How do you monetize Squidoo?

1. 64

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   I am scratching my head
   
   I have a page on Squidoo that gets some good traffic. In a range of 1000 views per day. At the same time, they pay me peanuts for it. My similar HP page that gets times less traffic brings me times more money! Go figure what they do with my money?
   
   So I realized I am giving my money away, and now I want to monetize this page in my own way. Hence I am asking those who has an experience with monetizing Squidoo to share some tips and tricks, if possible.
   
   Any help is much appreciated

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   1. 63

      mortaineposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I have no idea. A few months ago when I tried out Hubpages and Squidoo for the first time, I found that I liked Hub's traffic, but I preferred Squidoo's modules and content tools. Ultimately, I find I can bring the content myself, but I'd rather have article creation here look more like Squidoo, but with Hubpages' traffic-building. I don't know what hubpages does, but I get nothing on Squidoo, and it doesn't even show up on searches. Meanwhile, my hubs are very easy to find on Google and elsewhere.

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   2. 69

      ccdursinaposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Misha
      
      I recently found this info.
      
      When are you on your main page look on the bottom left for the following:
      
      Don't miss this tool!
      
      Drag the link below to the Favorites bar in your browser. When you see something online that relates to one of your lenses, click it to update your lens!
      
      Squidoo This! <<< Drag this to favorites bar
      
          * Payment Settings Manager
          * Got firefox? Grab the Squidoo Firefox extension
          * Transfer a lens
          * Refer a friend (and earn a bonus!)
          * Manage your Custom Lens Template
      
      
      I hope this helps a little
      Carolina D.

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      1. 68

         waynetposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Ah yes the bookmark tool, I've used that one on several occasions and it has been quite useful and easy to use.
         Especially relevant links.

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   3. 66

      Silver Roseposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I use Commission Junction and Affiliate Window.
      
      Squidoo is great in that they make it easy to put HTML banners and other affiliate stuff on (for the banners, just choose the Text with big picture module and drop the HTML in it).
      
      Because it's your own affiliate ID, you keep the lot, and most CJ merchants have a 30 day cookie.
      
      Just a few notes: before you apply to be a CJ merchant, make sure that the lens in question has good pagerank and traffic, as the merchants are picky and turn you down. I did a hub on affiliates - see Best Affiliate Networks
      
      You might also want to take a look at Captain squid's blog, he makes a fortune from affiliate marketing via Squidoo. Here's the link:
      
      http://www.captainsquid.com/
      
      All the good stuff is in his archives, you will have to dig a bit. He's got some videos on there too about how to go about using CJ with Squidoo.
      
      Hope this helps

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2. 64

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   Thanks Mortaine
   
   It's not exactly what I was asking about though. I am pretty much proficient in building both lenses and hubs, as well as in bringing traffic to them. In my experience HP is better if you use sort of set it and forget it approach, it brings in some traffic all by itself. However, Squidoo responds much better to active promotion, and almost all of my Squidoo pages outrank my corresponding HP pages.
   
   My problem is Squidoo does not pay anywhere near HP for the same traffic, hence an attempt to use other means of monetizing them

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3. 83

   jimmythejockposted 15 years ago

   why dont you remove the article from Squidoo and bring it to hubpages, just leave a paragragh and a link on your squidoo page redirecting them your new one here.....jimmy

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4. 58

   davidjudonposted 15 years ago

   I have to agree with Jimmy, it only makes sense.
   
   The free traffic will monetize itself.
   
   Goood luck,
   
   David D. Ju'Don

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5. 64

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   Jimmy, thanks
   
   I was thinking about something like that. There is a problem with such an approach - if I truncate this Squidoo lens significantly, it won't get such good rankings it enjoys now, and traffic will subside. I do have a link from Squidoo to my corresponding hub though, this we agree on

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6. 64

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   Thanks David,
   
   I'm afraid traffic does not monetize itself, one has to make an effort to do this. And the smarter the effort, the better results one gets

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7. 68

   waynetposted 15 years ago

   Maybe a mix of Amazon modules and other modules that you can work in there, I mean your Safe driving lens is just crying out for a prominent amazon spotlight on a safe driving manual or something and your handbags lens could use some extra variations, maybe from external third party affiliate links. An Amazon search module can be quite useful, especially if there are lot of products in a specific category as you can list up to 9 products that show and then the pages and search box too.
   
   This is what I am trying to do, a little time consuming I admit, but it helps to focus on a bunch of related lenses and tie them all together if relevant!

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8. 64

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   Wow! Thanks Wayne for taking your time and looking at my lenses!
   
   I will definitely think how I can fit your suggestions there.
   
   The problem is - those are not the lenses I was asking about, they get minimal traffic of a few users a day. I was talking about mapquest lens, and it does not really have a strong tie to any kind of product except may be GPS, what I am currently testing there, but without much luck...

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9. 64

   Mishaposted 15 years ago

   LOL That was not exactly the question guys. Thanks for trying anyway

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10. 60

    premsinghposted 15 years ago

    I think traffic makes difference at the HP as there are chances of more clicks of adsense ads but this advantage is not available at squidoo as revenue from adsense is distributed proportionately according to lens/lensmaster's rankings by squidoo. This leave few options for monetizing a lens. Product sales using Amazon, eBay, Cafepress etc and this will depend on the origin of traffic from where you are getting this traffic. Online purchases are minimal from Asian/African countries. If you have traffic from European countries, there are chances of earning more money from product sales. You can earn good money through referrals but these referrals have to be active.

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11. 60

    ArtSirenposted 15 years ago

    I think you can use affiliate programmes on Squidoo also - other than their own eBay, Amazon etc money-making modules. Quite a lot of lenses, for example, carry images from AllPosters dot com, so they get their images without the copyright hassles, and if visitors like the pics they can click and buy them - you'll get your commission.
    
    You'll just need to search around for affiliate programmes that fit the themes of your most popular lenses, and see if that produces any decent results. Hope this is what you are asking about.

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12. 67

    relacheposted 15 years ago

    You can monetize a Squidoo lens any way you can.
    
    Use your own Amazon account and put in links by hand, you don't have to share any commission that way.  Now, sales on a lens via the built-in retail modules does give a boost to lensrank, so you will give that up if you go via your own account.  It's kind of a toss-up.
    
    Use affiliate programs, you don't get penalized.  Javascript and fancy links aren't allowed, but anything you can link to via basic HTML will work.
    
    If you have good traffic on a lens but can't quite get the conversions you want, try directing traffic from there to someplace else on the net you have related content but earn better.  You don't have any restrictions on what you link to from a lens.

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13. 47

    johnr54posted 15 years ago

    First of all, I agree the payout on Squidoo for like lenses is terrible.
    
    Related to affiliate links on Squidoo, I've seen some folks use links built with Popshops quite effectively.  This allows deep links from merchant datafeeds.  Another thing I tried for a while with little success (but mainly  due to the traffic on the lens)  was to use an RSS feed from Amazon's best sellers with my own affiliate ID.
    
    However, I have never had much luck with Squidoo, it runs about 10% of my Hubpages earnings.
    
    However, traffic isn't everything.  Even here on Hubpages my highest traffic hubs are not usually my best earners.  Definitely depends on the topic and the ability to have relevant Amazon products (my Amazon earnings are usually higher than the Adsense earnings.)

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    1. 81

       2besureposted 14 years agoin reply to this

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14. 45

    Jezzzzposted 14 years ago

    The only real money that I have ever made from squidoo has either come from eBay or from adsense.  So, I tend to have eBay modules on my lens and I also have links that either link to my primary websites that I build in conjunction to my lens or have the links affiliate to an affiliate site through said websites.

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15. 0

    Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years ago

    Squidoo is one of the few places that I haven't been able to successfuly monetize. No matter what I do, I don't every seem to make much money. I've just about given up.

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16. 60

    cherese j nunezposted 14 years ago

    Everybody seems to forget that squiddo shares all profits with everyoneelse, your not just makiking mmoney for yourself, it is a shared thing. so monitizing it is not possible.

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17. 59

    phonereversetraceposted 14 years ago

    For monetization reasons, it's really going to be better to use Squidoo as a platform to promote your own website. I would treat any income from Squidoo as nothing more than icing on the cake, and not a main source of revenue.

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