I Squidoo, Do You?

In the last post I mentioned that I'd found three or four websites that I was going to focus on to generate some income for myself online. The one that I've been focusing on the most as of late, and one that I know has the potential to bring in a lot of income when used correctly, is Squidoo.

What is Squidoo?

Squidoo is a community website that is free to use and allows members (Lensmasters) to create pages, known as lenses, for things that they are interested in. You can create lenses on almost anything. If there's a particular hobby you have, you can create a lens telling people all about it. A lot of people make sales lenses with the sole purpose of generating income. It is still important, however, to add a lot of text and relevant information on sales pages to draw interest. People who are searching for things generally don't just want to be sold to. You have to be tactical about it.

How do I Make Money Through Squidoo?

There are several ways to earn money through Squidoo. One of these is through Squidoo's tier payout system.

How do Tier Payments Work?

Each lens is given a Lensrank, based on its performance on Squidoo. The higher, the better. There are four tiers that a lens can fall into. The amount that is received per month is dependent on Squidoo's income, as the tier payouts are royalties made through income generated through the ad pool which Squidoo then splits with its Lensmasters.

Tier 1 is reserved for the top 2000 lenses and receives the biggest chunk of the ad pool. The money earned through Tier 1 lenses on a monthly basis is typically above $40.

Tier 2 is for lenses ranked 2,001 - 10,000. Tier two lenses can expect to make $6-8 per month.

Tier 3 is for the next 75,000 lenses and typically pays out 30 - 40 cents per month.

Tier 4 is for the rest of the lenses up to 100,000 and typically doesn't pay more than 10 cents per month.

For more information on Tier payouts, take a look at this lens by Greekgeek on Squidoo.

Amazon & eBay

Most lensmasters make their money on Squidoo through affiliate sales. Amazon and eBay are the most common ones used, and you can join both affiliate programs through Squidoo and there are modules in place that you can put on your lenses to direct people to products.

As Squidoo is such a high profile website, they get the best affiliate rates with Amazon, and by joining their affiliate program you will earn almost the same as if you were using your own Amazon affiliate link, even though you're splitting the royalties with Squidoo!

Text Link Ads

As a lensmaster you have the option to turn text link ads on or off on your lenses. Text link ads are advertisements linking to outside sites that are cleverly inserted into your lenses. They are displayed in green and underlined in your text. If this is not something that you want on your lenses, then turn the option off. By turning it off, however, you will be decreasing your chances of earning money and losing out on possible royalties.

Succeeding on Squidoo

It takes a lot of hard work and persistence to succeed on Squidoo, and it does not happen over night. It can take months, even years, for people to make enough income through Squidoo to live on, and most people don't reach that stage. There are, however, several success stories, and many lensmasters make decent money every month, with some earning thousands.

Succeeding on Squidoo takes more than just creating lenses. You need to implement some SEO techniques to drive traffic to your lenses. If nobody sees the products you are advertising, then there's nobody to buy them. The more traffic you bring to your lens, the more likely you are to make a sale.

I realise that this post is rather vague, but it would be pretty impossible to delve into very feature of Squidoo. The best way to find out what it is all about is to sign up and discover it for yourself. There are plenty of articles loaded with information to help new lensmasters learn the ropes and to get started. Once you get the hang of it, you'll find that it is easy to create lenses and start to make money. It will take some time to make any significant amounts, but as with anything, if you persist and keep at it, you will see results.

You can join Squidoo here.