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Using Squidoo To Market Your Site
By Mike Collins | March 24, 2008
Squidoo is one of the most powerful and successful of Web 2.0 websites. It allows just about anyone to create a simple, one-page website on any topic they want. Squidoo calls it’s web pages “lenses” and you can promote your lense and monetize it like any other website.
Before we get too far, let’s look at some of the pros and cons of creating Squidoo lenses:
Pros
- Its free. You can create as many lenses as you want without paying a fee.
- Its easy. You don’t need web design or html coding skills.
- You can earn money by adding certain modules. Add an eBay module and if someone buys through your link you get a cut of the commission.
- You can sell a lense once it becomes popular and starts receiving steady traffic.
Cons
- You have little control over the layout. Your content may remain the same, but the rest of the page could change considerably. This could have a major impact on your conversion rate.
- Squidoo pages are loud and distracting. There are lots of elements that draw attention away from the content and links you are trying to build around.
- You don’t control the domain. Squidoo could change their business model and blow away your pages at any time. Or they could have server problems. Or someone could just accidentally delete all of your work. You have no control.
To me it just doesn’t make sense to rely on Squidoo for traffic and revenue. Relying too much on someone else is a recipe for disaster.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using Squidoo at all. Squidoo is great for generating traffic and building your brand. Here’s the plan I recommend…
1. You must have your own website. You can register a domain for about $9 a year, and hosting is dirt cheap too. There’s no excuse to rely on free services like Squidoo, Blogger, or Wordpress.com.
2. Once you have your main website up and running you can start building a chain of Squidoo lenses. Target secondary keywords that go well with your main website’s theme. Lenses targeting long tail keywords usually rank well in Google.
3. Your introduction module is the place where you should link back to your main website. It’s the first part of your lense people will see and you want to grab them right away and drive them to your site.
4. To get visitors to click through to your site, offer them something. A free report, a free download, a neat tool, etc.
5. Your other modules are less important for visitors, but you can use them for SEO purposes and linking. Include a total of 3 or 4 text modules. You can either write the content yourself, use PLR articles, or republish content from ezinearticles.com (keeping author links intact).
6. Also include a list of something related to your niche. Be creative.
7. Definitely include a list of links and resources. Obviously your main website should be placed prominently, but also include links to your other lenses.
Repeat this process for each of your secondary keywords and you’ll quickly see a steady and growing flow of traffic back to your website.
Obviously this plan is pretty simple and I’ve left out a lot of details about how to build a lense that ranks well and building a lense that ranks well and generates traffic. It’s not really possible to explain it all in a blog post. Instead you should pick up a copy of Tiffany Dow’s Social Networking on Squidoo.
Tiffany explains the process from start to finish and in plain English. After reading her book you’ll have the foundation of knowledge you’ll need to build one successful lense after another.
Topics: Branding, Promotion, Traffic-Building |
March 26th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Great post Mike. But how many lenses do you have to create before you see a surge in traffic?
March 26th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Abdul, it depends on a lot on your niche and the competition for each keyword. You have to remember that not every lense is going to rank well. You’ll have some winners and some losers.
Lots of lenses will bring little or no traffic, but on the other side of the coin you’ll find a handful of lenses that bring a boatload of traffic. Its the 80/20 rule in action.
March 31st, 2008 at 5:42 pm
[…] Do the same with Squidoo lenses. Use them to drive traffic to your […]