squidoo vs your own website?

Having your own website you have more credibility..

Your own website is always better, because you own and control it. And it looks far more professional.

Not at all; thousands of marketers use things like the professional, well-established, reliable free hosting at Byethost.com. You can install Wordpress there, or whatever else you want to use. No cost involved at all, and unlike most other free hosts, they don't put their own "advertising button" on your sites. I know people who've hosted there for 4 or 5 years without any problems at all. They pride themselves on the reliability of their free service, and use that as their way of promoting various paid upgrades. If you use that, nobody looking at your site can tell that it's on "free hosting" (because they have plenty of "paid hosting" there, too).

Cost isn't a reason for using sites that belong to other people.

In the long run, it pays to build your own asset-based business on your own property.

Squidoo have had major and significant changes in their terms of service at least twice in the last three years, and can change them any time they feel like it, or feel that the Googlemeister would like it.

Try Squidoo, but as part of your backlinking strategy, not as "your website", because it isn't yours.

Squidoo if fine to be part of the overall strategy, like Facebook, Twitter.

But for long term, having your own domain is always the best strategy.

>>> Ownership , Control & Analytics ( understanding your visitors behavior)

Dan

With Squidoo you have:

1. A site with much higher credibility/authority that flows throughout, as people can tend to view Squidoo as similar to Wikipedia or About.com.
2. You have an easy platform in which to add content.
3. You have affiliate relationships that may be difficult for you to have otherwise, such as Ebay.
4. It is free, while your site will most likely cost you at least a few $$ per month.
5. You do not have as many headaches of running your own site, including upgrading or making big changes to the code.

With your own site:

1. You can gain more credibility, potentially, than Squidoo.
2. You have control over content and platform.
3. You are not at the mercy of other people placing bad content on the site, which can bring down the site as a whole (ie HubPages and the Google Panda effect).
4. You would not need to split the proceeds with anyone else (except your government)
5. If you find an awesome niche you could easily begin capitalizing on it.
6. You have control over domain name choice and SEO-benefits.
7. You have greater potential to bring in backlinks, as you are the site owner.
8. You get to establish your own advertiser relationships.

Overall, it is worth using Squidoo as a backup to your own sites. It can be a more steady source of income, especially in the beginning, as compared to your own site(s).

In short, do both.

Making your own website isn't too expensive either. Domains range from $2-12 depending on the extension and the hosting I get from Hostgator was only one cent for the first month and then $9 a month after that.

i agree with amanda. Getting your own website is well worth the initial investment. start out with cheap domains and hosting if your tight on budget.

Why not have both? You can build your own site while getting a few Squidoo pages as well and use them to backlink your site.

I also agree with having both, although I know its a lot of work. I would first start with my own web site then branch out my other pages to squidoo

Always have your own website as when it's earning you money you might want to sell it in future. You'll get much more for a website than a Squidoo lens.

By the way, having to develop both squidoo and a website equals to more power. squidoo is already an authority site and you can backlink to your own lens. Use squidoo as your bloodline and keep building.

You must have your own website. Squidoo can take down your lens anytime they get ready. And if that is your main money site, you will basically have to start all over. Just use squidoo as a way to build links and drive traffic to your main site. All you need to do is set up a simple blog through wordpress and use that as your main site. Most hosting companies have simple one click installation so you don't have to worry about it being difficult. Yes you have to pay about $9 bucks a month for hosting but its well worth it.

That byethost looks great i think my clients would love this thanks for your share alexa,

Best Regards

Lee

p.s. to OP sign up to that byethost i just checked it out it looks great.

thanks for the info im starting my website at the moment and once again thanks everybody ^^

from what i heard, squidoo is easy to rank, but tend to have fewer conversions. I would recommend that you open both a squidoo lens and your own website within the same niche, and compare the results, in terms of page rank, traffic, conversions, etc.

One positive is if your get a lens that ranks high Squidoo will cut you a profit sharing check. My best one earns me about $10 a month. Not bad. I only have 7 published. Not to mention the conversions to my main offer. On the other hand, I still prefer my own website because you can't put a price on the ability to control the content.

Have your own website, but create it on wordpress instead because it is good for seo purposes. Squidoo may get the page high up in rankings real quick but in reality you are promoting someone else's website not your own.

you don't see the big guys like techcrunch submitting articles to squidoo or hubpages etc.

the web is moving in a different direction. check out my new screencast video showing how i generated over 2,800 visitors in one day without spending a dime! the link is in my sig!

Your own website is way better, squidoos are good for articles such as product reviews

Hi,

I totally understand the importance of saving money, especially at the beginning when you are not in a position where you are making much money from your online business.

This is the thing: if you build your business with sites that are not owned by you or under your control (at least as much as anything is in this life), then you could be trying to build a foundation on quicksand- it can quickly slide out from under you, taking all of your hard work and efforts with you.

Here are some points to ponder:

- I love Squidoo and HubPages to help with backlinks and promotion. As they are not owned by you though, and the pages can be removed, suspended or the whole site can go down, I don't advise building your business solely with these sites. I agree with others when they say that you should have your own website/blog and use these sites for backlinking & promotion.

- Free hosting services do sound good, but I know of people who have had multiple sites go down permanently when these hosts packed up, without warning or explanation. Even in the case of a reliable, long-standing free host, their TOS usually stipulates that they can shut down your site without notice or warning and- poof!- your business is gone. Again, not a stable foundation for a business, in my humble opinion. I honestly have no knowledge of the particular free host that was suggested in this thread, so I mean no offense to the person suggesting it or to the company mentioned. They may very well be a free good free host. Understand that I am not saying otherwise. Now I know that even what many widely consider the 'cheap' cost of hosting and a domain can truly be alot to someone in a tight financial spot, but I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts. Like I said, I get the financial aspect completely. You could end up though losing more than money if you rely too much on free services or host your work on a website you don't host: the value of your work (which is worth quite a bit, in my opinion), your business reputation (if you are building clients' sites on these sites and they suddenly up and disappear, they will be far from happy).

3- As explained above, I wouldn't host client sites only on free hosts. Understand what I am saying?

These are my thoughts, but it goes without saying that it is up to you. Whatever you do, I hope you find great success now and in the future

Having your own site does not need to be hard - just throw Wordpress on it.

Some advantages of having your own site are:
- increased credibility
- put pretty much any content on you want
- place any ads or sales links you want
- you do not have to share revenue with Squidoo

There is nothing wrong with Squidoo and I have a bunch of stuff on there, but really it is a good tool for funneling traffic to your own site if you are focusing on making money long-term.

I'd do both. If you have enough content for a full website, then create it. But create a Squidoo page for a long-tail keyword or related topic and then link from your Squidoo page to your website.

I like Squidoo for topics that I don't have enough content to create a whole website about. Squidoo is also great for topics that people might want to chime in and give their opinion on.

You should use S.Doo, but also have some sites that you fully control. Each type of site/page has its own use and purpose. S.Doo gets good traffic and can funnel this traffic to your fully owned site. S.Doo can also protect your domain by acting as a buffer between you and big G.

If you can make $295 with your first two months at squidoo then you have the talent to do a lot more with your own website, so another vote for starting your own website.