? What's your best guess? Google is loving me today! Sent 20 visitors to one of my lenses! May not seem like a lot to some of the internet marketing gurus, but I just feel like I am getting closer to increasing my Squidoo earnings :)

03/15/11 Well, I wish I could report that my Squidoo earnings are a couple hundred dollars this month, but they are actually way down :( January was my vacation month - I let my top performing lenses slip out of Tier 2... I had 8 lenses in Tier 3 x $0.26 per lens in revenues - so I made just a little over $2 for the month of January. My charity lens got $3.99, and that will go directly to Liam's family. I am still very optimistic about Squidoo though - I have quite a few ideas of how to increase my Squidoo earnings. Wishing everybody the best of Luck on Squidoo :)

03/16/11 My newest discovery is that Squidoo uses the average lens rank over the entire month to determine what Tier your lens is in. So if your lens is in Tier 2 at rank of 9,800 for 15 days and then in Tier 3 at 12,500 for the other half of the month, most likely you will not get the Tier 2 payout. However, that opens doors to some lenses rated at a steady 2,100 for Tier 1 or a steady 10,100 +/- for Tier 2 because of the lenses with floating ranks that don't make the higher Tier payout.

03/23/11 I was away from Squidoo for several days and can certainly see that the visits to my lenses dropped and the rankings went down a bit. I guess that just proves that Google wants regular updates for the lenses and Squidoo requires active participation on other lenses and forum or good backlinking.

03/25/11 Loving the new "Lens Progress" tool! Squidoo is giving you tips on how to get your lens to perform better and how to level up on Squidoo! Thank you, Squidoo, for your tips on how to make more money on Squidoo! This lens is 100% complete :) Here are some more tips for Lens Greatness from Squidoo Community Organizer Team Checklist for Lens Greatness

2/15/2011 Squidoo PayDay happened, and I earned more than $20 for the month of December. Yeah! I also have motivated 8 people to join Squidoo. Super EXCITED!

2/18/11 Sometimes Squidoo likes to mess with your mind... Just got 10 points for my 1st Squidlike Ever! And that at Level 43, after Squidliking over 200 lenses! But, hey Squidoo, I will take the points! Still trying to figure out "How much money can you make with Squidoo" - sorry, had to put this in for Key Word Optimization :) And Please check out my new lens - Squidoo polls. I am featuring the lens to help it rank better on Squidoo. I will also add it to my signature on Squidu forum to create a couple backlinks for it! As of today, the lens is ranked at 228,637 - let's see how long it will take me to get it to rank between 10,000 and 50,000.

2/20/11 My "Top Tips for Making more money on Etsy" lens has got a major rankings boost after a couple posts in a crafts forum, where I offered valuable advice to the readers - that's what online marketing is all about - connecting people and information or product they are searching for...

2/21/11 I don't know if there's a cure for Squidoo addiction - I might need one! Not really complaining, but I do spend much time thinking of new ways to make more money on Squidoo...

2/23/11 Building more Squidoo lenses, making new friends on Squidoo, and looking forward to March 2011 payday!

Brief Summary of how Squidoo Tiers work: All lenses ranked 1-2000 are in 1st Tier; All lenses ranked 2001-10,000 are in 2nd Tier; all lenses ranked 10,001 -85,000 are in 3rd Tier. Here's an example of how the Earnings were split up between lenses in Tiers 1, 2, and 3 in December 15, 2010 Squidoo payout:

Tier 1 lenses got $24.98 in Adpool earnings less 2% for Paypal commissions + $5.80 for InfoLinks + $0.17 for Chitika ads (about $30 for Tier 1 lens plus any affiliate commissions you made)
Tier 2 lenses got $4.25 in Adpool earnings less 2% for Paypal commissions + $0.99 for InfoLinks + $0.03 for Chitika ads (about $5 for Tier 2 lens plus any affiliate commisions you made)
Tier 3 lenses got $0.21 in Adpool earnings less 2% for Paypal commissions + $0.05 for InfoLinks + $0.00 for Chitika ads (about $0.25 for Tier 3 lens plus any affiliate commissions you made)
Hope this helps!

12/3/10 I use Associated Content to promote my Squidoo lenses. Associated Content is great because it allows you to promote your lenses while getting paid for Article views. Associated Content pays $1.50 per 1000 views on your articles (if you have 10 articles - you only need to get about 100 views per article per month to get the $1.50). So what I like about Associated Content is that they let you add 3 links to every article - more ways to bring traffic to my Squidoo lenses while getting paid by Associated Content. Also, I got a bonus $ offer for submitting 5 articles within a certain timeframe. You may also submit your articles for Upfront payments + the performance payments at the same time - so you get a couple bucks for the articles Associated Content Approves!

12/2/10 I am the most active Lensmaster at Level 19! I guess that's an accomplishment :) I also have just learnt how to add a Squidoo signature to my Forum posts! This lens is so helpful (click on the button "Forum Signature Lens" button if you need help with your Squidoo signature)

12/3/10 After a busy day promoting my lenses yesterday (forums, adding content, etc.), I will not be able to spend much time on making money with Squidoo today :( Did I mention I am also running an online business selling craft supplies? and I also have another part-time job. Busy me! But hey, I know I will be making a full-time income with Squidoo lenses next year - this is the job I love the most. I am officially addicted to Squidoo!!! So the plan for today: ping my lenses & make a couple forum posts. Do you ping your Squidoo lenses? If you don't know what pinging is, I will define pinging for you - basically, it's a way to notify the world that your blog has been updated. I use Pingomatic & Feedshark. Daily pinging is highly recommended by some of the Internet gurus.
Oh, and my Eco Felt lens has made it to 2nd Tier, yeah!!!

12/3/10 Wow, it takes a long time for Amazon commissions to show up on Squidoo Dashbord! My "Etsy tips" lens' stats just got updated with 2 Amazon orders placed on 10/8/10. Still a reason to be excited. $1.39 in Affiliate commissions from Squidoo lens - I'll take it!

12/01/10 I did a Google search for "my lens' keyword + forum" and left comments on some of the forum threads with links to 2 of my top-performing articles. I didn't spam - just provided helpful information to people who asked for it and included links to my Squidoo articles in my signature (technique called "backlinking"). Very curious how much traffic it's going to bring! Looking forward to Squidoo pay days!
12/01/10 Adding some YouTube videos and Blog feeds to my lenses to help them rank higher
12/02/10 I spend 4-5 hours a day working on my Squidoo lenses and promoting them. I know it will all pay off at the end - when I make some real money every month! Hey money doesn't grow on trees. Or does it?

12/6/10 I am up to Level 25 way ahead of the schedule! Enjoying the little benefits that come with Leveling up: Twitter Mood Module, LensRank Turbo Boost, Itunes Module, new lens themes. And Squidoo probably likes me more, now that I am at Level 25 :)
Didn't really do much with my lenses over the weekend, but my Top Performing lens is currently ranked at 5,817 - not bad for a beginner. I also have $2.79 pending in commissions after making a few more sales!
Associated Content just offered me $2.67 in upfront payments plus the performance payments for an article I submitted to promote one of my Squidoo lensnes! Yeah! I think they are also doing a great job on promoting my content - as I am getting a lot of views on my other articles :)
12/10/10 I am taking some time to learn more about Affiliate Marketing. I have signed up for some Affiliate Marketing courses and will be devoting some time to studies, so I may not have time to update my Squidoo lenses. So far, what I am getting out of the course is that it takes time to figure out how to drive traffic to a site and how to convert traffic to sales, but I am working with people who are successful online marketers, so I have all the trust that their system will work for me. I will share more information about their site if the system proves to be successful.
12/15/10 Today is Squidoo payday! Yeah! I got $2.27 for my lenses this month. It's really not that much, but at the same time I didn't get serious about making money with Squidoo until this month. And Squidoo December 15, 2010 payout is for October lens ratings... I am giving myself a pat on the back. It's really all about understanding that it is very possible to make monthly part-time or full-time income with Squidoo, and it all depends on how much work you are willing to put into it. I already made $7 in affiliate commissions this month (I won't get them until February, since Squidoo is behind on payouts), and this is just the start. 2 of my lenses are in 2nd Tier this month and will hopefully move to 1st Tier eventually - that's when the big bucks will start rolling into my Paypal account :) Here's some information about December 15, 2010 payout:

Tier 1 lenses get $24.98 in Adpool earnings less 2% for Paypal commissions + $5.80 for InfoLinks + $0.17 for Chitika ads
Tier 2 lenses get $4.25 in Adpool earnings less 2% for Paypal commissions + $0.99 for InfoLinks + $0.03 for Chitika ads
Tier 3 lenses get $0.21 in Adpool earnings less 2% for Paypal commissions + $0.05 for InfoLinks + $0.00 for Chitika ads

Looking forward to those Tier 1 and Tier 2 lens earnings!!!
12/27/10 Have been adding a little content to my articles. I also have been acively participating in Squidu forum. I get to learn some great information from Squidoo lensmasters, and the backlinks to my lenses are like icing on the cake. In case you didn't know - every forum post gives you a backlink to the Squidoo lenses you mention in the post (including the lenses in your Signature).

12/30/10 Taking a vacation... Just noticed that Squidoo changed the names of lens' topics and what's included in each section. That made some of my lenses go in the wrong categories and rank lower. One of my lenses got kicked out of Tier 2... :( From what I understand, sections are very important when it comes to lens ratings!

1/12/10 January 2011 Squidoo Payday Came 4 days early this month... My November earnings are under a $1, but December earnings should be a lot better... Between all the changes Squidoo is implementing in the ranking system and my 2 week vacation, my lenses went down in rankings tremendously. I am seriously rethinking my Squidoo strategy. I know there are plenty lenses out there that weren't updated for weeks or months, but are still in the 1st Tier. So this New Year Resolution is to work smarter, not harder. Stil taking a couple more days off, and then back to work to conquer Squidoo :)
Update: Just went to Squidu forum and found out that there's a bug effecting Squidoo lens ratings in Tiers 2, 3, and 4. They are working on resolving the issue. I couldn't believe that all my lenses could suddenly drop in rankings by hundreds of thousands... So hoping to see the issue resolved by tomorrow.
1/31/2011 Well, my long break from Squidoo has significantly affected my Squidoo rankings. I am still getting some traffic, but my Tier 1 and 2 lenses are now well into the 3rd Tier. So today, I am adding a little bit of a fresh content :)

2/4/11 Yeah, nice to see some sales made through my lenses! Someone has bought a whole bunch of felt, and I am going to be receiving almost $2 in Amazon affiliate commissions!

2/5/11 My lenses' rankings are improving and this article is back to Tier 2! And this morning I got the message that I made 3 more sales through Amazon affiliate links, totaling almost $70!!!! Super excited :)

2/15/11 Can't wait for February 2011 Squidoo payday! Hopefully, it will happen today or tomorrow :) I also have applied to be a Squidoo Angel. I unlocked the invitation to be a Squidoo Angel when I reached Level 30, but I waited until now to apply - I wanted to make sure I have enough time lined up to pick out the best on Squidoo :) It may be a month or 2 or 3, until I actually get to be a Squidoo Angel, but I certainly am looking forward to that :)