My Weekly Squidoo Journal

RIP, Squidoo. You have been gobbled up by Hubpages, and now you've been assimilated. However, this journal survives as a bit of a time capsule, a candid look back into my Squidoodling and Squidon'ting. I'm leaving the rest verbatim.

This is a weekly journal of my goings-on at Squidoo, week by week. I'll post more detailed updates some weeks, and less detailed updates other weeks, but I'll try to post some specifics along the way! Best of all, I'll be making mistakes (hopefully a little less every week), so if you're here because you want to find out some tips for how to Squidoo, this may be very beneficial for you as well.

July 14th- July 20th, 2014

Days 1-5, figuring out how to write with this format

I think I’m like the majority of folks in that I learn by doing much better than by reading a mountain of text. That’s certainly how I’ve approached writing articles on Squidoo thus far, although I’ve certainly done a bit of reading and video watching.

The very first article I wrote articulated some thoughts I have about Moore’s Law and the potentially coming technological singularity. Although I wasn’t super happy with the way the flow of the article went (couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get the comments at the bottom until I figured out that you have to hit both “apply” on the right side, then “publish” on the left again to fix these things), I noticed that the article went quickly into the top 20,000 overall. This isn’t super impressive, but I was happy anyway, so followed it up with a slightly better article (from the Squidoo-bots’ standpoints, anyway): Yeah, but in the 80s, we thought we would have hoverboards by now! I kind of got the flow down a little better here, as you can see, and still got to say a lot of things I wanted to say.

I then dabbled with a new way to create a lens that I found extremely easy and formulaic, which was awesome, because these had the potential to create passive income. This was using the “Squidoo It” button, which you can very easily install in your Chrome browser by dragging it into your bookmarks. Once you’re on a page on Amazon (that’s all I’ve used so far), you can click “Squidoo It” and a page will be started. I’ll describe the method a little more in the next section.

Days 6 and 7, hitting my stride

On day six (Friday), I worked from home and decided I was going to make at least 10 Squidoo lenses. This was no mean feat, as I was still kind of working the bugs out as I went along. The Amazon “Squidoo It” strategy worked really well to quickly begin making pages, though, and so of the 10 lenses I created, 8 or 9 were product pages. I decided I would endorse only products I really enjoy or believe in (because, well, I’m not a slimebucket) and found quite a few of them with my Amazon purchase history, and with some products my gym uses (I run a martial arts gym in Richmond, VA).

Once I was in the middle of creating the necessary content blocks and requirements to publish (Squidoo works well for this, kind of idiot-proofing the product promotion process… I only wish they did it for articles as well), I noticed you could just click on your scorecard in the left hand column and see what it was you needed to work on. Neat!

Anyway, these flew by, and so I did the same thing on Saturday as well, ultimately making 8 or so product pages and writing one or two articles. One of the articles I wrote that was pretty good, I think, was”how to tape your fingers for judo or BJJ.” This is something I obviously know a lot about, as I’ve had a great deal of practice, and through the wonders of the internetz, I was able to share it in a pretty clear, easy to understand fashion, and post the link on Facebook, too.

I also made a poll about technology over the coming years (and what innovation in the last half decade will have the most impact), along with an article to go with it. That poll has over 100 votes already, so I’m pretty happy about that.

Editor’s note: I am terrified to try to link to any of the above articles because Cthulu or whatever the Squid-god’s name is has a habit of locking articles and then not really explaining why they’re locked. Fingers crossed that this one actually works.

Next week's goals

So I got my first affiliate share money yesterday: a whopping 64 cents. I’m not really concerned about that aspect right now, but I have a modest financial goal of at least doubling that revenue over the next week, so that I will have made a total of $1.92 by next Sunday. Not overly ambitious, but I’m learning as I go.

I’d also like to set a goal of creating 10 lenses a day (and oh by the way, I figured out that is the maximum Squidoo will allow you to have). I will probably do 90% product lenses, as I’ve done for the last few days, mainly because the process is so easy, and I have expertise in a wide range of products, including books. Now I know that books aren’t likely to make me doodly squat for money, but right now it’s all about practicing, for me.

Finally, I’ll try to figure out Squidoo’s weird algorithm for publishing and promoting articles. I’ve written a few articles so far that haven’t been well received by the Squid-gods, and I’d like to not worry about those, but move forward without wasting upwards of an hour or two on an article only to have it later rejected.

Anyway, I’m optimistic, and I’m looking forward to the coming week. Stay tuned!

July 21st-27th 2014

Week two brought new and interesting challenges, and a couple of surprises with Squidoo. I've found that nailing down six or seven product pages a day is not very difficult, although I don't know how long I'll be able to maintain that level of insane productivity, and I may run out of products I use regularly. I won't write about things I don't enjoy writing about, though, so that should ensure that the quality is high.

Games and points

I managed to get just up over 9000 points by the end of the week, in spite of being sick as a dog for a day (I wrote about cough drops one of the days!). I now have 13 trophies, and I'm at level 37 (it's hard to keep up now).

Most successful post(s)

The two this week are the poll about technology in the 2010s and the "How to Pass the Guard with the Kimura", which is now ranked #284 overall and #11 in Sports and Recreation. It would be really cool to crack the top 100 overall, although I'm not sure my social networking skills are up to the challenge. We'll see, though. I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Earnings

I've made it up to $3.03 total pending, so I did make my goal for the week. Woot!

Other blog and article sites

I've written 8 articles so far on Hubpages, 5 or 6 on Infobarrel, and quite a few article/post thingys on Bubblews. The formats are all so very different. My income from Infobarrel is $1.04 so far, and Bubblews is up around $8 (but I have to get over $50 before cashing out, and there's some speculation about whether it's scammy, etc).

Goals for next week

I don't really have an earnings goal for next week. I think it's okay not to set one this early on and focus more on great content, and seeing how far I can take having quality lenses. I'd like to create another 45 lenses this week, so that will put me at 110. It would be cool to break level 50, and if I could have 2 more lenses in the top 5 (I have 5 now), that would be great.

I'm using week two's format (see above), so hopefully this will make writing very efficient here. Week three saw a slow time due to a personal issue (sick dogs and a death in the family), so as you'll see, I didn't make all of my goals, but I did figure out some key things anyway.

Games and points

Most successful post(s)

"How to Pass the Guard with the Kimura" crept into the top 200, but didn't quite reach the top 100 (although it was #5 in Sports, which is cool!). The "rugged laptop backpack" one is doing surprisingly well, and might crack the top 10,000. I Have just one tier 1 lens and 2 tier 2 lenses, maybe 40 tier 3.

Earnings

$3.54 total pending.

Other blog and article sites

Bubblews is at $30 in the "bank" (remember, $50 minimum cashout). 10 "hubs" on Hubpages and 6 or 7 on Infobarrel (about a dollar apiece so far on these, although I should be able to get some legit passive income from them).

Goals for next week

This week, I'd like to focus more on the great resources right here on Squidoo available to us, like the forum and networking via liking and commenting on lenses. I'd like to make at least 10 comments (very genuine ones) and respond to at least 3 forum posts (I am still getting to know the community there, but it's clear that there is a great deal of support from high level folks who understand how to make a lens better, and are glad to give feedback).

I think I want to write about Hallie, too.

Week four continued rolling along pretty slowly but steadily. I visited Squidoo every day and read some other lenses, many of which were highly rated/ranked. I also did some traveling, but I was able to make another video focused lens (this one on "how to do a kneebar from the half guard").

I'm going to leave the games/points stuff blank for now with the hopes that the Squidoo forum community can tell me how to find this info with our new interface!

Games and points

Most successful post(s)

"How to Pass the Guard with the Kimura" is starting to fade, down to 792 today (at least it's still in the top 1000, for now). I may use a "turbo lensboost" for it. "Rugged laptop backpack" is steady at about 15,000. "3 Productivity Hacks" is just inside of the 10,000. I Have just one tier 1 lens and 1 tier 2 lens, and 41 tier 3.

Earnings

$3.54 total pending. Same as last week.

Other blog and article sites

Bubblews is at $55 in the "bank" (remember, $50 minimum cashout). 10 "hubs" on Hubpages and 6 or 7 on Infobarrel (about a dollar apiece so far on these, although I should be able to get some legit passive income from them) - these have crept up slightly with August in session.

Goals for next week

I did end up writing about Hallie this past week, but I think it was only over on Bubblews and Hubpages. I may do a nice lens for her, just have to find the right format. I'd like to see the kneebar lens climb into tier 1 this week and then stay there all month.