I thought that I would start out this new year by asking all of you what questions you have about Squidoo that I can answer for you in this blog. These can be questions that we have covered before, but you still don’t quite understand, or new questions that have come up recently. Depending on what the questions are, I may bring in others to answer them who I feel are better qualified than I am, even after I will give you the best answer that I have. So please leave your questions as a comment on this post. If you do not want to leave your name here, but feel better emailing me directly, you can do so at sales@lakeerieartists.com. Just make sure to put your lensmaster name, so that I know who you are.
A few rules for these questions:
- They must be Squidoo or internet related
- They cannot be how to fix a specific lens.
- Other than that, pretty much anything should apply. (If another restriction comes up, I will add it to the list here.)
As to 2012, and going forward.
Personally, I have had the best year ever on Squidoo in 2012. I have added quite a few lenses, and will continue to do so, as long as I continue to earn more. Most of this income is sales related, as I do not concern myself too much with lensrank. However, I do make money from lensrank as well, so it can’t be discounted.
In addition, I have worked hard at adding lenses to my collection that sell during different parts of the year. And while my traffic seems to have stayed approximately the same as 2011, my sales have improved greatly. One of the things that I will write about this year is how to get more sales from eBay, which adds quite a bit to my own income. I think it is a resource that most lensmasters do not know how to use, and are missing out on income.
So here’s to a great year for all of us, and the knowledge and persistence in getting us there.
About lakeerieartists
Hi Paula! I have a question pertaining both to squidoo and squidlog.net: Is there any way, on either site, to embed music cuts from bandcamp? There is supposedly a wordpress short code (see http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-bandcamp/) and on the bandcamp site it says this on wordpress: [bandcamp track=788254322 bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=venti] but it doesn’t work.
I haven’t had a good way to embed tracks at squidoo since they took away clearspring modules. Do you know if there is currently a way to do it?
Thanks!
Hi Jane, I have asked around to people that know more than me, and the answer is there is nothing to replace the Clearspring tools. It was a security risk for Squidoo and they have closed that gap. The only thing you can do is attach a video of the music or link to it.
Hi Paula! Thank you for this opportunity to as a question. I have been trying to decide if it is worth my time trying to do the new lensmaking Quests that are posted. My highest ranking and earning pages have seemed to remain the same. The new lenses I have created as a result of quests do get some traffic and a few have made sales. Most of all, completing a quest seems to make it more likely that a lens will be featured on the “start” page of Squidoo.
It frustrates me that the quests are just for “new” lenses when I have so many older lenses that would fit the task and benefit from being found again. For example, the Food Club Quest for January is to create a NEW lens about celebrating specific food days for this month. I have a pretty good recipe lens about Oxtail Soup that I created a few years ago that could benefit from being on the “monster board” for this quest.
I will admit, however, that the Quests sometime give me a new direction. For example, for the Quest that I mentioned above, I decided to have a debate centering around homemade and pre-packaged soup. Yes, I am putting a link to the Oxtail recipe on it.
I guess what I am asking is, would I do better if I just focused on updating and improving my older lenses that are about the Quest topics rather than spending the time to create something brand new?
Thanks again!
When a lens is getting multiple hits for a longtail keyword should we write a new lens using that longtail keyword term or should we simply add that longtail keyword into the article getting the traffic from it a few more times.
I am not sure if a new Squidoo lens using that longtial term would “compete” with the other lens or not.
Hello Paula, thanks for an interesting post. I wanted to ask a question about “evergreen” content and how do we know which products to promote after the holiday shopping season is over. Some things that come to mind is back to school, winter apparel, weddings and sports, but is there a list to go by for knowing what products do well starting in the beginning of the year through summer?
After 5 years I am still feeling frustrated about sales. I have seen growth each year, but it amounts to about $50 dollars a year. Last year I axed the type of lenses that would not earn any money for me. I started adding for sales by focusing on sales lenses only, and I have gone with any product that suits my interests no matter if competition is high in all keywords or if they only generate a few thousand visits.
Is that a big mistake and wasting time? Well, I will narrow my question down. Is a Visit rate indicated on adwords of less than 5,500 a month something that you add to your portfolio? What visit rate do you like to see to proceed with an idea belonging to a niche you are working around?
Oh, and about ebay. I have seen my sales for ebay going up this last year. I think it is seeing a comeback, finally. I always include an ebay module to all may lenses.
Your simple question is really a multi-faceted question. I will answer some of it in an upcoming post.