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Back in October, I began a niche marketing experiment using Squidoo and good keyword research to generate traffic to a niche blog. Between good keyword use and Squidoo lenses, I wanted to generate a profitable, organic niche marketing campaign. I wrote one article to also promote this effort.
Niche Marketing with Blogs and Squidoo
Process for My Niche Blogging/Squidoo Experiment
First, I did keyword research to pick a keyword/niche that looked to offer an opportunity for good exposure in the SERPs (search engine result pages). I would not be paying for traffic so I knew I had to find a market where there was opportunity for top placement in Google and other search engines. A quick note: While I did the keyword research for this project, I did not do extensive market research for potential profitability. My goal of this test was to show how Squidoo could enhance traffic to a niche site and enhance search engine exposure – this test was not about profit in terms of a dollar amount.
After choosing my niche keywords I bought a domain name and directed the domain to Google’s Blogger/Blogspot to host for free. (You can get a domain name for less than $10 a year). I then created a few blog posts to start based on my keyphrase list I had generated while doing keyword research. I found a few Clickbank and Amazon products to complement the niche blog and also installed AdSense on my new niche blog.
This niche blog site has only 14 pages/posts – all are indexed in Google – and I haven’t touched anything on that blog since November.
Next, I went and created a Squidoo lens with links out to my niche site using good anchor text from my keyword research and also added a few niche-related products for sale on the lens. I do go into this lens from time to time to check keywords and to better optimize the title tag to improve search engine rankings.
I then wrote and sold an article to Associated Content based on info from my niche blog. I added the url to my niche site in the resource area on that AC article. Associate Content paid me $5 for that article and I’ve since made that same amount in Page View Bonus since the article was published. I paid $7 for the domain name and made more than that from that one article, so total cost for this experiment is nothing.
Why Doesn’t Everyone Use Squidoo?
Anatomy of a Successful Squidoo Lens
These are the stats for the LAST 7 DAYS on this ONE Squidoo lens:
Squidoo Traffic Sources
Total click-outs from this Squidoo lens to my niche site the past 7 days = 557. Out of 1197 visits to this Squidoo lens the past week, that is almost a 47% click-thru rate! An extra 171 visitors to my nice site EACH DAY just because I created ONE Squidoo lens. Folks, that is an extra 2200+ visits to my niche site in a month! From ONE Squidoo lens.
Statcounter Traffic Stats for Niche Blog
Between good keyword research and good blog and Squidoo SEO, my niche blog sees pretty good traffic.
Is this Niche Blog/Squidoo Lens Experiment Profitable?
I guess in the long run, we all really still want to know dollar values, don’t we? Ok – Well, first off, let’s say this – after purchasing the domain name and then selling the one article to Associated Content, I’m pretty much even as far as out of pocket expenses.
As for Royalties from Squidoo:
Other Squidoo/Niche Blog Revenue
I make a few affiliate sales here and there and this niche blog now earns a consistent $3-$4 a day from AdSense earnings. In fact, I’ve earned $168.30 from AdSense revenue just from this one niche blog since its creation in October.
One Niche Blog. One Article. One Squidoo Lens.
Can you imagine if I created 5….or 10… pages on Squidoo to enhance this one niche blog? Guess what? I’m thinking I WILL do that =)
What if I did the ol’ rinse and repeat and created 5 or 10 niche blogs that each have 5 or 10 Squidoo pages to improve search engine placement and traffic? Guess what? I AM doing that =) And, I am helping others do that, too, every day!
What if I owned a niche web site and I created one Squidoo lens for each product I offered or for each page on my site? Guess what? Clients ask me about how to improve the traffic to their niche sites all the time. I say “Squidoo”. They say “What the heck is a Squidoo?”….lol
What if I didn’t have a web site and just made Squidoo pages all around one niche and inter-linked them? Guess what? That works, too!
Creating useful, valuable content on the free pages of Squidoo is a win/win for everyone. The Squidoo site gets better and bigger and gets more traffic (and more co-op revenue to share with YOU), and YOU get more traffic for your site and/or more revenue from your affiliate efforts.
“What the Heck is Squidoo???”
For those that want to improve search engine placement of their web site or blog, or for those that would like a free platform to create good content for profit, Squidoo is the answer.
To any web site owner, to all bloggers, to all article marketers…. if you’re NOT using Squidoo you are losing. Period.
You are losing traffic. You are losing revenue. AND you are losing an opportunity to share your knowledge and unique products to the Squidoo community- and missing an additional opportunity to show these things to the world.
Guess what? I bet your competitors ARE using Squidoo and you’re lagging behind in your market. If they’re NOT using Squidoo – you just found the ‘point of difference’ in your online efforts that will separate you from the pack.
Get a Squidoo guide and learn how to create good Squidoo pages. Don’t want to learn? Then PAY someone to make SEO-optimized Squidoo lenses FOR you. You’re gonna have to come OFF your site to PROMOTE your site these days. If you don’t learn how to use off-page opportunities in this Web 2.0 world, you’ll be constantly trying to play catch-up in the search engines and in your niche market. The search engines love good anchor texts to web pages from within content – Squidoo offers that opportunity for free – and yes, Squidoo pages mature to have individual Page Rank, too.
So, now I ask… why aren’t you using Squidoo?
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Great article. I have been loving Squidoo. It is especially great for affiliate marketing.
Wow ~ those are some awesome results! I am doing this for some products but I’m not seeing nearly that much traffic. Do you think the key to this strategy is in the choosing of a niche and keywords? What is your stance on passion vs. profitability?
Thanks for another great post.
Jackie
Thanks!
@ Jackie – The keywords for this experiment were chosen strictly on potential traffic (high search volume/low competition in the SERPs). I did not do full market research on this niche – just keyword stats. While this lens/niche blog sees good traffic, I have other sites/Squidoo lenses that see very minimal traffic and are actually MORE profitable than this experiment (ie, the targeted keywords convert to sales better).
For this experiment, I wanted to show others what could be done with Squidoo as far as traffic generation and getting more ‘eye-balls’ on your niche site. If you have a very defined and specific niche, even getting 10 more sets of eye-balls on your niche site could be a drastic improvement. In the long run, it’s not as much the quantity of traffic to your site, it is the quality.
Passion vs Profitability, huh? You always ask the good questions! =)
My Stance? Ok, let’s put it this way….
I am passionate about being able to work from home and being available ( and *present*) for my family. I am also passionate about creating new choices and financial options for my family’s future. My online work allows me to do that. With that stance in mind, I try to make everything I do online profitable.
Does every single niche I work in appeal to me? No. They are business decisions – not personal decisions. I firmly believe the real secret to making money online is diversity and flexibility. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket and be able to change with this ever changing business.
This blog supports one of my passions – getting people out there to take a chance and make that first $10 online. That is a wonderful feeling – let alone the tax benefits and life benefits when you turn it into an income and not simply ‘extra spending money’. Is this blog profitable? To me it is. Not in a dollar amount, but in an inner-satisfaction type worth. Being able to give back is very rewarding to me. Other people and resources helped me, and in turn, I want to be one of those people and resources that help others.
One last thing about ‘working your passion’…
Once upon a time, my passion/hobby was golf. I loved every second on a golf course. I then got offered a job at a local course….then offered an assistant Pro position… and then offered my own course as Head Managing Pro.
Dream come true, right?
Not in the long run. My passion became a *job* and the passion slowly left. I became absorbed by the business aspect of my passion…and lost my heart for it.
It took a solid year away from the business and not a single thing to do with golf to even think about playing again. One day, I ‘caught’ my husband practice putting and messing with his clubs. I realized that my wonderful supportive husband, who hadn’t played either out of respect for me, missed the game…and missed ME playing with him. So, I went and played. I found my passion for golf again, but I learned a valuable lesson.
I am not someone who can turn her passion into her business.
I also neglected to mention that golf is also one of the reasons I try to be profitable online. Heck, golf is expensive! And having a work-at-home flexible schedule means me and the hubby can wake up any given morning and say, “Hey, Lets Golf Today!”…
And we can =)
My passion for my online business is not the “what” I do… it’s the “WHY” I do it.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Not everyone is cut out to transition their hobby or passion into a business. I’ve recently begun to use Squidoo and have started to see much more positive results in my affiliate marketing efforts.
I just found this post while reading your Squidoo Earnings post from today. I began learning about internet marketing with Squidoo, and still enjoy it. Now I’m also exploring blogging. Thanks for sharing this information on how you use both to make money!
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Very good info. Thanks so much! I went to one of your niche blog sites (blogger platform with your own domain name) and noticed you have one post per page. It didn’t look like a blog at all, except it had that Blogger info at the top. Interesting.
I’ve been toying with some Squidoo lenses pointed to my blogs/sites and have seem some traffic from at least one of the lenses. I’m thinking of doing more with affiliate links inserted in them – why split so much profit with Squidoo?
Oh, and I love your name. I just think PotPieGirl is so ingenious. Like a funky super hero.
Anyway, thanks for the info. Perhaps I will check out your lenses for sale.
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After reading this blog, I’m definitely going to pursue working my Squidoo lenses and understand the true power of what they can do for my network marketing business and our whole food nutrition products like the Feast.
Thank you so much for exposing this lens to the light of day! 🙂
Timothy
Hi,
I am amazed how good content you create and how crappy design of your blog is, lol, I know it sound mean, but honestly, it’s such good content, if you need some help, even for free, let me know.
Thanks for the posts on squidoo, really good read.
I found your site because I wanted to know how to drive traffic to my site using the Squidoo lenses. Even though I found you on page 2 in Google for the term “how to use squidoo for traffic” you provide the best explanation of them all.
But just to make sure that I understand the concept correctly it is all about using Squidoo because of its ability to rank in the search engines? Doing keyword research and optimizing for a specific long tail keyword phrase is what you would normally do on a blog post or any other webpage on your site but because of the “strength” of Squidoo one would have an easier time ranking by creating a lens than my just creating a similar post on your own site?
Are there any benefits that I’m missing here?
Thanks,
Mikael
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Wow – those certainly are some amazing stats. I’ve been looking at squidoo as a way to gain more exposure for my gutter cleaning business. Looks like there is potential with that site.
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Jennifer,
What about keyword density in your Squidoo Lens? Do you look for a certain percentage that your keyword shows up in the lens as well as the other optimization you talked about?
Thank you.
I enjoyed reading your work! GREAT post! I looked around for this… but I found you! 🙂 Anyway, would you mind if I threw up a backlink from my site at whiterabbitcult.com to your site?
Wow – those certainly are some amazing stats. I’ve been looking at squidoo as a way to gain more exposure for my gutter cleaning business. Looks like there is potential with that site
It looks like one of the keys to success with this method is generating a large amount of traffic to the Squidoo lens. In this experiment, there were over 1100 lens visits in 7 days. That is impressive, especially when it looks like most came from organic search in Google and Yahoo. How was this accomplished? Does it come just from choosing the right keywords? Certainly a great job and I’m certain your followers would love to know how you generate that much traffic.