Affiliate Market in Squidoo?

Yes.

Don't do it.

Own and control your own website, right from the day you start.

Don't use one which you can never own or control yourself, where someone else is in charge and makes up the rules and policies and procedures and can change them whenever they feel like it, and interpret them as idiosyncratically and inconsistently as they like.

You don't need any money to have your own website for affiliate marketing. There's free hosting available, for people for whom price is an issue. (It's not always wonderful hosting, but it's better than using Squidoo as "your website").

Who knows whether Squidoo even allows affiliate links on "your" pages? (I think they allow Amazon ones but not ClickBank ones? But that's from memory and I might be wrong, and/or it might have changed, of course). And even if they do, who knows whether they still will in 6 months' time? Who needs to worry about this sort of stuff?!

These posts/threads might also interest you ...

• Too Much Advertising on Squidoo??
• Is Squidoo still okay to post article to?
• How to subtly advertise on Squidoo and Hubpages?
• How do I Use Squidoo Effectively?
• Advice on Squidoo
• What's the value of a Squidoo Lens?
• Using Hubpages, Squidoo, and Tumblr to generate backlinks
• Squidoo/Blogger as primary website

I agree with Alexa.

Buy a domain, install wordpress, go from there. You have complete ownership, you can build off of it, you can sell it, you can do whatever you want with it, and it IS cheap.

All I have to say is Alexa is very smart and as I've read her posts, she seems to get smarter. Hence, I'd say follow her advice!

Hey, uglynoober.

As others have said, ultimately, owning your own domain and online assets is the best way to go. However, you are asking about getting into squidoo with affiliate marketing because your starting out. I think this is an excellent idea, and it is how many, if not most in this business got their start. Personally, I would recommend to get started with squidoo as opposed to other websites like hubpages.

I would definitely have you ask yourself what your goals are. Squidoo is excellent for a high-risk income stream. You can make a lot of money with squidoo, as well as other similar websites, in a fairly short period of time if you know what your doing. In the near future I will be releasing a free video course on this exact subject, so you can lookout for that.

So, in my opinion, starting out with squidoo to get a feel for affiliate marketing is an excellent choice, nothing wrong with it at all. Just understand that creating income streams with websites that you do not own is a high-risk opportunity. As others have said, any number of negative things can happen. A personal tip I would give to you, if you do get into affiliate marketing with squidoo, I would promote physical products through the amazon associates program before you try to promote an info products, such as those from clickbank.

It's difficult to do affiliate marketing over at Squidoo since they can easily disable your page. Better get your own domain and paid hosting, this gives you full control of your site.

Get your own website, get an autoresponder, build a list, and market to your list over and over again with your affiliate product.

I have been using Squidoo for over 3 and 1/2 years now.I have over a dozen Squidoo lenses that come up in the #1 position on Google for dozens of different keywords. I sell my own products and I sell affiliate products as well. Squidoo is the best resource for getting top positioning for affiliate advertising that I know of. It’s free to use, so you don’t have to spend money on Facebook or Google Pay-Per-Click.

Squidoo allows CB links, as long as they're not the main focus on a lens and as long as the lens is not about one of the Squidont topics (the usual suspects, diet, weight loss, reverse lookup, watching movies online, etc). Otherwise it's a perfectly good way to earn money online, despite whatever some people say, especially when you're just starting out.

Sure it has its dangers - they could delete or lock a lens, Squidoo could disappear any day, bla bla, but so does any other form of marketing. Google can wipe our your rankings in an instant with a new animal they're coming up with, or competition is too fierce, or you don't have money when starting out...nothing is without its perks.

The important thing is to start with something and stick with it at least for a good while until you've really learned it well. Then you can experience success with anything - including Squidoo. Just make sure you avoid running after the next shiny thing, because then you'll fail.

I've started last September a Squidoo experiment, started with $25 payment from Squidoo...now I'm close to reaching a 4 digit number per month only from Squidoo (this not including my own Amazon sales from the Squidoo lenses). Yes, it's slow going, yes it can be cumbersome, yes many people earn way more than that - but many people after a full year can only say they've hardly earned a cent. *shrugs*

I agree with Alexa too. In a long run, your own site is highly needed.

For starters squidoo could be a good area, but then again as the comments above have stated sooner or later you should start building your own website since you gain full control on your pages. However squidoo still allows CB links but the Amazon and e-bay links have their own modules which makes it easier to integrate such affiliate products. This can also be a good way to build your backlinks since squidoo lenses are also doing good in google rankings.

Squidoo is still an high authority site and people make good money, dont take that off the radar , have it as one of the plans in your big picture...

I use Squidoo for List building only. no direct link to my offer. just in the landing page where I have a subscription for them.

Hey,

I have done quite a lot with Squidoo so here is my 2 bits.

1. Don't put your premium content on Squidoo.
(build your business not theirs)

2. Build links to your lenses to get multiple page 1 rankings

3. Use Squidoo to rank your other properties as they are good
links.

Hope this helps

Squidoo has never been a major part of my online strategy, but I have had some success with squidoo lens and they can be a good way to make money if you don't want to build out a full site to promote a product.

When writing your lens, just try to come across as authentic as possible, Discuss a problem that you have had, and then describe how the product solved that problem. Do some basic backlinking to move your lens up in the SERPs.

Check out the products that squidoo doesn't like you to promote before you start and you shouldn't have any problems. I have promoted clickbank products and never had a lens taken down.

Don't do it on squidoo. They have scripts who search for affiliate related words.. and close your lens.

Lately I've heard that Squidoo has been cracking down on some affiliates (the ones that are throwing up garbage content). So if you plan to do any AM, make sure you are putting out good content.

By the way, there is no real benefit of doing AM on Squidoo as I have found that lenses don't rank well anymore.

Select a niche you are interested in or something you can talk about. Writing some promotional articles to promote products from Amazon or Clickbank.

I wouldn't recommend it. Squidoo (and other Web 2.0 sites) are better used for targeting "long-tail" keywords and then driving traffic to your "money" site.

Any Adsense or Ad Program revenue share that you make along the way is an added bonus; but don't go relying on it.

You can get a .com domain name and hosting for 1 year for under $20. If you're not willing to invest that, don't even bother starting!

Start a blog on Blogger before Squidoo. It will cost you no $ and you can drive traffic useing Pintrest. I get 1200 to 1600 visitors a day from Pinterest to my recipe blog. Cost me nothing and makes me a good Adsense/Amazon check every month.

But starting your own website is the best way to go but will have little cost like hosting, domain ect...

Honestly I have no problem ranking lenses. It is all about picking the right topic. While having your own site is great, Squidoo is really nice for people who want to be able to write about a variety of things without needing to buy more domains or set up more sites. If you really want to dig into a niche, I do suggest starting your own site though.

Well I'll chime in here

Yes, use Squidoo! Not as an "only" option but in conjunction with your own sites. I love to use Squidoo as an affiliate, ESPECIALLY for testing niches or product lines to see how they fare before I go off building a whole site for it.

Here are my tips:

1. Make sure you abide by the rules as far as topics and link numbers (9 I think?) so your lens doesn't get shut down.

2. Use a mix of text modules and Amazon if applicable. MOST of my affiliate income stemming from lenses is from text links in the content.

3. Write good content for your lens.

I like to use Squidoo because if the lens ranks well, then I can have a top spot, along with my own WordPress blog to get double the exposure.

I often tell people who say they can't invest in anything (hosting, domain, etc) to start off on Squidoo and then move on to a domain.

Also, books sell better than anything else on Squidoo. So do toys. And Halloween costumes, etc.

Tiff

Great tips Tiff! My seasonal lenses all seem to do great there. And you are right about the double exposure! I love being able to search for one of my keywords and see my site and my lens in the top 5!

While I know some people that do well selling high end items on Squidoo, I do really well selling small items for $10-50 or even really cheap items that people buy in bulk.

The advantage of building your own site is that you own it and can do whatever you want with it. It takes time and effort to rank your own site. It may take you several months to reach the first ten pages of Google for a competitive keyword and maybe less for page one for a keyword with low competition. But in the end you may feel that it was worth it especially if you are ranking on spot number one on Google's page one. Google handles about 90% of web traffic with the rest being handled by Bing and Yahoo. Even if you decide to sell your site you will get a good value for a high ranking website with revenue if you list you website on Flippa.

Trouble is that a vast majority of affiliates do not reach that far and give up midway when they realize that it does indeed take too much time and effort to rank their site. You will see several posts lamenting about getting no conversions from clicks on their affiliate sites. The reason is that people who stray to pages beyond page one on Google are mere browsers of information and not buyers who may click but not buy. You need to be amongst the first five page one results to see any serious amount of sales take place through your site.

Prospective buyers do not look beyond the first page of Google when they look for reviews of products and if your site appears on one of the inner pages of Google you may find that even a $10 investment for a new domain was not worth it. If you decide to sell your site you will find that there are no buyers for low ranking sites especially those without any revenue to show.

Articles on Squidoo have been known to rank easily especially for low competition keywords. For such keywords writing a unique article with good on-page SEO optiization may be enough to see it rank on page one. For keywords with medium to high competition some amount of backlinking may be necessary. It takes much less effort to earn from a Squidoo lens than from your own site.

What you need to be careful about on Squidoo is not to violate any of their terms and conditions. If you do you could lose your lens and account. They have a long list of niches, articles on which are not allowed on their site. If your article appears to be falling in one of the prohibited niches you may not see your lens published. If your lens seems to have a very high sales pitch or have too many affiliate links then again it could be a problem for you.

Owning a site/ having your lens on Squidoo have their pros and cons. Ultimately it is up to you to decide your course of action based on your strengths and goals pertaining to internet marketing. If your aim is to rank fast go with a Squidoo lens but if you would prefer having your own site that you are confident of ranking well build your own site.

If you visit Squidoo you will find many authors maintaining hundreds of lenses with all or most of them promoting Amazon products. Quite a few of them have been around for a long period of time which indicates that there could be something good about having a lens on Squdoo:-).

Some own websites and use Squidoo to complement their site while building backlinks to their lens. Too many backlinks to your own site can harm your site's ranking while many backlinks to a Squidoo lens may actually make it stronger in the serps.