Thread: Do you Squidoo?

Who here uses Squidoo? Have you found any benefits from using Squidoo to promote your site? What things do you do to keep your lense ranking well?

Originally Posted by Web Gazelle

Who here uses Squidoo? Have you found any benefits from using Squidoo to promote your site? What things do you do to keep your lense ranking well?

I don't personally use it but I know a few people that do and get moderate traffic from it.

Seems like if you put a little effort into getting your lense to rank well in squidoo then it will also show up in the search engines.

I guess I've never checked it out but hearing the word Squidoo actually annoys me

lol, I have a few lenses I don't update them as often as I should but I do ok. thanks

Asone

Seems like it is all about updating your lenses to keep good rankings in squidoo.

The site is a bit confusing at first, a turn off for me personally.

It is fairly easy to make a lens and I have had lenses get found in Google searches as quick as 2 days after creating them.

Funnily enough, I signed up today!

Trip Planning

Not sure it'll help traffic but we'll see.

Gave you 5 stars... You can visit lenses and rate them if you like. :swink:

I am banned from squidoo. A few times.:2024::2024:

Originally Posted by SlightlyShadySEO

I am banned from squidoo. A few times.:2024::2024:

Perhaps you might share what you did to get banned.

Originally Posted by Web Gazelle

Perhaps you might share what you did to get banned.

Note the black hat on the avatar.
I deserved it. heh.

Originally Posted by SlightlyShadySEO

Note the black hat on the avatar.
I deserved it. heh.

I see. So you could also be called "SlightlyShadySquidoo". :scool:

Originally Posted by Web Gazelle

I see. So you could also be called "SlightlyShadySquidoo". :scool:

Halt! Is that a sub-blog I hear a-rustlin in the bushes?

Originally Posted by dav3.tv

I guess I've never checked it out but hearing the word Squidoo actually annoys me

I've been meaning to check it out but really haven't gotten the chance.

The name Squidoo is annoying.

Check it out. It is possible to make some extra money with Squidoo. Just remember to set all your lenses to pay you 100% cash.

Try a lensroll.. by topic..

I have one lens and I'm working on a second one... Which reminds me, :3077: I was going to finish my second one today, but I got distracted... :whistle:

What do you know I just got distracted too. Be sure to give me the URL when that new lens is done.:1942:

The problem i have with Squidoo;

This may be a short term SEO strategy that once it becomes over abused, and it likely will, Google could slap it with a PR hand edit. Or the site may be forced to make all outgoing links no-follow.

Originally Posted by axemedia

The problem i have with Squidoo;

This may be a short term SEO strategy that once it becomes over abused, and it likely will, Google could slap it with a PR hand edit. Or the site may be forced to make all outgoing links no-follow.

Google could do that one day but for now I am getting good inbound links from it that I can control and I have seen Squidoo send my one site over 250 visitors in a month. That to me is worth my time to promote my sites with Squidoo.

If the traffic is there it is worth it?

If you do it right then the traffic will be there and it will be worth it. I also did a Web Gazelle Squidwho to promote my alias on the forums and to make sure nobody else did to try to tarnish my name or something like that.

Originally Posted by axemedia

The problem i have with Squidoo;

This may be a short term SEO strategy that once it becomes over abused, and it likely will, Google could slap it with a PR hand edit. Or the site may be forced to make all outgoing links no-follow.

Actually if you dig around it already was slapped down awhile ago.

Is it a time consuming thing? Compared to other strategies that is. I have never looked at it but will check it out if the time is worth it.

Originally Posted by knslms

Is it a time consuming thing? Compared to other strategies that is. I have never looked at it but will check it out if the time is worth it.

Your first couple of lenses will probably take some time. But once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to create them much quicker. You'll never be able to slap something together quickly and get good results, but you will get better & faster at creating them.

But that's a good question for our Gazelle/Squidoo King. I'd like to know how long it takes him to make one of his lenses.............

I can put together a lens in 1 - 2 hours. I then go back a few times each week to add content to it till I have built it up with lots of quality content. Squidoo likes content. If you fill it full of good useful content people will give it good ratings on Squidoo and your lens will rank well on Squidoo. Once I have the lens full of good quality content, I might spend 5 minutes here and there to update it. The time invested at the beginning and up being worth it in the end.

I personally used it, but I find the site a little bit confusing..

There are other benefits to Squidoo.

Read this on making money. It's inspiring!

In the future it may not be an acceptable way of getting some traffic, but there still are other benefits, as mentioned above.

Here's an article on what Google may be doing with Squidoo.

Instead of using Squidoo to drive traffic to your other sites, I think it would be good to try to drive traffic to your Squidoo lenses. It can be good in both directions and you could actually make money in both directions. Also, you can get referral money from Squidoo.

Here's some good pages with tools and Squidoo directories to help you.

Tools

Tools *iframes aren't allowed anymore.

SquidUtils - very helpful site!
It includes a way to ping your Squidoo pages
Use Amazon links tool
Advanced Lensmaster Dashboard

Directories

Lensroll Networking / Popular Lenses
Squidoo Directory - SquidUtils
Squidoo Lens Directory :: Home
The Isle of Squid

And if you have a squidwho lens or an Ever project lens, here is a new group for you to join!

Squid Who Ever Group Headquarters

Check out the awesome group admins on that one! :love:

Ooo, ooo, I figured out who you are!

Originally Posted by Red Hot Mama

And if you have a squidwho lens or an Ever project lens, here is a new group for you to join!

Squid Who Ever Group Headquarters

Check out the awesome group admins on that one! :love:

Watch for this group. I have a feeling it is going to grow to be one of the biggest.

I created a new lens that has all the links, tools, and news/articles on or about Squidoo.

I've been through a TON of garbage sites that were nothing but marketing crap with nothing of value. That on my lens is nothing but things of value, all compiled on one page.

If you have any suggestions or additions, please let me know.

Squidoo Resources, Tools, and News

Originally Posted by tritrain

I created a new lens that has all the links, tools, and news/articles on or about Squidoo.

I've been through a TON of garbage sites that were nothing but marketing crap with nothing of value. That on my lens is nothing but things of value, all compiled on one page.

If you have any suggestions or additions, please let me know.

Squidoo Resources, Tools, and News

Good job! I gave it a little bit of love. :love:

Hey, thanks for the mention!!! You, and my good manners, made me come all the way over here, register for this forum just to say 'thanks'!

This is a great conversation about Squidoo here in this thread... also shows me that some are still way confused about Squidoo.

About making lenses:

Yes, the first few will take you longer than it will in the future. Once you know what you're doing, and where to find what you need, it becomes pretty automatic. As with anything, there is a learning curve...but in my opinion, it is one that internet marketers should spend the time to tackle.

About Google issues with Squidoo:

Squidoo has been there, done that... last summer. The site had some users mass-creating junk lenses and the site suffered as whole. As was mentioned, the ability to use <iframes> is now gone, there is a 24 hour review period before new lenses are added to the Squidoo index, and a few other changes ... but the result is - Google loves Squidoo again AND we won't have to worry about that happening again. Typical growing pains for a brand new platform/site. User-generated content can be risky.....learn and grow... learn and grow. =)

About traffic from Squidoo:

I have had amazing results with traffic filtered from lenses on Squidoo both for myself and for my clients. I have about 100 lenses on my Squidoo account and a very large percentage of them have the RSS feed for my blog embedded on them. The quantity of traffic from just those feeds is wonderful and the quality of traffic from Squidoo is some of the best traffic I get (very low bounce rate better conversion). Heck, one of my lenses feeds about 1000 visitors a week to one of my niche sites. Granted, this lens is pretty well optimized and based off a strong keyword...but you can't beat 1000 visitors a week for free =)

All in all -

Squidoo is easy to use once you tackle that learning curve.

It is free to use AND they pay you based on your performance within the Squidoo site (lensrank)

You can market on Squidoo, you can drive traffic to your site, you can brag about your dog....just about anything (Check the TOS for Squidoo, please, they do have limitations)

Each lens (Squidoo page) develops its own Page Rank. I have lenses that are PR 5, PR4, PR3, and so on.... tell me that is NOT valuable.

Backlinks pass value to the linking site =)

The Squidoo community is WONDERFUL and the staff is on top of anything that will make the site better.

You can add the RSS feed for your blog to every lens.

You can add your Twitter feed to every lens.

Squidoo lenses are acceptable landing pages for article marketing (great and free way to make money online)

Is that enough reasons? LOL! I could go on, but being this is my first post, I don't want to get banned for posting a novel!

Again, THANK YOU for the kind mention of my blog. I appreciate it greatly. Any questions, feel free to ask!


Jennifer
aka - PotPieGirl

I'm going to make one either today or tommorrow. I'll share the results

That's awesome PotPieGirl! Thank you!

I hope to see you around here more often. Give us more helpful ideas and tips.

By the way, Fluffanatta is a member of seo.com's forum, if you want to stop by there too.


P.S. Hey thanks Hot Mama!!

I made a new Squidoo one (although it's on their ever.com project site).

It's a directory for Amazon stores and aStores. If you have either or both, feel free to add your store to it.

I don't currently use Squidoo. I'm too busy with my existing sites.