How I got my Squidoo lens to #1.
December 3, 2007
Squidoo made quite a splash when it first came onto the scene. At first Google loved it like it was their own child, but in July of this year Google slapped Squidoo like a red-headed stepchild.
After all of this I still saw new ebooks and reports being created hailing the power of Squidoo for traffic generation. I'm always interested in new forms of traffic, so I thought I'd test it out myself to see if Squidoo is really all it was cracked up to be, or if people were just making a lot of noise to sell their reports.
I happened to already have a lens at Squidoo from a prior experiment that never got off the ground, so I did a little investigating to see what it took to get the lens ranked in Squidoo (not the search engines). My goal was to get my lens ranked number one in its category (Sports and Recreation) — which I did, though at the time of writing this post it's now number two.
As it turns out, getting a lens to the top of a Squidoo category is a pretty easy task if you don't mind spending a little money. All I did was drive a bunch of pay-per-click traffic to the lens and got a bunch of positive votes (it's a pretty good lens, if I do say so myself).
I'm not talking about expensive pay-per-click traffic, either. I spent a mere $100 for 1,633 visitors from GoClick.com. I bid on a bunch of golf related keywords, and also on the overflow traffic from the Sports category (which is a neat thing that GoClick lets you do).
On top of that I purchased some pop-under traffic from TrafficZap. I sent a total of about 7,000 unique visitors to the lens between GoClick and Traffic Zap. Keep in mind that I did not expect any of that traffic to convert into ad revenue or affiliate sales. It's been my experience that neither send quality traffic, but I was testing a theory that external traffic to the lens is what makes for good rankings in your Squidoo category.
In case you're not aware, Squidoo lets users vote on lenses. I expected votes to influence the ranking, too. However, getting to the top in Squidoo seems to have little to do with the votes for your lens, and everything to do with the traffic you get to your lens. Here's a lens that has only one vote (and it's a bad vote) and yet is now the number one lens in the Sports and Recreation category.
Knowing that ahead of time would be enough to make me question the value of being well ranked in a Squidoo category. If it's that easy to get ranked (and believe me, my own efforts show it is), then you could get any kind of garbage to the top with a little money and even less effort. Surely Squidoo users would soon figure this out and stop visiting the category pages to look for new lenses to visit?
As it turns out, that's true.
In a period of a little over two weeks I got 1,422 visitors directly from Squidoo itself. So despite being number one for most of that time, I only managed about 100 visitors a day. Now, that's not so bad if you're not using pay-per-click traffic to keep your ranking up. But even if I got my lens ranked number one through other, free, means, would it be worth the effort?
Again, if you're not familiar with Squidoo, here's a little information: Squidoo will share the advertising revenue they generate from your lens with you. The ads are well placed, and there are many options for related affiliate product sales, etc. I used all of these methods on my own lens (which is about Golf). Very relevant ads were shown on the page, so no problems there.
The result? I've earned $0.01 in royalties. Yup, a whole penny from 1,422 visitors. Ouch.
I also peppered the lens with an affiliate link to a top-producing ClickBank golfing product (which I own myself and have found to be quite helpful).
One nice thing about Squidoo is how detailed its reports are. It tracks all of the clicks to external links on your lens, so you know exactly where people are clicking and how often. Squidoo tells me that I managed to get 25 clicks on my affiliate link from 1,422 visitors. That's a 1.7% click-through rate. Not that bad if you consider how much content is on the page. I didn't make any sales, though…
The bottom line is that being ranked number one in the Sports and Recreation category didn't do me any good at all in terms of revenue. The 1,422 visitors almost never clicked on the ads, and only a handful clicked on my affiliate link.
Does this mean that Squidoo isn't a worthy platform for monetization? Not necessarily.
It's very possible that search engine traffic or other traffic converts better than direct Squidoo visitor traffic. After all, it's a safe assumption that the majority of people browsing the Squidoo categories are already familiar with Squidoo, its ads, and how things work there. Naturally they avoid clicking the ads, since ad-blindness has already set in.
And it's also possible that a lens in a different category or on a different subject matter might perform better than the one I created on Golf. Some categories are more purchase-friendly than others. A final thought is that a lens might do better in terms of lead generation: getting people to opt-into a list instead of click on your ads.
All that said, though, I really expected a lot more from direct Squidoo visitors. I expected far more of them, and I also expected better results in terms of click-throughs and ad revenue.
My current recommendation is not to spend a lot of time trying to get to the top of your category in Squidoo until you've proven to yourself that you can monetize the traffic you'll be getting.
Please post your thoughts, comments, and personal Squidoo experiences below.
How I earned $15,000 in the last 24 hours.
November 30, 2007
There are a lot of big name marketers pushing Alok Jain's latest product, Project Quick Cash. In fact, he has dozens of Joint Venture partners, many with email lists that dwarf mine in size.
And yet, at the end of 24 hours, I had out-sold them all and earned more than $15,000 in net profits. In fact, my conversion rate was 16%. I earned, on average, $6.30 for every single click-through I got to the Project Quick Cash site.
What made the difference? What was it that I did that they didn't do? How can you repeat my success?
It was easy: I stated the facts.
I took the time to do a case study, test the results myself before I promoted the product. Only after I knew the method worked and could present the proof of its success to others did I put together a promotional campaign. I'd like to think that I have a good track-record in this regard as well.
Meanwhile, I heard through the grapevine that other much bigger players in the world of Internet Marketing also promoted the product. One huge name in particular stood out to me. Do you know what his conversion rate was?
He converted one in sixty click-throughs. That's about a 1.7% conversion rate. He was a few slots below me on the sales leaderboard despite the monster size of his email list.
Where did he go wrong? I happen to know, because I'm on this marketer's list myself.
This marketer made two mistakes.
- He didn't provide one single shred of evidence that what he was saying about the product was true. Maybe every word he spoke was 100% golden truth, but I the reader (and potential customer) had no way to verify that fact.
- All I ever get from this guy is promotional emails. He hasn't sent anything of instructional value in months. Now why would I trust somebody like that? What has he done for me, the potential customer, to prove to me that he has my best interests (and not just his wallet) in mind?
There is a serious lesson in this: yes, it's true, the money is in the list — but only if you treat your list well. Provide them regular instructional information. Give them facts and stats and proof to show them that what you are saying is verifiable, not just more smoke and mirrors. I think we all know that there's enough of that in the world of Internet Marketing to last for years to come. No need for us to add to it!
Set yourself apart by (*gasp*, dare I say it?) being honest with people. Don't try to sell your list on products you've never used, or never used with good success! Your recommendation is only as good as your track record.
With that in mind, I've decided to launch a new Internet Marketing product review blog. I will only be posting reviews of products that I have done case studies on, and can show verifiable proof of having real value.
I'm tired of the baloney. I'm tired of the smoke and mirrors. The past 24 hours has shown me that you are, too. If you haven't already, check out my first review there. Post your thoughts and comments. Let me know what you think.
Also, if you are the owner of a product that you really believe will genuinely help Internet Marketers, submit it for a review.
Let's demand some honesty from marketers for a change. Some proof and evidence. We may not be able to clean up the world of IM altogether, but we can create our own little spotless corner where baloney is not allowed.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
Sorry Mr. Reese, thumbs down on Blogrush.
November 16, 2007
Let me start this post off by saying that I have a lot of respect for John Reese. He's a true pioneer in the world of internet marketing, and he's been very successful because of his great ideas.
Okay, that's out of the way. Now let's talk about Blogrush.
Blogrush is simply a traffic exchange system that is dedicated only to blogs. You add your blog into their network, select its category, and drop some JavaScript on your blog. Blogrush pulls the RSS feed from your blog, your blog posts are shown on other blogs with similar content, and you show related content from some of those blogs on yours. The idea is that you will be exchanging traffic from readers who are interested in the same topics.
Great concept, right?
So I read a few good things about it, and I like I said, I respect John Reese, so I signed up and put the Blogrush code on this blog. I figured I'd give it two weeks (14 days) and see what kind of results I got. If the results were good enough, I'd keep it on the site.
You see, I've been having tremendous success with my own traffic exchange service, RealTrafficExchange.com. So I figured if Blogrush did at least that well, and I kept the two traffic-sharing blocks side-by-side, I'd really profit from it.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened at all. Here's a snapshot of the credits I've earned over the last 14 days (it says 30 days, but I've only had the code on here for 14):
Not too shabby, 'eh? 14,943 credits in 14 days. That's about 1,000 visitors a day who saw the Blogrush ads. One thing that surprised me, though, is that Blogrush doesn't seem to tell you how many clicks you've generated, so I have no idea what my click-through rate is.
Okay, so how many new visitors did I get in return for the almost 15,000 views I gave to Blogrush? Here's the snapshot:
Yes, that's right, 20. A whopping twenty visitors over 14 days. I'm sorry, but my blog real-estate is worth a lot more than that.
Meanwhile, I've earned 12,744 visitors from my RealTrafficExchange.com service in the last six months. That's more than 2,000 unique visitors per month, or 1,000 every 14 days (compared to the 20 I got from Blogrush).
So I've removed the Blogrush code from this blog. I'll be watching for news on Blogrush, though, because I find it hard to believe that a large-scale project operated by John Reese will fail. Time will tell.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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