Ads on Squidoo Lenses: Who Gets the Money?

A friend asked me this question today regarding her new lens, which is on a personal topic: "Does Squidoo make money when you do not monetize a lens? If so, I would rather set it to charity ..."

I thought someone else might have a similar question about ads on Squidoo lenses, so I decided to share my answer here:

"Short answer is yes, Squidoo makes money on the ads. You share in that income based on lensrank. But if you set the lens to 100% for a charity, any lensrank money you might earn from that lens will go to the charity. That sounds like what you would want to do.

"Longer answer, if you want to, you can opt out of certain ads on your lens. You'll find that option in the lens settings area on the lens workshop. You can opt out of everything but the google ads. Just opt out for that lens only, not for all your lenses. That will keep the number of ads on the lens to a minimum but will also reduce the money that might go to the charity you've chosen, so there's a trade-off."

Hope that helps!

How to Refer a Lensmaster and Earn a Bonus on Squidoo

My Squidoo dashboard was updated this week with a "You've earned a $5.00 bonus for referring a friend" message. That was nice!

Each of your Squidoo lenses comes equipped with a "Create Your Own Lens" link at the top of the page as well as a big, orange "Create a Lens" link in the right column. Both of those links are referral links that will associate a new lensmaster's account with your account. When the new lensmaster's total Squidoo payout reaches $15, you'll receive a note on your dashboard that you've earned a $5 referral bonus. That money will be added to your next Squidoo payout. And all you did was make a lens!

Another way to refer new lensmasters is by using the "Refer a friend (and earn a bonus!)" link in the left margin of your dashboard. Squidoo will email referral links to your friends or you can add the code provided there to any or all of your lenses. I sometimes place that code near the bottom of a lens since Squidoo provides the links at the top.

To find out if anyone has joined Squidoo through your referral link or one of your lenses, look under the "My stats" tab on your lensmaster dashboard. Scroll down a bit to "Lensmaster Referrals" and click on the arrow to expand that section. Lensmasters that you or your lenses have referred are listed by date, most recent at the top, so you can see not only how many have signed up but who they are as well.

In fact, it isn't a bad idea to check that list from time to time to see how the new lensmasters are doing. You'll find that some haven't made a lens yet, and many never will. But when you find someone who's making an effort, it couldn't hurt to visit their lenses and encourage them along the way. Note that only you are eligible for the $5 bonus. Formerly, the new lensmaster received a bonus as well, but that has been discontinued.

I likely won't get rich from Squidoo referral bonuses, but you won't hear me complaining about those periodic extra $5 payments, either!

Have you received referral bonuses from Squidoo? Tell us about it in a comment.

Everything You Want to Know About Squidoo Payday

It's Squidoo payday again today. Yee-hah!

Today lensmasters got paid for money earned from ad clicks and commissions on sales made during the month of February, which means that payday is about a month and a half behind earnings. The reason for the delay is to enable Amazon, eBay, and the other sources of our income to pay Squidoo and then to give Squidoo a chance to distribute earnings to the various lensmasters and lenses. That has to be an absolutely huge job no matter how automated it is.

Payday is never promised before the 15th of any given month, although Squidoo almost always beats that by a few days. Anticipation of payday usually rears its head on the SquidU forum by around the 10th of each month with anxious newbie lensmasters hoping to see their first-ever earnings and some veterans waiting for money to pay the rent.

If you're new to Squidoo, or even if you've been around a while, you may have questions about Squidoo payday. If you're wondering just how income is calculated or even where the money comes from, one of the very best sources to find out is Squidoo Payday Questions & Answers, a lens by veteran lensmaster Christene. Christene is always on the job with updates to her lens within minutes (it seems) of payday figures being posted.

If you have questions about tiers, payouts, or how to find the earnings on your own lensmaster dashboard, check out Christene's lens. Then leave her a comment to thank her for her faithful efforts in keeping everyone updated in such a timely manner.

Then go make another lens - for free - in anticipation of a bigger payday next month, and the month after and the month after that.

Focus and Promote: My 2010 Goals for Squidoo

It seems everyone is writing about goals, which seems to be a less dangerous subject than resolutions, so I figured I'd throw in my52cents' worth.

I'm really looking forward to the potential that lies within Squidoo in the coming year. I'm determined to put quality over quantity when it comes to lensmaking, focusing on profit, a necessity for me this year more than ever. I have a little sign on my computer that says "Focus and Promote," something I got from Paul Duxbury. When I narrow down my goals to something simple, that phrase, which also summarizes my two weak points, is the result.

In 2010, I plan to focus my lenses in profitable subject areas. That means that I will likely divest myself of some of my older lenses, mostly those in which I've lost interest. It'll be tough getting rid of my little offspring, but I believe the time has come to find them new homes with lensmasters who can nurture them better than I. If you're interested, watch for lenses for sale in the coming weeks and months.

In 2010, I must learn to promote. Of course I know the basics, but I must draw up a plan and discipline myself to stick with it. As well as some of my lenses produced during the Christmas sales season with virtually no promotion on my part, it pains me to think of the sales I missed because I hadn't spent time promoting them in the preceding months. There's no reason I can't have a Christmas month (or close to it) every month, and that is the goal. Blog posts, articles, and forum participation must become priorities this year if I'm serious about improving my bottom line.

In all of the focusing and promoting, a huge and very important part will be contributing to the Squidoo community. I hope you will stick with me here on the blog and that I'll be able to provide you with information and tips that will help you reach your 2010 goals as well.

Happy New Year to all, and to all a focused and profitable year with Squidoo and all the possibilities that spring from it!

What's Blogging Among Squidoo Friends?

Collaborative or co-op blogs, those with multiple contributors, are becoming quite popular in the Squidoo community and for good reason. We're all busy, so having multiple authors to help keep a blog updated on a regular basis is a good thing.

Top-Rated Gifts for Christmas is one such collaborative blog, a new undertaking designed for the upcoming holiday shopping season. Each post features a well-reviewed item that would make a wonderful gift, and each links back to a lens featuring that same item. Our hope as lensmasters and bloggers is that the links on the blog will garner traffic to our lenses and, of course, lead to holiday sales.

Are you part of a collaborative blog? Let us know by leaving a comment with your blog link and any tips or advice about what you do to make your group's blog succeed. If you're not part of a group blog, why not gather a few of your trusted lensmaster friends and get one started? When you do, we'd love if you'd report back and let us know.

A collaborative blog just might be a good addition to your business plan. After all, a community that blogs together makes money together. Or at least we hope it works out that way!

Awesome eBay Module Sale

It isn't mine, but a visitor to one lucky lensmaster's lens clicked through an eBay module link, signed up as a buyer on eBay, bid and bought . . .

Should I tell you or make you look? I think I'll make you look. It's worth the visit to the forum.

Here.

Squidoo Plus All Things Zazzle Equals a Great Podcast

This past Monday I had the pleasure, along with fellow lensmaster stargazer00 (Dianne), to be a guest on the Giant Squid Open Mike podcast at Blog Talk Radio to discuss "All Things Zazzle." Co-host Joan Adams had read my blog post about How to Make Money With Zazzle Links on Your Lenses and invited the two of us to discuss that topic.

What a blast and what a positive response we've had to the show! Zazzle has been very popular on Squidoo for some time, but it seems that this interview has resulted in more activity from active "SquiZazzlers" and, I am happy to say, has encouraged more Squidoo-ers to open their own Zazzle stores. Giant Squid Open Mike co-host Kate Loving Shenk is among those new Zazzlers and I think I can safely say that she is hooked. (Here's her new Zazzle gallery lens.)

If you'd like to learn more about Zazzle and how to use it on Squidoo, listen to the replay of the podcast from August 31, 2009. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed presenting it. (You can see Dandy's eyes in my Zazzle gallery, here.)

Listen to Giant Squid Openmike on Blog Talk Radio

How to Make Money with Zazzle Links on Your Lenses

Are you familiar with Zazzle? They're a print-on-demand place (like Cafepress) where it's easy (and f-ree) to sign up and make your own items or you can join as an affiliate and sell other people's items. There is also a Zazzle module that you can use on your Squidoo lenses. Before you do that, though, read on.

You should know that because Zazzle is unable to track by lens where links from Squidoo come from, if you use the Zazzle module you will NOT make any money from it unless your module displays your own Zazzle products. It's great to promote other people's items, but why not do it in such a way that you earn some money, too? Here's how.

Join Zazzle as an affiliate then when you need a great bumper sticker or t-shirt or apron or button or mouse pad or tote bag (for example) for a lens, log in to Zazzle and find one there. To display it on your lens, use a text module. Look below the Zazzle product description for "Link" and click there. Highlight the code under option 2 to display the picture as you see it on that page. The size is perfect for use in a text module. Paste that code into the text module. Now, Squidoo doesn't like the <> part of the code, so the easiest thing to do is save the module and let Squidoo strip that code out, or just remove it yourself if you're comfortable doing so. Then, if you want to center the picture, open the module again and put a "center" tag on it. Now save it and the picture and text below it will be centered. The link will also contain your affiliate ID so when someone clicks through and makes a purchase, you will get the commission.

You can read more details on Zazzle.com about how the affiliate program works. Note that if you have a Zazzle store and you display and sell your own item on your lens using the method described above, you will receive both the affiliate and the personal mark-up on that item, which adds up to a good chunk of change!

Try Zazzle for your lenses. I recommend it!

P.S. Whenever you post your Zazzle link, make sure you put the * at the end so you'll earn the affiliate commission, like this: http://www.Zazzle.com/susan52z*

Cash In With a Book Review Lens

Here's an idea for a lens. Do a book review.

The assignment for our Giant Squid summer school this past weekend was to make a lens about a book we plan to read and solicit people to read it with us. We could use the SquidLit template or not, totally up to us. The finished products are posted on our homework lens. There were 33 book review lenses posted there at last count. Before making yours, consider visiting a few to see what Giants are reading and building lenses about, and to get your own literary juices flowing.

Then, why not choose a favorite book, one you've read or one you'd like to read, and try out the fill-in-the-blanks SqudLit template? Don't worry if you don't know how to answer some of the questions; you'll have a chance to change the information or even delete modules later. Fill in all the blanks and Squidoo will make a lens for you then ask if you want to keep it. If you do, give it a good URL then start editing.

If you don't want one of the automatic modules, delete it. If you want to rename a module, do so. In fact, that's often a good idea. If you want to add a module, do that. It's your lens; pour on the passion to give it your own, personalized look.

Books are what sell best on Squidoo. Cash in on the action with an easy-to-make, personalized book review lens of your own.

See Lens on Google

Giant Squid Summer School students and RocketMoms on Squidoo had an assignment this weekend to make lenses featuring the new "captions contest" module and oh, what great lenses they came up with!

Some topics were more on the serious side, but most were humorous lenses that became even more comical when visitors added their own creative captions to the pictures the lensmasters chose. Several people bravely used pictures of their two-legged family members while others featured animals, especially pets. My contribution included pictures of my cats watching their favorite bird movie on TV. I thought the pictures were funny before, but the captions people submitted made them downright hilarious.

That's the good news.

The better news is that my See Cats Watch Birds lens is now getting hits from Google. The best news is that the phrases that bring up that lens on the first page of Google include "bird video for cats to watch," which means that it's only a matter of time before someone buys the bird movie featured on that new lens.

See lens on Google. Watch lensmaster smile.

Three Things You Must Do

Once again, I was honored to be asked to write a guest post about making money on Squidoo, this time for Rhonda White's MommyRevenue blog. Rhonda has been a mentor to many for several years now and was one of the first people I connected with when I started blogging and building my online businesses. In fact, Rhonda is the first person who introduced me to Squidoo, so I owe her a whole lot!

If you're looking for ideas and information about starting an online business, if you need content for your own website or blogs, of if you're looking for some great marketing tips, MommyRevenue is an excellent resource. Check it out soon and, while you're there, check out my guest post, Three Things You Must Do to Make More Money on Squidoo.

Squidmusings with Moomette's Gram

I was happy and honored when Cindi of Moomettesgram's Musings asked me to write a guest post about Squidoo.

Cindi is a prolific presence online, blogging on topics of interest to work-at-home moms of all ages, including those of us who also fall into the category of baby boomer. Easy to see why Cindi and I get along so well.

My guest post addresses the WAHM community, explaining to that ever-growing group why Squidoo is a great business choice for them. I hope you'll take a minute, visit Moomettesgram's Musings and check it out!

Share Your Hobby and Make Money With Squidoo

What do you get when you cross your favorite hobby with a website called Squidoo?  If you do it carefully, you get a monthly income!  Let me explain.

Squidoo is a place online where regular people, called lensmasters, create web pages, called lenses, about a hobby, activity, gadget, person, or any other subject that they are passionate about, and make money for themselves and for charity.  A Squidoo lens isn’t a blog that has to be updated weekly or even daily to grow and thrive, it’s a stand-alone mini-website put together by an expert, someone who knows and loves its topic. 

Let’s say you have a hobby; let’s choose quilting.  You enjoy the fabric, the colors and patterns that go into a quilt.  You enjoy the method, the technique.  You’ve made a quilt or two or maybe a lot more and enjoy showing them off or even selling them.  You are a quilter.  Thus, you are an expert on quilting.

Now comes the Squidoo part.  First you open a Squidoo account, which is easy, fast, and free.  Then you choose the title of your first lens; let’s call it “I Love Quilts.”  Using the easy-to-understand workshop that Squidoo provides, you upload pictures of some of your own favorite quilts.  Add a section, called a module, that features your favorite quilting books at amazon.com, books that people can click on and buy directly from your lens.  Add a Flickr module and include pictures of quilts that other people have made.    Now add a poll module, perhaps asking the visitors to your lens how many quilts they have made, none, one, up to five, from five to 10, or more than 10.   Add a Zazzle module featuring mugs with quilt patterns on them, which are great gifts for quilters.  Add an eBay module featuring vintage quilts available at auction on eBay right now.  Add a guestbook where your visitors can leave you a message.  Hit “publish” and, simple as that, you’ve created your first Squidoo lens, which might look something like this.

Next step is to tell your friends about your new lens.  Email it, Twitter it, post it to your facebook or myspace page.  This is where the fun really starts.  As people visit your lens, some will leave messages, participate in the poll, and maybe even click through and buy one of those books you recommended, a mug, or even a vintage quilt from eBay.  When they do, you and Squidoo earn a small commission.  No inventory, no shipping, just a Squidoo lens.  Squidoo will donate a portion of their share of the commission to charity; you may do the same with settings on your lens.  Or, keep the money for yourself.  It’s up to you. 

Sound fun?  Trust me, it is fun.  It’s a great way to share your passion with the world via the web and a nice way to add a little spending money to your budget.  Ready to get started?  Simply go to Squidoo.com and follow the simple steps.  If you do, will you come back here and leave a comment with your lens link? I’d love to see it.  Already on Squidoo?  I’d love to read your comments, too.  Have fun with Squidoo.  I do! 

I'm Thoroughly Confused. What is Squidoo?

My new online friend, April, asked me this: "I just went to your Squidoo page, but am thoroughly confused! Just what is it? Is it a place to blog, sell, or something else?" Here's my response.

April,

To answer your question about Squidoo, yes to all of those things! Squidoo is a place where "experts" make pages about topics, anything at all, and people then find those pages when they're looking for information about the topic or contents of the page. It's an example of Permission Marketing, where you don't go to people, but they seek you out. If they like what they see, they might buy something you're offering for sale.

You don't actually have to sell anything on Squidoo, but if you do, you earn commissions on those things, plus you as a lensmaster (the pages are called lenses, the authors lensmasters) receive a portion of the overall ad commissions that Squidoo earns.

To understand it, you just have to explore it. My lensmaster/profile page shows all of the lenses that I've created, which cover a wide array of topics. Squidoo is a great way to promote an online business or just to get the word out about something you're passionate about. I just updated my favorite lens, called Nurturing Imagination. That's a topic I am rather passionate about, plus it features my kids. :-) Also, I'm pretty proud of the lens I recently made about my puppy, Daisy. I updated that one again this morning. It's good to update/freshen your pages regularly, but it isn't like a blog where you're expected to post regularly.

There are over 750,000 Squidoo lenses and thousands and thousands of lensmasters, so you can imagine the variety you'll find on Squidoo. I love it! (Can you tell??)

Hope that helps to answer your question!

Raise Your Conversion Rate With These Squidoo Tips of the Day

A couple of quick tips today that will help convert lookers to shoppers and shoppers to buyers on your Squidoo lenses.

• In shopping modules (amazon, eBay, or with your own affiliate items such as allposters.com) use wording such as, "Click on the picture to read more about or to purchase the item." Some visitors to your lenses might not be accustomed to shopping online and need a call to action or even instructions to help them learn how to shop.


• When setting up an eBay module, if you know there will be plenty of your search items with bids, choose to show items with 1 or greater bids rather than defaulting to zero. Look under the "display options" tab and check the box to display the number of bids. Seeing that someone else is already bidding on the items creates an instant demand for the products that are shown, resulting in a sense of urgency for your lookers/shoppers/buyers to click through. Here's an example.
  

Have any additional tips to increase conversion rates on Squidoo? Please share them in a comment!

Find Your Next Lens Topic in Your Stats

So you have a lens that's getting search engine traffic. Good for you!

Here's what to do next. Check your Squidoo stats for that lens. Look for a trend in search terms. Is there one, or a few related phrases that stand out? In other words, when people search for a topic and find your lens, what specifically are they looking for? If there's a term that rises to the top, use it to make another lens.

Case in point. My Who is Shirley Temple lens gets a good amount of search engine traffic. Recently, many of of the search terms have to do with Shirley Temple costumes. Voila! Here is the offshoot lens, which started getting Google hits the day after it was published and generated its first affiliate sale the following day.

Get it? Good. Go do it.

Boom & Bust on Squidoo

Boom! Something very cool happened last week. Seth Godin blogged about Amazon's Kindle and linked to MY Squidoo lens in his post! Hits on that lens have gone through the roof and lensrank has followed. Can't thank Seth enough!

Bust! Since Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign, hits on my Who is Hillary Clinton? lens have dropped into the basement and lensrank has fallen after 99 days in the top 100 on Squidoo. Well, maybe Barack will choose her as his running mate (though I doubt it) and traffic will pick back up again. It was fun while it lasted! Looks like Hillary memorabilia may be the way to go.

Nice there was a boom to offset the bust!

Experts On Squidoo

Something rather interesting happened today. I received a comment early this morning on one of my lenses and, as I usually do, I checked to see who left the comment. It was a new lensmaster; his name was Antonio. He had one lens, so I took a look at it. I liked the lens a lot and thought it was a very good first Squidoo lens. I did, though, have a couple of suggestions for small ways he might improve the lens. Busybody that I am sometimes, I used his contact form, complimented him on his lens and offered those couple of suggestions.

I was happy a short while later when I received a response from Antonio, thanking me for the “prompt response,” telling me that he had applied my suggestions already and asking me to take a look. I did take a look and saw that he had done an outstanding job of implementing my ideas. I was even more impressed with his lens this time and let him know that.

Now here’s the interesting part. I sat back down at the computer later this morning to work, noticed that spam messages were accumulating in my spam mailbox and went to delete them. I always check first in case there are messages there that shouldn’t have gotten filtered as spam and, as usual, I found one. It was a message from Antonio from earlier this morning. Turns out that before I contacted him this morning, he had actually contacted me, saying he was looking at my lenses and would be happy to accept suggestions and comments from me about his. He had asked for a critique even before I had offered one, and I hadn’t even known it!

Now, my point. Here is part of what I wrote to Antonio after I found his original request. “Good for you for asking for the critique! You obviously have what it takes to succeed; asking for advice from an expert (thanks for considering me to be a Squidoo expert, by the way!) may be the very best way to become an expert! Funny that those who think to ask are generally the ones who are so far along the right road in the first place.”

There are two truths here. One: In order to become an expert, find an expert and ask for help or advice, then follow that advice. Two: If you are the type of person who will seek out an expert and make the contact, chances are you already have what it takes to become an expert and, in fact, to become successful in life in general. Good for you!

I’m excited for Antonio, about his future on Squidoo and in every aspect of his life. I enjoyed meeting him today and always enjoy when I meet exceptional people. And I don’t know a better place for meeting exceptional people, both experts and future experts, than on Squidoo.

3 Reasons to Update Your Squidoo Lenses Now

More changes with the templates at Squidoo.com this past week. Have you noticed? To properly take advantage of those changes, you need to update your lenses with these three things in mind.

1. First, there's a new, optional, built-in table of contents at the top of every lens. When you update your intro module now, you'll notice that it has been renamed the Introduction, Contents, & Discover Tool. Those three components are accessible by tabs that you'll see in the edit mode. The Introduction tab is for the text that appears in that module; no changes here. The second tab is for a built-in table of contents. Squidoo has that set to opt out, but if you opt in you'll activate an expandable section on your lens that appears immediately below the contents of your intro module. The first half dozen or so of your modules show up, along with a "more . ." link which will expand the module in order to show the titles of all the modules on your lens. Have some modules that you don't want to include here? Just un-check the box next to those module names. This new table of contents appears on a very attractive blue background. The advantage? If you have more than five modules on your lens, it's shorter than a regular table of contents module, so it takes up less room. It also gives your visitor the option of navigating your lens via the module links or they can skip the table of contents altogether and just browse on through. If you like how this module looks, you might choose to opt in and use it instead of the separate table of contents module. It's up to you.

2. Second reason to update your lenses now is the Discover Tool, on the third tab in that first module of your lens. That one is set to opt in, so if you haven't visited your lenses lately, you'll be in for a surprise when you see it there. Bad news is that it gives your visitors the opportunity to pass up your lens and go directly to a lens of Squidoo's choice (based on your tags) that's listed there. Good news is that you can add up to three lenses of your own to include there, so if you have related lenses you might want to list them and continue to opt in to this feature. More good news is that you can opt out if you prefer, but that choice comes with some bad news. If you opt out of the Discovery Tool on any particular lens, that lens will not be included as a choice on anyone else's lens, so while you'll avoid outgoing links you'll be eliminating an opportunity for incoming traffic from someone else's lens. What to do? You'll have to weigh this option carefully. If you have multiple related lenses, certainly opt in to this option and include three of those related lenses so they'll show up as links in the "Explore related pages" section that shows up, again on a pretty blue background, just below your introduction module and Squidoo's table of contents module (if you have chosen to opt in to that). If you have a lens that sells a product and you don't want to chance that someone will link on out to another lens that sells that same product, then by all means opt out. Watch your traffic and see what happens and make changes as those statistics warrant.

3. A third reason to update now is the change in the placement of your lensmaster picture and bio on the lens. Instead of appearing in the top right of the lens, it now appears front and center below the lens title and just above the introduction module. It is much more prominent and hard to overlook. So if you haven't updated your lensmaster biography, you'd certainly better do it now. I found, too, that this change gave me great incentive to write short, individual biographies for many of my lenses rather than using my default bio on every lens. If your default bio is very specific to a particular category or target reader, then consider rewriting a different bio for a lens that doesn't fall into that particular category. Or, instead, rewrite your default bio to be more generic.

Change can be hard to take, but in the long run it's a good thing for anything online. It is in the best interest of The Powers That Be at Squidoo for every lensmaster to succeed, and the site is managed accordingly. Stay on top of these changes as Squidoo continues to refine and improve the site. Time spent in updating your lenses is never time wasted, so use the incentives of these changes to go update a lens or two right away, then work your way through the rest. Watch your stats and adjust your changes and personal strategy accordingly and, most importantly, continue to have fun while you Squidoo!

I Make Money on Squidoo (You can, too.)

I received a nice Paypal deposit this week (over 50 dollars) from Squidoo for my monthly earnings. That’s not a lot of money compared to some lensmasters’ income, but it’s a lot more compared to many others’, and actually a bit more than I expected this month.

Over and above the earnings directly from Squidoo, I also received some pretty decent income this month from affiliate sales as a result of my own affiliate links on my lenses.

You won't get rich overnight on Squidoo, but if you stick with it, make lots of quality lenses with good content, and network with and learn from other lensmasters by becoming part of the community there, you will make money on Squidoo. Don’t give up! If I can do it, you can, too.