Challenge: Making Money on Squidoo

[Mark Nehs]

I just decided some how some way I am going to be making $50 or more per day with Squidoo by Dec 31st. How about you?

It is now Nov 2008, and I have several Squidoo lenses for a little over a year now. Lenses with information I enjoy without much attention to how to make money for myself or my charities. I do make a little bit but not even enough for a coffee a day (even a no frills cheap brand).

This thread is reserved for those that want to get serious about Squidoo and want to make cold hard cash for themselves or their charity.

The money earned will be from affiliate sales, product sales, lens income, and whatever else we can come up with.

How can we help each other? Let us know what is working for you as you get sales, different ideas, post links of ways others are making money with Squidoo, and being a supportive helpful team member.

If you want to join (posting your goal on the Internet for all to see -- kinda scary) please register in this thread with how much you will be making (for yourself and/or charities) by Dec 31st.

It is now Dec 31st, 2008 and I am so happy and grateful to be making $50 or more per day with Squidoo sharing products, services, and information.

Side Note to Squidoo Marketing Community: I posted this same challenge over at Beginners Marketing Class if you want to accept and help others there as well.

[Joan]

Oh yes, My goal has always been $50 a day at least. and like you, barely making coffee money. My only issue with your declaration is the time limit. I think $50 a day is possible by December 31, 2009. I seem to learn something new every month.
I have had little success with things I have tried with Pepperjam, i have had limited success with clickbank. (total $138 or so from squidoo lenses to clickbank products).

I have not tried commission junction yet. have you?

[Mark Nehs]

I have not tried commission junction but I have heard good things about Pepperjam. Do you want to figure out how to get to a $1 a day with Pepperjam with me? Please provide your affiliate link to Pepperjam because I mine as well sign up with you.

I am pretty close to $1 with my Squidoo ad money and hopefully Joan and I will figure out Pepperjam. A long road to go to get to $50 a day.

[Joan]

i was pleased with my squidoo check yesterday at $58. a good month!

this is my link to pepperjam - Sign upfor Pepperjam

Captain Squid makes more $$ on Squidoo than anybody, I think. and he says the best thing is text links, not banner ads. so we might just try adding a text link from pepperjam to our existing lenses -- within a sentence if possible. I think that is a good goal for me for the weekend. text links within context of the lens.

Let's just make some big bucks!!!!!!!!! If other folk can do it, we can do it!

[Joan]

be sure to also subscribe to Squidoo Cool
http://www.squidoocool.com/

list all your lenses with squidpoint, lensroll, squoogle, etc. do you need those links?

twitter a lens at least once a day with some conversation.....

[Mark Nehs]

I absolutely agree about the text link and yes we can make the big bucks as well.

Yes, I need those links.

I do twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, put links in forum posts, other social sites, and my signatures.

[Joan]

post your lenses to these too

http://squidpoint.com/
http://isleofsquid.com/directory/
http://www.lensroll.com/
http://www.squoogle.com/

[John Dilbeck]

I know you're probably already doing this, but don't forget to blog about your lenses, add a page to your websites, and tell us about them here in our List A Lens A Day group.

Of course, the key to doing this well is to use keywords people are already looking for and to publicize your lenses on sites with RSS feeds. You just never know where those feeds will be syndicated, and that increases your reach quite a bit - at least potentially.

Don't just tell us you updated a lens or created a new one.

Tell a compelling story about the subject upon which you are writing and something to motivate us to respond to your MWR (most wanted response) for the article and the lens.

For instance, in the last few months, the most compelling story I can think of is a legally-blind golfer who makes a hole in one! That captured my imagination in a way that makes it almost impossible to forget. I'm still planning to promote Whitey and Joan's lenses that tell us about him.

Other lenses and websites have fallen off my radar because they didn't tell a compelling story that was memorable.

So, it's not just the fact of linking to your sites, it's how you tell us about them and what you want us to do when we visit.

Signing your guestbook, ranking a lens, and favoriting it are nice, but they're not nearly as nice as a customer clicking on a link and buying something that generates a commission check.

Yes, text links - using proper keywords as the link text - are much more effective than banners and other graphic ads, but I'd still use a mix of the two, unless the graphics detract from the story you're telling.

Good luck on meeting those goals! Setting a goal is at least half the battle.

Act on your dream!

JD

[Joan]

Thank you, John! Great advice as usual. I have recently come to understand more clearly that the reason for getting Squidoo traffic and rankings high is that it helps to get those Google hits.
Halloween Songs was a great example of that, and yes, still selling on that site. Not a fortune, but the dollars do seem to grow. Don't we get credit for any sales within 30 days from one of our clickouts? I noticed someone had purchased coffee and I got credit for that. there is no coffee on the lens!

And again, thank you for your continued interest in Whitey's lens.

[Janelle Kleppin]

Your introduction and title seem to be the most important parts of getting high google rankings - I've been playing with those and am seeing some results that have been interesting. The click through sales are puzzling, but I think you must be right - I got some commission showing on my Wooden-Kitchen lens that came from eBay ... where somebody clicked through and bid on a bunch of clothes. That's the only commission I've gotten from click through sales, other than apparently I got 74 cents from CafePress in my $1.66 for Sept. Twenty-Twenty bought a mug from my son, and the 74 cents just disappeared from the stats when the Sept. payment was posted.

[Mark Nehs]

I have now joined Squidpoint and Lensroll and they allow me to submit a trackback. What should I put in there if anything?
Made a lens Make $50 a day with Squidoo to track my progress as well. Logically I should have probably done this from the start.
Need help with Pepperjam? This way of making money on Squidoo has me a bit overwhelmed/confused. Should a pick a program and make a lens?

[Janelle Kleppin]

While I hate to limit myself, LOL, given that I only joined Squidoo in September and got my first Squidoo bucks, er, buck and a half, for September, I don't think I'm in any danger of hitting $50/day by Dec. 31, 2008. However, I do think I can become a Giant Squid by then.

My sources of income related to Squidoo would be 1) the Squidoo payment, 2) sales of the 3 e-books I currently promote via Squidoo, 3) Jerky Direct commissions and 4) sales of wooden cutting boards and kitchen implements my husband Bob makes. Of the 4, the cutting boards and kitchen tools will be the largest part, but we haven't climbed out of the hole we dug buying the exotic woods yet, so I can't really count those sales as "extra money" because it will all go to pay the lumber bill. Oh, and I've got some books up on eBay that I'm selling for somebody else - I built a lens about the book, "The Tooth Fairy Legend, How the Custom Came to Be" by Dr. Mac, for his sons, one of whom was the illustrator. So far not a single nibble, although I researched it and found that it sells for up to $50 in some book shops.

I have a cafe press store, but didn't realize until recently that I don't make any money unless I add a markup - the prices were already so high I erroneously assumed that there was a commission to me included. Boy, was I wrong about that! I opened it up to see if my son Tim could draw things people might like, and also to help my elderly aunt sell her artwork and photos. So unless I find the time to go fix what's wrong there, I doubt there will be any CafePress commissions coming our way, either.

So that buck-sixty-six first squidoo payment looks mighty darn nice ... jerky direct is better, but not enough to quit my day job. So I will declare that my intention is to become a Giant Squid by December 31, and to sell enough wooden products to pay off the lumber bill.

[Mark Nehs]

Janelle,

I think you are going to get to $50 a day by "accident" but we'll see.

You have the links down
Many new and specific lenses
Other ways to generate revenue from your lenses

Looks pretty promising to me.

In my Squidoo income quest, I just made a $33 commission on an affiliate program I am in through one of my Squidoo lenses!!!

Learning about Pepperjam to generate some more cash

Traffic has spiked on my Self Help Quotes Lens from posting a couple of the self help quotes on Twitter The lens has climbed to #1,484 Overall

Took out some banner's in my lenses and added more text links. Working on that in this thread as well!!