Archive for the ‘Lens Modules’ Category

Squidoo isn’t just for sharing your wealth of knowledge and information on a subject. It’s for making money, too. This isn’t a new revelation, but some seem to be taken aback by the idea that Squidoo can be used that way.

Proof of this is that there are Squidoo modules that are available to you for precisely that reason. The most obvious are the Amazon and eBay modules. There are also Amazon Plexo, CafePress, and more.

These can all be added to your lens and customized to your topic – they’re all moneymakers, too! Squidoo money modules not only help YOU earn money, but they contribute to the running of the site.

I have to say that Squidoo has the best staff members bar none – I don’t just mean they’re helpful – they’re all kind and witty – I’m never bored reading their lenses or hearing their tips on using Squidoo. So support them (and yourself) by using built in money modules.

Link List is another good module to use to make money on Squidoo because you can list the links that you love for viewers to find and visit. These can be links to your website, blog, to affiliate promotions, etc.

Use your imagination and link out to other moneymaking sites outside of Squidoo. By using the Poll module and a bit of HTML code, you can do the same thing. For example, ask your visitors which is the best Radio Flyer Wagon and then give them a choice between the Retro Rocket, the Classic Wagon, the Tiny Trike, and the Sport Coupe – linking each one with your Amazon Associates ID right in the poll!

The Squidoo modules that are available can lend themselves to money making opportunities – not just the most obvious ones, but others as well with a bit of thought. Some of these modules just naturally attract attention, such as the Poll module – who doesn’t like to vote in a Poll?

When you build your lens, think about which modules are going to be the handiest for your moneymaking endeavors. Check out what other good lenses are using, too.

Those of you Twittering and Squidooing will want to know about this from Megan at Squidoo HQ:

“As a fun Friday diversion, we just launched a lightweight new module: Twitter Follow.

Here’s how it works:

1. Add the module to your lens.
2. Enter the Twitter username of someone whose twits you appreciate and like to follow. (Probably makes sense for you to chose someone who twits about your topic… or yourself, for your bio lenses… and so on).
3. Set how many of their latest twits you want to show on your lens.
4. Hit save.
5. Publish your lens (we can’t suck in their feed until the lens is Published).
6. Voila!”

So for marketing purposes, I’d add my own Twitter to my lenses - just more selling opportunities!

The cool thing is, you can folow 5, 10, 15, or 20 twitters in there and there’s automatically a link that says, “Follow Tiffany Dow” so I can beef up my followers.

See it in action here: http://www.squidoo.com/TiffanyDow I added it as the second module as an example. Only bad thing is my hyperlinks aren’t live. But I guess it’s okay, as long as they become followers and can see the URL to type in.
tiff

I got bombarded by emails and private messages yesterday about a new Squidoo lens creator tool being sold. Everyone wanted to know what I thought about it, so here goes:

Although I like the idea behind it, I wasn’t impressed.

Nothing against the creator. I think his vision might be a good one. But it shouldn’t have been released in its minimal state as it is. It wasn’t a time saver to me and I felt like it was more of a hassle than a blessing.

The tool lets you enter your Squidoo login information.

Then you either type in a title or let it create one based on your file name (for the Txt document you’re going to pull content from).

Next, you choose if you want it to prompt you, stop creating the lens, or just add some digits onto the end of the URL if the one it wants to create isn’t available.

(So let’s say your Txt file name was “how to train dogs.” It would try to grab squidoo.com/how-to-train-dogs and if that wasn’t available, it would tack on a few numbers or letters to the end of it, like how-to-train-dogs8s6dn or whatever.)

Then you either Max the lens or not, choose to publish or not, and categorize it. (See to me, it’s not a shortcut – you’re still doing much of the same work).

Then you go to the right side and choose the file you want it to get content from. Click continue and it creates and publishes the lens.

But it only supports Write/Text modules. Nothing else. So you’re going to have to go back into Add modules and add more anyway. It’s not going to wear me out clicking Add to 1-2 more Text modules, so this tool, while the idea is okay, isn’t something I’d spend money on again.

Another drawback to this being released is “here we go again!” We just got over a big smackdown from Google about spam and what do you think is going to happen with this tool?

Some idiots are going to use it to flood Squidoo with their PLR content that’s not altered and then we’re going to have lens after lens of rehashed material. By the way, Squidoo headquarters already knew about the tool, so you can bet they’re going to be watching for cookie cutter lenses and they’ll shut them down without warning. Be VERY careful if you DO use this tool and alter everything and make it unique.

Just a warning and my $0.02.

And hey – if you bought it, give your own accounting of what you thought here.

I’d be interested to hear varying opinions. No one person knows everything, and maybe I’m missing something crucial with this tool.

Tiff

I just launched a new lens called IM Crash Course: A Newbie’s Guide to Internet Marketing. IT’s to plan my endeavors with a site I’m building where newbies will learn all about Internet Marketing in bite-sized chunks. Instead of shelling out $197 for a full course, they’ll have individual topics they can buy or by-pass.

With a plexo text list module, I’m able to announce the site to my list, direct them to my lens, and get them to add their personal input into what type of product creation should be on my to-do list. I’ve also used plexo with another lens I created called Tiffany - Critique My Lens!

This is great because people can add their lens and “get in line” for their critique. Some people voted their lens up ahead of others, so I had to save the lens orders by bookmarking them in my own favorites places in order of when they signed up, but it’s still a great module - imagine - other people adding content to your lens!