Squidoo Imposes Limits On Amazon And Ebay Modules

Word has come down that there is now a limit to the number of Amazon and eBay modules you can use on Squidoo. The limit is now 10 Amazon modules and 5 eBay modules. That's it. That includes the sidebar Amazon feature.

There are a number heated discussions going on over at Squidu (the Squidoo forum) that if you are interested you should take a look at:

There is a new limit for Amazon and eBay modules

Systems for making better lenses - new OFFICIAL update

According to what I have read, if you have Squidoo pages that currently have more than the limit they will not be affected BUT you will not be able to add more to those pages and if you delete an Amazon module you won't be able to get it back. These older pages are in effect, "grandfathered" and you can continue using the same number of Amazon or ebay modules on THOSE pages. Any new pages will have the limit imposed. That goes for Giant Squids as well as new people on Squidoo.

You can read the official announcement at the SquidBlog: Systems for making better lenses. Like many, I can see the positive and negative effects of this decision - faster loading times (which Google values) versus the potential loss of Amazon revenue from Squidoo pages that are primarily sales pages.

As several people mention in the forum, It is never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. I will continue looking at HubPages and other sites like Xomba, SheToldMe and Best-Reviewer with renewed vigor. Squidoo remains one of my main priorities, but not my MAIN priority. Even with these limited being imposed, I would highly recommend anyone looking to make money online to cast a serious eye towards Squidoo. Especially if you are just starting out with Internet marketing.

I just wonder what other changes are being planned. One lensmaster at Squidoo said they understand that we have to play by Squidoo's rules, but it would be nice to know what the rules are before the game starts, not right in the middle. Going forward I will continue with my longterm building of pages on Squidoo but I will be looking elsewhere to shore up my online presence.

Is $2000 Per Month Possible On Squidoo? One Webmaster Can Say Yes It Is

That's quite a claim! According to the powers that be at Squidoo, one person has indeed made $2000/month at Squidoo with their most recent payout. It wasn't me unfortunately, but I think I know who it was (but I won't say for their own privacy).

The most recent payday at Squidoo saw many people state that it had been their best ever (myself included) and on the Squidoo forum (called Squidu) there is a thread where those who like to discuss making money online and earning at Squidoo post about the news that one of us has passed the $2,000 a month barrier just with Squidoo earnings. You can find the thread here: $2000 per month on Squidoo?.

Like most, I would like to get my online endeavors working well enough to generate an online income like that and I can see down the line that it may be possible for me, but it will take a LOT of work. There are a lot of webmasters who are candid about their income earned at Squidoo and elsewhere if you look and there are many excellent tutorials on many aspects of making money online with Squidoo and elsewhere that are readily available on Squidoo. I really feel that being on Squidoo is akin to being in a sort of "online marketers school" because of the amount of information available for new people.

Record Payouts At Squidoo: Also A Personal Best

Yesterday was PayDay at Squidoo and I was very pleased with the results of the work I had been doing. At Squidoo you are paid usually around the 15th of each month and most find out by logging into Squidoo and going to their dashboard where the infamous Blue Box appears stating how much you were paid.

I have broken down how people on Squidoo get paid in previous articles so I won't go into a lot of detail except to say that one of the methods of making money online at Squidoo is by how your webpages rank against those of other Squidoo members. There are about 2 million pages on Squidoo these days (only about 650,000 when I started 2 yrs ago!) and some are REALLY bad while others are top notch work. I would suggest you visit as many of the better ones as you can to find out the level of quality of the best ones.

In order to make money through Squidoo Lensrank, your webpage needs to rank at about 85,000 or higher. That is not always easy, but as always, the cream rises to the top. The Lensrank scale is divided into 3 "Tiers":

Tier One: Pages ranked from number 1-2,000.
Tier Two: Pages ranked 2,000-10,000.
Tier Three: Pages ranked 10,000-85,000.


That is the webpage's average pagerank over a month's time. You can find out what your page's lensrank is by going to the stats page on you dashboard for each of you webpages. Because there can be a lot of fluctuation because of traffic, sales and other factors, your page may move up or down in the lensrank scale. If you've made a page and it floats up into the top tier for a few days (good job!) but then slips back into tier 2 or 3, it will be your average rank for the month that your Squidoo pay will be based on.

Also, you are paid monthly on Squidoo but there is some delay in when you will see any money in your account. We were just paid on December 15th for our Lensrank (and sales) from October. So if you had been on Squidoo for some time and had some successful Halloween pages that ranked well, your earnings for October were paid this month. November will be paid in January and December will be paid in February.

The payouts for this last payday were of course based on your average October Lensrank as follows:

Tier One: $24.98
Tier Two: $4.25
Tier Three: $0.21


Added to that are InfoLink payments which were paid out as follows:

Tier One: $5.80
Tier Two: $0.99
Tier Three: $0.05


There is also the possibility of getting some Chitika advertising payments:

Tier One: $0.17
Tier Two: $0.03
Tier Three: $0.00


So, theoretically for each ranking webpage you could have made money on Squidoo as follows:

Lensrank + InfoLink + Chitika

Tier One: $24.98 + $5.80 + $0.17 = $30.95
Tier Two: $4.25 + $0.99 + $0.03 = $5.27
Tier Three: $0.21 + $0.05 + $0.00 = $0.26


And that is not including any sales you may have made through Amazon, eBay or other affiliates. On a personal note, this was my highest ever payout from Squidoo and I am quite pleased with the results I have been getting with the website and look forward to next month's payout and especially February's which will include Christmas sales. I am pretty sure it will be a personal best as I have already done 4 times as much in sales this December compared to last year.

If you want to take a look at the Squidoo Forum posts for those people talking about their Squidoo earnings, here's a link: Squidu Forum

Added Wayne Gretzky And Some Rookies Webpages

I built some new Squidoo webpages featuring some of the rookies playing in the National Hockey League this season. Mostly because I am a diehard hockey fan and just enjoy having these pages on Squidoo. It is almost like having a group of hockey cards (that I made myself) which is kind of funny.

Most of the Squidoo pages about hockey that I have made in the past have not ranked well or got much traffic or made much in the way of sales - I do get the odd NHL jersey sale, but they don't really generate much in the way of online income to justify the amount of time I spend on them, but I don't care. This is one area that I just enjoy and whether or not these pages make any money is not important to me. It's just the fun of creating something you like.

I have webpages about some old school hockey players that I grew up idolizing (like Bobby Orr, Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe) and a bunch of others from the present day as well as players who have retired in the last few years that I just enjoyed watching play in the NHL. I also have one about Sidney Crosby that I like. These ones were all made about 2 years ago and they are usually in tier 3 and get a little bit of traffic, but the vast majority of my hockey pages are way back in the lensrank but that's not important to me.

I'm happy to update them every once in a while and add any new information I dig up on the players but I guess those webpages I have made not for the money. I know some online marketers probably shutter at the thought, but those pages are for me and the few others who really like hockey.

I would suggest that if you are on Squidoo (and other revenue sharing websites) that you add some webpages about people, items and topics that appeal to you. You may not make much in the way of online income, but you will be paid back many times by your enjoyment of your hobby.

Here are the hockey pages I have recently added if you want to take a look:

PK Subban (Montreal Canadiens)
Cam Fowler (Anaheim Ducks)
Sergei Bobrovsky (Philadelphia Flyers)
Taylor Hall (Edmonton Oilers)

And of course, Wayne Gretzky. There probably are not too many webpages about these rookies, but there are thousands about Gretzky and his exploits so I'm not expecting tier one for that page. There are some really good pages on Squidoo about Gretzky, but I finally decided to have one of my own.

Like I said, make some pages about what - you - love. Forget about making money and just have fun. It will make your more important work that much more bearable if you have some topics online that you like working on.

Reassessment At HubPages: Enhancing My Efforts To Generate An Online Income

I have been working on Squidoo for quite some time and came to a realization that I was limiting my online success by sticking with just one platform. I have had an account with HubPages for a long time but never really bothered to give the site enough attention. It's funny how something so obvious suddenly occurs to you, that you are leaving a great opportunity to make money online or offline untapped. So, as far as HubPages goes, I'd like to tap that.

No, I am not foregoing Squidoo. Squidoo is like a comfortable pair of slippers to me. I know how to use the website and I enjoy working with it and my experience with them (and the people there) has been profitable and will hopefully continue to be profitable.

My income from Squidoo continues to flourish (no, I'm not about to retire and live off my Squidoo residual income - I wish) and I see it increasing as time passes. I am seeing the result of a lot of work starting to pay off and it may just be because it is the Christmas season, but I keep seeing new highs as far as earnings and traffic to my Squidoo pages. The good thing is that it is not just one or two pages but broadly based.

Traffic is flowing to a lot of my Squidoo pages and I am seeing money for lensrank, Amazon, eBay and the other affiliates I use. It has been a lot of work to get to this point and it will be a lot of work to STAY in this position and to keep getting better. That's why I am looking hard at Hubpages right now.

Right now I am in "lurker mode" checking out the competition, reading lots of hubs, learning everything I can about how the website operates and going through the forum over at HubPages. The HubPages Forums are SO much better than they were when I joined HubPages 2 years ago and are very active, which I like to see. You can learn a lot by reading what peoples' impressions are of a website by combing through its forum. One of the suggestions I give anyone starting at Squidoo is get your butt over to the Squidu forum and READ everything.

At the forum: Read, read and read some more

I haven't had a chance to really look for a lot of tips and suggestions posted by HubPages member yet, but I will shortly. If you go through the Squidoo forum, you will find a wealth of tips, tricks and most importantly, TUTORIALS on how to do almost everything from creating Squidoo pages as well as using basic HTML and formating your work.

If you are new to Internet marketing, you can find out everything you need to know about making money with Squidoo and how to apply that knowledge elsewhere. Even if you are not new to marketing online, it's a good idea to see what's there. No one is an expert in every aspect of online marketing and if you are not learning, you are falling behind or soon will be. If you disagree, and think you know all you need to know to succeed, why are you reading this blog? I'm doing okay thank you very much, but I know that there are people out there doing much better than I am and many are willing to share their expertise.

My Plan For A HubPages Expansion

I am doing okay on Squidoo, but like I said, I have been leaving money on the table by not looking beyond the safe comforts of Squidoo and so, I plan on grabbing a bunch of pages over at HubPages.

There are several people who have posted in the Squidu forum about how they are doing with HubPages including dollar amounts (remember what I said about reading EVERYTHING at the forum?) and I think I have enough skill to generate another source of income with that website. I have ideas for some Hubs that would actually complement my Squidoo pages and help broaden what I'm doing as far as gaining a stronger position in some niches. And I can work on some new niche ideas I've been turning over in my mind. You always hear "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". Well, it's time to get some new baskets, add a few chickens to the roost and start feeding them some fast-growth chicken feed.

Other Areas I Am Working On

Besides planning on moving some of my focus to HubPages, I have been checking out several other areas that look intriguing. I have written about Xomba, SheToldMe and Best Reviewer before, but I really think these revenue-sharing sites may prove to be another source of Adsense income as well as generally complementing my Squidoo pages and eventually my HubPages.

They are starting to drive some traffic around my blogs, Squidoo pages etc and I am seeing an increase is revenue. Not more than a trickle at this point, but enough so that I should alert you to these sites. Like I said, they help get people to your various websites, blogs or what have you plus they do actually generate some adsense earnings which is nice.

Adsense has never been a major money maker for me but the results I am seeing from these sites are starting to catch my attention. Some are do-follow back links and others are not, but they are getting people onto my pages and then I am getting some of them onto my affiliates pages. That alone should get you thinking about joining them.

I have some referral links on this blog, but you can always Google them and check out some reviews, but the best reviews you can make is to use them yourself. If they don't work for you or me, I would just drop them and move on. But right now it seems getting backlinks (any backlinks) is what helps get your pages noticed by people and the serps, and if you can get backlinks and traffic PLUS make a little money, that sounds like a win-win.

There are a number of other revenue sharing sites I am rummaging around and after I test them out a bit further I will post something about whether they look good too.

In the meantime, my main focus will be to consolidate what I am doing with Squidoo, make some moves on HubPages and see how it goes.

Two Sites You Can Make Money With: Xomba and SheToldMe

Although Squidoo is my priority, I have been snooping around other sites looking for other ways to make money online and two that I have done some work with might be something that you might also be interested in. The two sites are SheToldMe and Xomba.

Both sites offer adsense revenue sharing for writing short articles or blurbs. Of course I thought "Yeah, right. Just write something and you will get paid quickly?"

I went through both sites fairly in-depth reading the articles of others and seeing if they had potential for earning a few dollars or not. Reading about the success of others got me interested, but not entirely convinced. It is easy to write about "How I Made XX Dollars With No Effort!" etc but the model both websites have set up appears legit. So I thought I would take the plunge and see what was what. I'm glad I did.

I started making money right away, pennies, yes, but that was with very little actual work. I sound like a bad ad don't I? That's why I haven't written about the websites before - I wanted to test them out over a period of time and see if they do deliver. They do deliver.

If you have a blog or are writing elsewhere you can get some links back to your own site or simply link to other sites you find interesting enough to write a 50 word blurb or bookmark about. I have done this and I am pleasantly surprised.

Like I mentioned, Squidoo is where I do the bulk of my writing and this blog where I talk about my adventures and what I am doing over there. I am not about to leave Squidoo because it provides most of my online income through lensrank, and various affiliates. BUT...

Even in the short time I have been working on these two other websites I am seeing results that make me want to reassess the time I spend at Squidoo (a lot) and start giving my work at the other websites a higher priority. These are links to where you can sign up with the websites:

shetoldme.com

xomba.com

You should check them out and if you think they are an option for you, you might want to try them out. To be honest, I can see the income I could be making with these two sites rivalling what I make on Squidoo and I have been working on Squidoo for over 2 years. Although I won't divulge what I make with Squidoo, I've dropped some hints in this blog. One piece of advice that many online marketers will tell you is that you need to diversify your income and not have all your eggs in one basket. I'm pointing you to a couple of extra baskets.

Also, for full disclosure, the links above that take you to the websites are referral links, meaning that if you do sign up that I will get credit for signing up a new member. Using Xomba as an example, you will get half of the Adsense money from clicks and Xomba gets the other half. If you signed up by following my link, 10 percent of Xomba's half would be directed to my account, but your share of the Adsense revenue remains unaffected. I don't forsee making much if anything as far as getting people signed up, but if you sign up other writers/bloggers, you would also get that 10 percent. There is no "downline" shenanighans to worry about and no pyramid aspect. If you want, rather than using my links, just Google either website and sign up that way. All I'm doing is saying hey, you can make some money with these sites. The rest is up to you, but I hope to see you over there.

Variation On Silly Bandz: Wacky Ringz ~ The Next Big Thing?

Okay, why didn't I think of this? It seems so blatently obvious - you have Silly Bandz, which are simply silicon bracelets that have been a crazy fad for at least a year or more. How come no one thought: hey, if the like the bracelets, maybe they will like rings too! We can call them "Silly Rings" or Wacky Rings.

And so it goes... another great idea for a fad passes you by. But I did make a new webpage for them on Squidoo called Wacky Ringz: The Newest Silly Bandz Craze. The page was just published and I am already getting some traffic. The best part about this rings is that they are so inexpensive - you can load up on them which is probably a good idea if you collect silly bandz.

You can also take a look at the Silly Rings available over at Amazon if you like.
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