Should I Squidoo?

I have to admit, I don't yet get Squidoo. I would love to hear from a couple people who have lenses on the pros and cons of being a lensmaster.

Are you getting lots of exposure? Or better exposure?
How do you know if your lens is effective?
Should I have a lens as a business author? Why?
Would the lens be specific to a book or more general?

I have never done a Google search and had a Squidoo lens come up. Am I just not searching for the right stuff? Hoe do people find your lens?

I appreciate your feedback. I do not want to add another communication vehicle that needs to be updated to my regimen, but I also don't want to ignore something I ought to be doing to strengthen my reach to potential readers.

You can leave a comment so everyone learns or you can pop me an email at lhaneberg AT gmail DOT com.

Comments

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Great question Lisa. I responded to you in my trackback, as it's too long to put in your comments.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Phil - thanks for your thoughts and for shairng your lenses.

[Rob]

I don't care for it. It isn't bad, it just isn't better than anything else IMHO.

In general, when I want to learn about a new topic I use the external links on the Wikipedia entry for the subject, and I use del.icio.us.

[Lisa Haneberg]

rob:

Your comment is interesting. I am feeling really out of it. I don't use either of those tools - hmmmm.....

[Lora Adrianse]

Hi Lisa!
I don't have your answer! I tried Squidoo when it was in Beta. I couldn't figure it out. Then I got a nasty little note about finishing it, so I gave it up.

Some people seem to be doing instant replays of their blog posts. I think that's boring.

If you decide to embark, I think there's one big secret to "not getting stuck". That is to pick a very focused topic.

One idea I've got on my "maybe" list is to create a couple of "link Squidoos" for some of my favorite links on certain topics. IE; Emotional Intelligence, Communication, Business Relationships etc.

It could be a good reference point and get a little traffic too.

I agree though...it's never come up on any of my searches.

Cheers!

Lora

[Greg Balanko-Dickson]

Hi Lisa: thanks for raising these questions. I wrote a rather long piece with a trackback to your post. I actually did some search engine research and explain the results on my blog.

Keep up the good work and critical thinking.

[Graham English]

I definitely get more traffic from Squidoo. So far I've created 5 lenses on music subjects like songwriting and ear training as well as pet projects like an Intro to Integral Theory and my own personal lens. I probably benefit from being in a smaller niche and being an early adopter. But my Squidoo lens for my name comes up pretty high in Google.

So they take about 15 minutes to create and they can provide a steady stream of targeted traffic to your site.

[Lisa Haneberg]

I love all the diverse feedback I am getting. It is great and interesting. And here is a comment from Seth, from over on the Allbusiness Management Craft blog:

Hi Lisa,

It's an apples to apples comparison. How long did it take before your blog started showing up on google? before you had a lot of traffic?

We're getting about a million page views a month, up from 100,000 in January. Some people are finding new business and new sales and new blog traffic. The best lenses are getting the most.

Do a google search on reymysterio and you'll see an example of someone finding traffic.

The best news, of course, is that it only takes ten minutes. Most bloggers spend that much time every morning.

Hope to see you squidding

Thanks to everyone who has commented/tracked back:

So far, the conculsions I have drawn are:

1. It depends. Some people see value in it, some don't.
2. Be original - it would be a waste to just reiterate blog or website content. This, of course, is a bit more work, but likely worth it.
3. Make it fun or don't bother. Life it too short to waste on another thing that we think we ought to do but have no mental energy for.

[Squido Scam]

Wow, no one has even mentioned that Squidoo is much worse than a blog because they take away a big chunk on your ad revenues without you knowing it, for what? They are not very clear and up-front on that small detail. You can do the same for free elsewhere. Avoid Squidoo, it is a scam.

[Ken]

The concept is similar to that of oondi (http://www.oondi.com) except that oondi will pay out 100% of the advertisement profits to the authors. The hosting costs are covered by clicks which occur on non-author owned pages like the index but it's basically a non-profit organization similar to Wikipedia rather than a commercial one like HubPages or Squidoo.

[Jean Hall]

I have many lenses on Squidoo. They used to display combined royalty earnings for all my lenses on the dashboard every month, but now that visual has been remove from my dashboard. I have never been paid for my royalties which are supposed to go to PayPal. Has anyone ever been paid by Squidoo?

[Tedd]

I'm not sure I trust them. I have been paid $10.00. The first time they gave it to some charity, but of course I should have figured out that I need to tell them I want my money. Though I did tell them that I wanted 100% cash back the first time, some how the second or third squidoo I didn't select it and it seemed to stick on charity. I had to go into my account and change it again. Several other times when logged in I had a small amount of cash in my account, but on subsequent logins I had noticed that the small amount of cash reduced to even a smaller amount. Not sure how that happened?

It happened again this month, I had a little over $16.00, but today it's a little over $8.00 with only $0.30 earned this month, and I'm not sure what happened to the other $8.00 or so it had told me just the other day?

It's hard to contact them, and when you do or send them an email they say they are to busy to answer your question or may not answer it because they are to busy...

I think I've given up on working hard on these squidoo accounts in order for them to misplace $8.00 or so every time it clears then disappears...

[S Godin]

Yes I take your earnings. This was created for the all of humanity. Good or Bad. Charity starts at Squidoo. Sorry For Your Puny Losses.