I must admit that despite having heard many positive things about Squidoo
over the past year, it has taken me three attempts to get going on the
site, with my first couple of attempts ending up as false starts. Why? I
think all the cartoon monsters on Squidoo (they dish out the points and
trophies) is off-putting to me for one thing – I don’t think it’s
unreasonable to assume that the site is not targeted at my demographic
group (middle-aged men), but rather one that is younger and possibly
more female? Anyway, I have overcome my aversion to cartoon monsters and
I am here to give you my Squidoo review.
What is Squidoo?
Squidoo
is online writing and earning site where you post one page articles,
known as “lenses”. There are some rules that Squidoo imposes regarding
what lenses can be about, but generally speaking, you can write about
any topic that choose (preferably something that you know about!) Your
lenses are given a rank by Squidoo. There is scope for them to
gradually rise up the rankings – if this happens then you will receive a
payment from Squidoo, with the payment varying according to which
“tier” of rankings that your lens reaches. Squidoo (and you) make their
money from the adverts and sales made via the lenses with the pot
getting split fifty-fifty. There are a variety of different affiliate
advertisers that you can use, such as Amazon, eBay, etc.
How do you rise up the rankings?
Squidoo
keep their exact formula secret. However, there are a number of factors
that have been picked up anecdotally by writers over the years. Traffic
levels and the number of sales made through specific Squidoo lenses
seem to influence rankings the most. Positive feedback from other
writers seems to have good effect (interactivity with other users is
encouraged), with the number of “likes” lenses receive seeming to affect
their ranking too.
How much can I earn on Squidoo?
Like
with most writing sites, the majority of writers don’t make much money
and what they do earn takes many months to accumulate. However, there
are a tiny proportion of writers who seem to do rather well from
Squidoo, earning hundreds, or even maybe a few thousand dollars each
month. It does seem to take a lot of lenses and months (years?) of work
to achieve this, however. It also helps if you have a basic
understanding of the search engines rank web pages and follow some simple SEO tips, plus and have some online writing experience. (Although I know from experience how much money can I make with HubPages,
my knowledge of Squidoo is still fairly minimal, as I only joined
relatively recently. I do know some Squidoo writers from HubPages,
however, so I understand that the earnings can reach two, three, or even
four figures per month for some people).
How do Squidoo pay me?
Part
of the ethos at Squidoo is that they encourage writers to give at least
part of their earnings to charity (Squidoo give you a large choice of
good causes) – it’s completely optional what proportion, if any, of your
earnings that you give, however.
How Squidoo calculates earnings is one of things that Squidoo’s detractors sometimes express a dislike for. Unlike writing platforms like Wizzley where you generally earn through Google Adsense and affiliate sites such as Amazon, and the details of how your earnings are made up can be viewed, the Squidoo system is pretty opaque – you have to more or less trust Squidoo to allot the earnings in a fair and reasonable way. I generally prefer the Wizzley way overall, but the Squidoo method has the advantage of being simple and straightforward, as you simply get a single payment to your PayPal once/month provide you pass the threshold (which you can set at just a dollar if you wish).
Squidoo use PayPal to send you your money. I have no problem with this, although I know that some people don’t like PayPal, I have never had any trouble with them.
How Squidoo calculates earnings is one of things that Squidoo’s detractors sometimes express a dislike for. Unlike writing platforms like Wizzley where you generally earn through Google Adsense and affiliate sites such as Amazon, and the details of how your earnings are made up can be viewed, the Squidoo system is pretty opaque – you have to more or less trust Squidoo to allot the earnings in a fair and reasonable way. I generally prefer the Wizzley way overall, but the Squidoo method has the advantage of being simple and straightforward, as you simply get a single payment to your PayPal once/month provide you pass the threshold (which you can set at just a dollar if you wish).
Squidoo use PayPal to send you your money. I have no problem with this, although I know that some people don’t like PayPal, I have never had any trouble with them.
How do I join Squidoo?
Squidoo is free to join. You give them basic details like a name and email
address, write your first lens, fill out some profile details and you
are away.