My Squidoo Experiment...

I confess I've never had much interest in Squidoo until now. I'm a couple of days into conducting a totally unscientific Squidoo "experiment" and I thought I'd share my thoughts and experiences with this as I do it.

My Squidoo experiment involves building a lens as a companion to my blues festival site. Both the main blues site and the new lens are listed down below in my signature (at least for now).

I've been thinking that I should move into a new "phase" with the blues site and actually put some effort into acquiring some decent backlinks to the site. To date, I've had very solid traffic to the site only from search engines (mainly Google) and from typed in and bookmarked traffic direct to the site. That's with virtually almost 0 backlinks to it. It's definately at a plateau, though, and it's definately time for me to do more.

Anyways, I was listening to a webinar that suggested Squidoo as an opportunity for authority backlinks. That aroused my curiosity and I went adventuring into squidoo-land to look into it. What the hey

Here's what I've found so far...

...some will need to watch out for the addicting game-like structure of Squidoo. It could become a terrible distraction without much payoff. After all, squid-likes and opening up new 'levels' and going on 'quests' doesn't pay the bills... unless you really pay attention to what you are doing.

...although I can't say I ever remember seeing a lens show up on a SERPS page (maybe I just had squid-blindness? ), I can see the potential for good backlinks, especially on a topic-focused lens that you build yourself. Time will tell what the real value is.

...you can learn the main essentials of building a good lens in a day, and navigating around the site, and once you know all that, if you know a subject already, it's pretty easy to build a decent lens in a fairly short bit of time, less than an hour, unless you add a lot of your own (new) photos and videos.

...they've got some really decent modules to help you add content easily without much effort.

...the squid community is really friendly, active, and powerfully incentivized to "like" your lens and interact with you. As a new-comer, I am finding the interaction more welcoming than on any forum I've ever been on. At the same time, I recognize the level of reward there is for members to welcome someone, so it's not just my charming personality.

...I was suprised by the potential opportunity to use a lens to make money. They allow you to add affiliate links, and even encourage it, provided you give good quality and integrate it properly. I think it would be a good place for someone with no resources to start experimenting with building a site around a theme. It would be something you would not want to do to save you from a financial crisis but it could actually trickle in some money if you do it right. I think it could be a great place to learn, if you stick to all the advice they give so freely on their site. It's worth devoting a spare day to just exploring and learning before you publish your first lens.

...don't expect to make any real coin from the pooled funds, unless you become squid-hooked and you build lots and lots of lens like some have, and give it time to develop.

...a good lens will definately need nurturing over time, occasional updates and such, but their modules make that easy if you are firm with yourself about how you spend your time, and you approach it with a clear intention.

...it's easy to try out new things without a lot of commitment, and without a lot of prior planning. It could be good for someone who likes to do seat-of-the-pants type of updating and such. It really lends itself to impulse ideas.

...the community is clearly well monitored. It's a more mature group, and it's obvious you won't get anywhere if you try to pass off affiliate spam, but if you give good quality, you'll be treated like part of the 'club'.

...from what I've seen so far, most of the lens seem more like true content curation than most sites that I've seen that claim to be that actually are.

...I wouldn't add any content you don't want on Pinterest because the PinIt button is automatically on your lens. Otherwise you own your own copyrighted material and have control over it. The truth is that I didn't add much if any original content so far that I would be concerned about.

...so far, I think Squidoo could be a useful part of an integrated platform of sites, especially on a theme, if you approach it really strategically, particularly as it relates to your other sites, and social media properties.

...the whole platform is well thought out to help get new lens noticed and visited by members, and to reward those who put together a thoughtful presentation, which doesn't need to be too complicated at all.

...so far, I haven't had a huge number of visits to the main site, but there are tweets and such, and that's kind of cool. It'll be interesting to see, over time, what impact the lens will have.

...at this point, I plan to tweak it here and there, see what it can do, integrate it more into my overall platform...

BTW... I don't have any illusions about some kind of PR boost (I've never paid much attention to that anyway, over-rated as far as I'm concerned. I just look at a site/page whether it's solid, and related... and go from that in a logical, common-sense sort of way).



I'm really curious to hear what others think of Squidoo as part of a marketing strategy, and how they've used it or not...

Any Squid experiences you'd like to share?