New Record High Earnings At Squidoo!

I just posted that payday at Squidoo was coming and when I checked, I found that yes indeed, today was Payday. And what a payday! I just found out that I received a record high for money on Squidoo. This of course is for the month of November as Squidoo pays 2 months behind, so December earnings will be paid around February 12th. If you go to the Squidoo forum you will find many similar stories of people at Squidoo shocked at what they received this month. I'm still grinning and going over my numbers.

The funny thing is that back in November I was just getting back into the swing of things at Squidoo after having taken several months off from the site. With the work I put into my various webpages in December and this month, I'm pretty sure that I will see similar amounts in my next few payouts from Squidoo. I'm not expecting to make enough to retire on, but if this continues, I think that I will be spending a great deal more time on my online marketing efforts.

How much did I make exactly? Well, that's between me and the taxman, but I can show how much can be earned at Squidoo.

There are a number of ways to make money at Squidoo as I've mentioned in the past. First, there is lensrank. All the webpages at Squidoo are ranked from number one to the very bottom ranking page. There are 3 tiers that receive payment. The <1st tier is those that rank from number one to number 2,000. These are the creme de la creme at Squidoo and getting a page ranked in this tier is difficult to do and even harder to maintain. Those that can maintain a monthly rank of 1-2,000 for the month get a much higher payout.

The 2nd tier are those that rank from 2,001-about 8,500, which is also difficult to maintain. The last tier covers those webpages that rank from 8,501-about 85,000 I believe.

Each tier receives a descending amount of money from a pool created by ads like adsense that appear on the lenses, based on their rank.

Finally, there is a major way to make even more money at Squidoo. By putting moneymaking modules on your webpage (for example, eBay, Amazon or CafePress) and when visitors to your page click to go to Amazon and buy a book or buy something at an eBay auction, you get a cut of that.

As a side note: this is where you can really make a respectable amount of money. More traffic to your site = more traffic to these other websites = more and more money being sent to your account. The amount you can earn from using these moneymaking mods is basically unlimited, while trying to play the LensRank game is limited. You can only have a certain number of lenses in the top tiers and you are battling other lensmasters (many are extremely productive and talented).

If you want to earn money at Squidoo, look to making money from sales, and don't worry too much about your actually LensRank. Money received from LensRank should really be considered as a bonus, while you concentrate on making money elsewhere.

How Do I Get My Squidoo Lenses To Earn More Money?

Ah yes, the perennial question for those trying to earn a buck over at Squidoo is: What can I do to make more money at Squidoo?

My reply? I dunno. Or at least, I'm not going to tell you everything I plan to do to get money from my Squidoo webpages, but I will tell you what my goals are as far as gaining a greater share of the wealth and what I'm planning to do to reach those goals.

This is something of a game ~ how can I get more visitors; how can I get more sales. As I've said before, there are two basic ways to earn money at Squidoo:

• Getting more lenses ranked, and ranked higher
• Getting more sales

Basically, I want all my lenses to earn their keep. I've put a lot of work into many different lenses and they haven't generate the return I expected, so I guess it is time to re-assess. I think my goals are on the modest side, and I don't think that publishing the perfect lens will suddenly set me on the road to riches. What each of my webpages need to do is provide some sort of a return. In addition to the fun factor.

Currently, I have 45-50 webpages at Squidoo with a high enough rank to earn something each month ~ the problem is, of course, that unless they are in the higher tiers they just do not generate to spend time worrying about their rank. I am appreciative of anything Squidoo sends my way based on rankings alone (thanks Seth and co!), but what we all should be concentrating on is the sales part of the equation. As far as ranking goes, that should be considered as a bonus for doing good work.

How Do I Increase My Earnings From Squidoo Rankings?

Not that I plan on turning a blind eye to the rankings. One goal I have set for myself is to increase the number of lenses I have in at least the 3rd tier to (drumroll...) 200 lenses. That means, adjusting, rewriting, reviewing, adding and subtracting content, doing more from a marketing angle ~ basically make my webpages the best possible, by attracting more visitors, favorable ratings, and (the make money online grail) more links to my lenses. I'll have to start flexing my marketing muscles and get the word out about Squidoo being a great place to do business (yes it is!), and that my lenses are where people will want to visit to find the information they are searching for.

Yes, that is a lot of work, but I do believe that it can be done. My monthly goal from just the rankings is to earn $50 each and every month which if I have 200 webpages in at least the 3rd tier would be around $20. I do have several in the 2nd tier and I have some that are flirting with the top tier, so one of my resolutions for 2010 is to get some more lenses back into the top tier. Hard to do, and very hard to maintain. Earning $50 a month will be nice, but it will not get me to where I want to be with Squidoo. That's where the second part of the plan kicks in.

How Do I Increase Sales At Squidoo?

As far as sales go, more is my goal. Pretty basic huh? One thing I want to state is that although increasing the volume of sales is one of my stated goals, there is no way I will allow my work to become too spammy. Some may say that they are already kinda spammy after looking at my webpages, but on a personal level I definitely try to shy away from stuff about selling a "system" or "buy my ebook" and all that. I have zero interest in writing about those things that do not spark my interest and hopefully, the interest of my visitors.

What I plan on doing is to increase the number of lenses I have with products and content that people are looking for to purchase and read about. I don't think that having a webpage primarily geared towards sales is neccessarily a bad thing ~ more sales are what is needed at this time to get the economy purring along again, and I'm going to do what I can to keep the gears rolling.

There is an infinite number of topics, niches, and ideas, that I think lend themselves to excellent lenses at Squidoo and I am in the middle of a building boom as far as new pages go. I've had what I believe are several ideas for hot lenses and these ideas just keep popping up.

Checking on Squidoo shows they are not covered by others and if an idea seems to be taken, I usually drop it or it morphs into something else. Basically what I want to do is publish content that visitors will find highly interesting and that gets searched out and lends itself to sales of related products.

What Are Your Goals For The Coming Year?

At the start of 2010 I find myself renewed, reinvigorated and eager to get a fresh start. Maybe that's just due to calendar turning, but for some unknown reason, my motivation to do better at Squidoo (and elsewhere with my online marketing efforts) is increasing by leaps and bounds.

I've had some success at Squidoo and I'm looking forward to doing even better personally and seeing what new efforts other lensmasters bring to the table in this coming year. I hope you catch this same enthusiasm and lets compare notes as we head towards a brighter future.

Video: How To Start At Squidoo Step-By-Step

How To Setup Squidoo from Jeff Smithson on Vimeo.

I was reviewing some "How To Squidoo" and beginner guides to Squidoo and found this video that I thought I would share. The video provides a step by step guide showing each procedure someone new to the Squidoo website would take when first starting out with their first lens.

If you haven't begun Squidooing yet, you can JOIN SQUIDOO quite easily and of course at no charge. Take a look at the video and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

The clip is actually quite long, and the lensmaster is using the old school way of moving modules about 15 minutes into it. Since this was made, the fine folks at Squidoo have made a better (and quicker) workshop that allows easier movement of modules. Still a good guide for someone new to Squidoo.