Squidoo as an End in Itself
A lot of the people I talk to about Squidoo say they use it to promote their own websites. That’s absolutely fine, in fact it’s a very smart idea, because promoting one’s own websites with Squidoo can be very profitable. I use it to promote my own sites too–I’ll build a network of lenses and then link them all back to my sites. This has provided a great boost in traffic and revenue.
Lately I’ve been creating my own sites and “branching out” more, because I don’t like to keep all my eggs in one basket. Squidoo’s been a great stepping stone and “sandbox” for me, but I’m going to focus more on expanding outward. I’ll definitely spend most of my time building lots of new lenses and improving old ones, but it’s not going to be my sole focus I don’t think–like I said I like to spread stuff out.
But, what about just using Squidoo as an end in itself? Last month, the majority of my ~$300 in earnings was from Squidoo itself, so Squidoo can definitely be profitable alone. This month so far I’m at about at the level as all I earned last month, and nearly all of it was from Squidoo. It looks like I may very well earn double what I did last month. So, basically, Squidoo can be very profitable all by itself.
A lot of Lensmasters agree and do focus all of their time on lenses, and do rely on it as their only source of online income. But what if something happens that traffic to Squidoo lenses decreases? Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed that my lens traffic has been going up sharply–it’s doubled in under a month. Is there any chance that could go both ways? I know that a lot of factors could be involved. but I noticed that my lenses are ranking higher and bringing in more traffic.
How about the Great Google Squidoo Slap of 2007? Could something like that happen again? Possibly. Not likely, but it definitely could happen. If it did, though, it’d be a mess of trouble for a lot of people. At least when you spread yourself out over several websites, you can fall back on the others if one fails. Not that I’m trying to scare you–the chance of something bad happening to Squidoo is remote–I’m just the kind of person that likes to always be prepared.
What do you think? Do you rely on Squidoo 100% or do you have your stuff branched out?
That could definitely happen to squidoo again. Though I’m also noting a definite increase in traffic. Lenses of mine that never had much google traffic to speak of, suddenly do get that. Which is great.
For me the majority of my online income still comes from my own website, so I always feel a bit guilty for neglecting it at the expense of squidoo. Squidoo is just so much fun
I have a really hard time getting my lenses to stay up in the search ranking for Google. they initially rank pretty well, but then they slip off. Any suggestions?
Yeah, that’s what happens with almost all sites I think. Google initially ranks sites very well, but then they drop down. This is the “Google Test Run,” and after giving a site a test run it drops it down to where it belongs in the search engines.
The best way to raise rankings is to keep building links, and wait. Play with your tags, and use SquidUtils’s Tag Tool to find good tags that will bring you links from other relevant lenses.
It can sometimes take a while for Google to trust/recognize your lens, and I’ve had lenses go up in traffic initially, then plummet, and then after a month or two they rocket up and get great consistent traffic.