I built my first Squidoo lens not too long ago and now I am challenging myself to build more! My goal is to build dozens of lenses within one year from the date of this post.
What is Squidoo?
Some of you might be wondering what Squidoo is, so I thought I would answer this question before diving into the details of my lens building plan. Squidoo is a popular company that allows people to create their own lenses (mini-websites) quickly and easily.
These lenses often feature a product that people can sell as an affiliate. Affiliates get commissions when consumers buy through their link. Squidoo also pays their members a share of ad revenue created from traffic that goes to each lens. More traffic = more $$$$. Higher quality lenses naturally make the most.
The site is designed to provide readers with valuable information and give affiliates the opportunity to offer products and services or simply promote their websites. Squidoo lenses are also FREE which is another huge perk for small business owners.
Squidoo maintains the quality of their lenses by doing periodic reviews. Each lens must contain quality content and accurate information for the readers. Lenses with photos and videos are also preferred. The site offers plenty of resources to help you build the best lens possible.
Why don’t people just create their own websites?
Yes you could create your own websites and sell products this way, but I can tell you from first hand experience that it takes a long time to reach top rankings after building a website. I haven’t discovered any short cuts when it comes to building traditional sites. I know because I have several sites and blogs of my own and I am just now tapping into the power of searching engine optimization (SEO).
You must promote your site, optimize pages, make youtube videos and build back links, in addition to checking your site on copyscape.com periodically to ensure that no one else is copying your work. You need to always ensure that your content is unique and kick any copy cats to the curb!
Squidoo takes care of so many tasks for you! Squidoo already ranks high in the search engines so this gives people the chance to get top rankings with only minimal SEO needed. This saves a lot of time in comparison with building “traditional” websites.
I do still plan on building more sites of my own, but I am going to spend the next year pursuing this Squidoo experiment. After all, I have kids to feed and my goal is to build more residual income so that I can cut back on work and have more time with my precious children. The hard work I do now will pay off in the future! I encourage you to build Squidoo lenses and create your own websites. It's never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket.
What am I going to sell?
I plan on featuring products that I love in addition to creating lenses about popular toys and specific toys hand picked by my own children. I am not just going to sell “any product”. I can’t promote something that I wouldn’t buy myself. I might sell a few informational e-books, but most of the products I promote are going to be tangible items that you can buy on Amazon.com.
Building lenses is a lot of fun and I really like the fact that I save on hosting costs with Squidoo. Selling also comes naturally to me because I have a background in sales and marketing. I may be quiet at times, but I still have a very persistent personality.
How am I going to achieve this goal?
I am going to build at least 2 quality lenses each week in addition to completing a few marketing tasks for each lens. I am following the guidelines in Tiffany Dow’s 52 Week Lens Building Journey. She challenges people to build 1 lens per week for an entire year, but I am actually going to strive to build 2 lenses each week instead.
I know this is a huge goal, but I really want to greatly increase our passive income before my husband and I have any more kids. I love working at home and currently I get up at 5:00 a.m. and work until 12:30 p.m., 4 days per week. This schedule is nice, but wouldn’t it be great to make the same income and have all your work completed by 9:00 a.m. instead? Wow, that’s a 4 hour work day! Why not?
I am going to spend the first four days of each week building and promoting two lenses in addition to working for my usual clients. I’m then going to devote time on Fridays to plan for the following week. I might try to have several products on the list this coming Friday so I can stay ahead. As I build these lenses, I am going to post a new link for each one here on my blog and I may even create a few other “feature” posts about specific lenses.
I hope you enjoy visiting my lenses as much as I like creating them! Join me on this lens building journey. Read Tiffany Dow’s free Squidoo e-book and check out her videos on Youtube.
My children motivate me!
Squidoo Lenses
Clarisonic Facial Cleansing System
