I partially agree and partially disagree. Yes, you don't own your Squidoo lenses. That is bad. But Squidoo is a much higher fidelity source of traffic than the article directories. Maybe Google doesn't distinguish between text-only articles and Squidoo lenses, but it sure makes a difference to the surfer's experience. I would put Squidoo, Hubpages, etc. above ezinearticles, go articles etc anyday. Furthermore, look at your namesake - Squidoo is around 200, Hubpages and ezinearticles both around 350. So Squidoo is getting more traffic. Now I haven't calculated traffic/lens against traffic/article and obviously even if I did this would be meaningless because all that matters is the traffic to one's own lens or article. But even so, alexa.com says that Squidoo is more popular than any other third party website which you can seriously use to drive traffic. If you're using organic search, not ppc, for your traffic, then you really need to look at Squidoo.

Hi Jeffery,

As ever, I agree with the "underlying spirit" of everything you say.

I prefer to express this point slightly differently (especially in conversations like this thread!) and say that Squidoo and similar sites are methods which people can use to get increase in traffic/sales compared with not doing it at all, but a huge decrease in traffic/sales compared with what they could equally easily do instead. I admit it doesn't read very differently from what you've just said, now I've set it out again. And clearly we have no fundamental disagreement on the point.

You'll perhaps think me terribly pedantic () but I think this point, expressed in this way, obscures more than it clarifies.

Let me try to explain why, because I suspect it may be the heart of the apparently differing opinions we might have ...

Yes, clearly "focusing and working on all traffic methods that create sales" sounds like a good thing to be doing. But hold on a moment, because with businesses "like ours", we should be analysing what works well and what works badly, and doing more of what works well and less of works badly, shouldn't we? (Nobody's going to argue with this observation, I think? ).

It's all very well to say "focus and work on anything that brings you traffic", but if one system of using "that content" (the content to which Stunning Warrior refers above) brings you 15% - 20% of the available traffic, and another method brings you 100% of it, I know which one I want to focus and work on.

So, if you'll excuse my wording it this way, I think these exhortations to "focus and work on everything that can work" can actually be a little misleading!

Sales are sales, yes. But getting sales from 100% of the traffic produced (from whatever the specified content is) is clearly better than getting sales from 15% - 20% of it.

I don't quite agree. Sorry. When there are two alternative methods (either, but not both of which can be done - and that does apply here because unique content has only one initial indexation process, in the case of this example either on a site you own or on one Squidoo owns), one of which produces far more traffic and sales than the other, my submission is that it can actually even be a mistake to "try every method". It makes no sense to me to give away initial indexation rights to unique content to Squidoo, even though you get some traffic that way, because you can get a lot more by doing something else with it instead, and you can't do both, by definition: content can't have two initial indexations, and Squidoo won't accept what's already been indexed on your own site.

So it's about doing more of what works well and less of what works badly. Using Squidoo works really badly. By Stunning Warrior's own admission, she's losing 80% - 85% of her traffic there. (Ok, that isn't quite what she said, because she doesn't see it as "her" traffic, she sees it as "Squidoo's" traffic, but that's only because of what she's chosen to do with the content, I think we can all agree? It's only "their" traffic because she puts her content there: they didn't have it without her, after all! ).

Some methods are better than others. Sometimes there are choices. "Do everything" isn't, ultimately, the right approach in every case. This is my contention, and to the extent that it's my contention it's also where I disagree with what you've said.

Hmmmmmm ...

I have no wish for a pedantic quarrel on a pleasant Sunday (and least of all with yourself!) but I imagine that, if pressed, I can name forms of traffic that you know of but which you don't use at all, because you've correctly decided that comparatively they're a waste of time/effort/energy/resources.

And I am talking comparatively, here, after all. Indeed, that's the crux of my argument.

Well, technically this is, of course, true. But still - and perhaps more relevantly to our discussion here - sometimes there are underlying realities that predicate that some models are going to work overwhelmingly better for the vast majority of people than others are. (To take a silly but obvious example: look at all the people trying to use mass, automated article directory submissions for the "benefit" of their own backlinks, as a way of gaining SEO traffic and sales from it. You and I know that for 99% of them this is going to be a waste of time, and indeed that that's why so many of them are starting off threads here with titles like "Is Article Marketing Dead?" ... because they imagine that what they're doing is article marketing and they're not getting any sales from doing it. There you go: their results may vary a little from person to person, exactly as you rightly observe above, but all the same nobody who's earning a living through article marketing actually imagines that they're doing something sensible. And they're not. And the philosophy of "trying everything" doesn't make it any more sensible, does it?).

People don't, though. They haven't tried the alternatives properly. They "already know" (because in 500 threads here over the last 4 years people have been telling them that "Squidoo is an authority site" :rolleyes: ), that they can rank their Squidoo pages better than their own site, and when they try it that does indeed happen for them (surprise surprise! :p ), and they don't know that they can choose something overwhelmingly better instead.

The reality is that "trying everything" includes trying some pretty ill-conceived and heavily odds-against activities which have far better alternatives. There are sometimes, literally, "alternatives", when "you can't do both".

Sometimes, it's no good saying "Why does it have to be an either/or? Why not do both?".

The answer is that (a) sometimes you can't, and (b) sometimes one is (with reasons!) overwhelmingly better than the other for almost everyone, and (c) sometimes one is even based on an Urban Myth of Internet Marketing. One must acknowledge this, surely?

I think I agree with everything else you say, and with (at least my perception of) your reasons for saying it.

It's an interesting discussion, too.

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