Squidoo and Hub Pages

It's just a question, Albag (from someone who's a very low-key, low-volume Amazon affiliate and a former user of both Squidoo and HubPages): why might you want to build a business based on putting your affiliate-links on sites that you don't yourself own or control? :confused:

I was wondering if this thread might interest you: it's actually about "Squidoo and Blogger" rather than "Squidoo and HubPages" but the principles discussed in it are broadly very similar, I think ...

get ready to work!

Good luck to your venture!

Good luck, but I am curious why you're going with blogs you can't own. You can get a domain for as little as $1.99 and hosting for your 1st month for as little as .01. That is $2 for a domain name and hosting that you control all the advertising on, all the rules as to what you can and can't post (within reason). 24/7 tech support. One touch wordpress installation and more. I am talking about registering an .info from Godaddy and .01 hosting from hostgator.

Maybe its just me but i do not see many squidoo or hubpages ranking on page one anymore for niches. Used to see them all the time.

Hubpages deleted many of my hubs last year and squidoo now won't show your site unless it has a certain rank (something like that).

Get your own sites!!

If you're making these sites just to get seed money for a domain/hosting, why not offer a service instead?

You can write, build backlinks, etc. for a feww

Within one or 2 days you can make enough money for your own domain and hosting

I don't see the issue with him wanting to throw his stuff up on, say, Hubpages as opposed to his own site. We don't know much about his goals or abilities. It's pretty easy for a Hub to rank on the first page without any external SEO because of Hubpages' strong internal linking structure.

If you just want to throw some content up and make some money, Hubpages is a pretty good place to do that. I have several hubs that are getting 100-200 views a day without any external SEO.

I couldn't target the same keywords on my own website without putting in a fair amount of work into getting them to rank. Granted, I use both, but I don't see the issue with Hubpages really. Just make sure you back up your content in case they implode or kill you.

If you are considering trying to create your own blog 1and1.com is currently offering $0.99 domain registrations to new users. The registration includes free whois privacy (if you want it) and when the time comes to renew (in a year) the cost is $9.99. If you are able to catch the $0.99 domain registration and use it with the hostgator $0.01 hosting coupon, you'll be able to launch your own blog for a $1.00.

I know going with Squidoo and Hubpages might seem easier since it is free, but if you spend time writing content for your own blog you get to benefit from affiliate sales and ad revenue. You'll also have the option of selling the site later (and getting your $1.00 back plus a bit more) if you get tired of blogging or want to focus on another venture.

I think its a good move.Many are making money through this way.

So Good luck for your business.

Well the only reason why I am building these squidoo and hub pages is because I cannot build a website. I have built squidoo and hub pages before so I know what I am doing. If anyone can help me build a website I would be more than great full.

Albag999, it's pretty easy to set up a WordPress blog on a domain. On most servers you can do it from the cPanel with a few clicks. But yes, it takes a little more than just using Blogger/Squidoo or Hubpages.

Which is the better?

Your own domains with WordPress on, absolutely. BUT if you don't know how to set things up, I highly recommend that you start out by creating a Squidoo lens or Hubpage or Blogger blog depending on your goal. Because this can get you started.

Then you can decide afterwards, if you want to outsource and get somebody to set up your blog for you. I wouldn't be surprised if you can find somebody on Fiverr for $5 to do it. Then there's the domain - from $1 - $10 - and hosting. It's the best in the long run, absolutely, but lot let this be a road block. Get started with what you feel confident with. And then move on later, when you feel ready to do so.

There is many things to be aware off, in particular when it comes to Squidoo. (I am talking from experience with MANY high quality lenses deleted)

First, its not only that you dont have control and your sites can be deleted w/o any or for whatever reason.

Squidoo has a policy that they do not tolerate many affiliates anymore, some niches are actually on their black-list. Make an acne/hair loss etc. site...even a HIGH quality lens and link to clickbank...it will be deleted sooner or later and your income stream will be gone.


Furthermore, Squidoo and other 3rd party sites incl. some article directories are plastered with THEIR ads for THEIR revenue.

Squidoo wants to make all the sheeple believe how great they are and what great concept Squidoo is - but in the end its still that THEY are making money from YOUR content and THEIR ads.

(I am using an adblocker usually and dont see lots of ads on other sites, but if i de-activate my ad-blocker i am very often shocked how that article site or lens or whatever turns out to be a horrible mess of ADS. Make your OWN site - best thing you can do.)

....but, marketers can leverage these sites to complement their own sites/online endeavors through the achievement of greater search engine authority that those sites provide. While I do think your own site should definitely be had, I wouldn't completely disregard the value of using these sites in conjunction.

You are somewhat limited as to what niches and the products you can review on those sites. There is also a good possibility you could lose your content. That's why I started my own blog. I recommend you start your own niche blog, too especially if you are planning to do some things for the holidays.

Joey

Whether Squidoo is right or wrong or good or bad or going to work or not, CONGRATULATIONS on making a decision, putting a stake in the ground and choosing a course of action to take.

You can find post after post on the forum of folks who don't know where to start and it seems by your comment - "Right enough is enough" - that you've figured that out. Put your blinders on for now and just do it. You'll be glad you got started.

Sounds like you've also weighed your options based on your skill level. Squidoo loves Amazon and you said you can't put up a site. Many people can't when they first get going and they learn on other platforms or learn as they go. Squidoo was where I got started and I've never regretted it. I now manage many WordPress sites but still also build lenses both as stand alone income streams and to support my sites.

As for Squidoo tips:

• build clusters of lenses around a single topic and link them together - they'll help each other along. I tend to do 5-6 lenses a time around a niche.
• When it comes to niches, go narrow. "Televisions" is way too broad but you'd be amazed at the traffic you can bring in with a group of lenses around Buzz Lightyear bedding.
• Squidoo has nice built-in SEO features. Module titles are H2 tags so use keywords in those fields.
• Don't forget to fill in the tags field with relevant keywords before you publish
• Promote your lens with a few backlinks (bookmarks, RSS feeds) as soon as you publish to give it a good head start.
• If you need help, go to the Squidoo forum at SquidU . com and ask for a critique
• Don't get hung up on one lens. Build it, promote it, make another, and another, and another.

When you feel you've learned some things about keywords and traffic and structuring your content, test out building your own site.

Good luck!

In 2010 I made one hub a day based off previously completed keyword research. All long-tail keywords. All original content. I have about 270 hubs as I've trimmed some fat here and there. Things were really good with Adsense, my only monetization method.

Then Panda hit and even though I had what I consider good to great articles up they still flew off page one and into the depths of Google-Slap hell. I pretty much lost my measly $3-$5 a day with Adsense.

Now recently they moved all of my hubs to a subdomain, and strangely enough almost every hub has showed back up on page one or two. Traffic has been increasing and I averaged about $2 a day with all the hubs coming alive again.

So I would say definitely do hubpages. Provide great (original!) content and do your keyword research. Shoot for the long tail and eventually you'll have some nice residual income that didn't cost you anything but time.

I love AStores with Amazon Associates and the Carosuly widgets lol....Here is some advice..take daily action and give great content so people know, like and trust you so they go and buy.

I've been doing squidoo lenses for people for quite a few months now and they seem to have tightened their rules again. Quite a few lenses regardless of the content seem to get published by squidoo, but not immediately available to the search engines for indexing. Please bare this in mind if you decide to venture down this path and putting Amazon or any other affiliate links in your squidoo content.

George

Are you suggesting that Squidoo somehow prevents new lenses from being indexed by Google or are you referring to the WIP status for lenses which prevents them from showing up in Squidoo's internal search function, related lens feature, and internal categories lists? WIP does not prevent a lens from being indexed by Google nor from receiving search engine traffic unless the lens is actually still in draft and has not been published.

Alexa, you are absolutely right. In the long run, one should focus on building their own properties with as much of their own control as possible.

However, there's a LOT of learning one must go through to pass from completely inexperienced, hopeful, affiliate marketer to practiced and seasoned affiliate marketer.

More than one warrior has obtained that education through web 2.0 sites and been able to take the lessons learned and build their own sites - even if one of those lessons is that when you use web 2.0 sites you are subject to the rules and regulations (and changes of said rules and regulations) of the site itself.

I'm thinking back to when I first started and knew literally nothing about affiliate marketing. The fact that online retailers even had affiliate programs was shocking. WordPress was a foreign language, I had no idea how to register a domain, and my first WP site was hacked in the first month. The whole thing was so frustrating! I did far better the next time after spending several months gaining some much needed education on a web 2.0 platform about just some of the basics like keywords, hyperlinks, and backlinking.

Now that I think about it, though, I was doing that while working a full-time+ job, traveling for work, and handling general mom and house responsibilities. Site set-up and maintenance was time consuming. I had to make choices about where to spend my time and the web 2.0 site route was just faster and more convenient.

If I was just starting out again and hadn't already had my hands full, I wonder if I would have found it easier to go directly to building my own site or not?