I found Squidoo about two years ago. Squidoo is a web site hub that allows users to start their own micro website called a lens. Reasons you might want to start a Squidoo lens in addition to making money:
- express yourself
- share ideas with friends as well as people you’ve never met (for example, explaining how to complete a certain project like sewing a costume or other hobby, how to accomplish a task like writing a resume, or expressing your thoughts on any given topic
- gain experience writing
- gain experience with the process of creating a Squidoo lens
With regards to making money on a Squidoo lens, here’s how it works, on a very basic level: Squidoo is a hub site similar to Google Blogger. Squidoo hosts micro pages called lenses. Anyone can set up a lens, and it doesn’t cost a cent. What it does take is time–that, and the willingness to create the best content possible. Just like any blog entry you might put together, you’ll want to put enough time into your lens to cover the topic in question in an interesting way. To generate money, Squidoo-ers need to draw as many viewers to their lens as possible.
Squidoo generates money from content in the lenses hosted on their site. They accomplish this by placing pay-for-click advertising from Google Adsense and Glam ads, which readers on the site click on. Squidoo handles all the ad placement, so all Squidoo-ers need to worry about is creating content. The money generated is put into a big pot, then divvied up between the lenses on the site based on rank, with higher ranking lenses receiving an equivalently higher share of the profits.
How to Make MORE Money on Squidoo: A More Profitable Method
In addition to generating money indirectly through Google Adsense and similar programs, you can take more of an active hand in things and earn more money in the process.
If you sell a specific item on Amazon, Cafe Press, or Ebay through your lens, you’ll get to split the profit (paid by the vendor for that particular sale, which is typically about four percent) 50/50 with Squidoo.
Content Quality and Volume Are Key to Generating Higher Profits
The higher quality your lens, the more web traffic it will draw and the more income it will generate for you. Never copy someone else’s content. (Not only is this illegal, but it’s also a tremendous disservice to your readers.) One of the best ways to make a topic “your own” is to add your own opinion and experience to it: this is something no one else can do as well as you, because no one else is you!
Most Squidoo-ers making descent money from Squidoo have more than just a single lens–a lot more. Maybe a hundred or more. Because the amount you’ll generate from a single lens is so small, even when it’s a good quality lens with a lot of traffic, you’ll want to develop as many lenses as possible. This is akin to having a website: you wouldn’t have a site with just a single page and expect it to make a lot of money–you’d create lots of pages for your website to provide as much value to your visitors as possible.
Since you obviously can’t snap your fingers and get a hundred or more lenses done, take it one step at a time. Set aside some time every day to work on your lens. Don’t have a lot of time? That’s OK–set yourself a small goal at first, say 5-10 minutes a day, and take it from there. As you get used to the process, you’ll accomplish more faster. And over time, small amounts of the time you’ve devoted will really add up.