Hi, I am starting to build squidoo lenses, and I wonder if they get indexed faster and better than having them on my own websites? Because usually google doesn't index all of the site's pages, which would have more exposure? Does ALL squidoo lenses (with unique content) get indexed by Google? How many lenses or hubpages X site pages do you think would be a good proportion for getting the most exposure to my pages, "out of the box"? Which is harder to market?
Squidoo will have more authority 'out of the box' If there is no internal path on squidoo to get to your lens, you can easily fix this by dropping a link to it from a social bookmark site or a blog you have access to.
I find Squidoo lens shoot up on Google fast! Within the first week I can land on the first page for low competing terms. Where as I don't see my site up yet for the same term (it's been almost 3 weeks) and my site has 20 strong backlinks showing, and the Squidoo lens has 1 backlink.
Thanks a lot!! That's what I wanted to know.. Seems it's faster than registering a domain name and building too many link backs just to find out IF a keyword has a chance... one of the top 100 lenses I read was a review by a mom saying she had 80+ lenses and made 2k monthly or something.. plus adding BIG affiliate links to the lenses should be much effortless and cheaper than PPC (which I'm also trying).. and I could always link it to my own domain later if the keyword turns out to work fine for organic traffic. Does anyone make nice money (1K+) with squidoo??
Squidoo is indeed an excellent platform for testing a niche. Captain Squid (Loyalis) has been known to earn more that £3,000 in a single month.
Squidoo is a great platform in my view. If you regularly post new content in your lens Google will certainly index your lens.
I like squidoo. I created a lens a while back and it is now a pr2. I didnt do anything to it in a while. Its rank is better than my own blog but my blog gets more traffic. Squidoo is a great way to earn money and test niche ideas. I would continue with.
I've pushed a few squidoo lenses, and I can see why people like them. - It's a content rich link - It can get good PR if you push your content - It's yours! What's there not to like?
Squidoo has high Page Rank, I think that can help individual (lense) pages in ranking, also by adding the RSS feed your lens can get a big boost.
Thank you all. At first I thought some people would tell me to go with my own website because I have more flexibility and options like submitting to web directories, but you confirmed that it does make a profit and is good for finding niches.. (PS: I do miss putting an optin form!!)
Squidoo is great and ranks fast and easily for both longtail and short keywords/phrases. I've had one lens #4 for "make money online" once upon a time. It took me 2 weeks and about 8k backlinks and it stayed up for a few weeks. But it was worth it.
Great advice you can always get backlinks from them with "lensroll" (links from other lenses) I would agree that squidoo pages are indexed faster than building a website but in the long run your own website does have a flexibility you can't find with squidoo. I would build squidoo pages for fast results but I will build my site in parallel for long lasting results People do make money from squidoo lenses but I think its from affiliations (not from adsense) which is no different then setting up your own affiliate "Landing page" and driving traffic to it
Thank you for the info. Anyone else here with personal experience with earning money from Squidoo? Which affiliates networks accept Squidoo pages as affiliate sites? Does CJ accept it? I have an account already setup with my domain name, would it be ok to use Squidoo or will merchants complain? Anyone here making a profit directly from Squidoo? I read a featured lens from a woman saying she makes more then 2k/month from Squidoo revenue alone (and more with affiliates and other sources). Anyone here making any money? One cent? One dollar? Thanks
I've been making a regular 3-figure sum every month just from Squidoo, and topped up with a couple affiliate accounts. I find Amazon works really well for the kind of things I like. www.CaptainSquid.com is pulling 4 figures on a regular basis (including affiliates), and has written about it on his blog.
Same with ThaisMr. I wonder if we could put CJ links in Squidoo. Do most CJ advertisers allow direct links from Squidoo pages?
Ditto on everything everyone has said. And to answer your other question, depending on the niche you are testing, you should have 5-20 lenses filtering traffic to your sites for optimal exposure. As long as you are providing useful information that people in your target audience are searching for, you should expand as far and wide as you can.