Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Who Do You Write For? What's Your Niche?

This blog is all about increasing our income through Squidoo so it's good to stop and ask yourself the question - who do you write for? - as this can help you to refocus. I enjoy the flexibility of being able to write about anything I like on Squidoo and I still do! When I want to look at making money however I have to look at how I write. The lenses that make me money aren't ever going to win a pulitzer prize or be something I showcase to my mum, but they do their job.

This lens - Disney Princess Christmas Ornaments - is a lens that has made it into tier one with only one like. This is because it wasn't written for the Squidoo community it was written for one purpose alone - to sell Disney Princess Christmas Ornaments! It has also served another purpose as it adds some backlinks to hubpages where I have a number of Disney Princess hubs.

At this point of time this lens has the third highest amount of sales sitting on my dashboard, and that's only the ones showing from the module as I have also made some sales directly through Amazon. The one that is sitting in second spot has actually just got lucky with sales sprees, but this one has got there on it's own merit.

The majority of traffic to this lens comes from google although I do get some through my Christmas ornament lensography - Unique Christmas Ornaments. Until mid November every sale through this lens had been for something on the lens. What that tells me is that it's a niche lens and people are already thinking of buying before they land on my lens.

It's the most success that I've seen using the page break module on a lens and this has actually helped me to get on the front page of google for other keywords ie Cinderella Christmas Ornaments and also for keywords such as Sleeping Beauty Xmas Ornaments. Now I never usually use the word Xmas, but the title for each page break limits the number of characters you can use and guess what? The general public do put xmas into google!

Since the middle of November I have managed to catch a couple of sales sprees, but these have included one of the products on my page. So if you're looking at writing a sales lens do it and don't worry about garnering support from the Squidoo community instead work on your seo and get google to fall in love with it.

This also shows that page break lenses can be sales lenses, although I must admit this is the only one that I've had success with in terms of converting sales really well.

Another thing that this lens shows us is that it is important to write about a niche. If I had just written about Christmas ornaments I probably wouldn't have ranked well at all, in fact I think it's too broad to just have Disney Princess, but with the page break it's managed to break the lens into a more niche niche market ie Cinderella Christmas ornaments.

The other question in the title is What's Your Niche? Now I do have a number of one offlenses, but the most profitable of my lenses have been written around a niche. Using the lens above as an example I wrote my Unique Christmas Ornaments lens first and then have added more niche lenses to it. The Disney Princes lens is on this lensography as well as on the lens Christmas Ornaments for Children.

When you come across something that you love, think of other products that are similar and make lenses on them too interlinking them all. A fellow lensmaster and reader of this blog is Rhonda aka Pukeko she recently did a lens on penguins and before you know it she's produced lenses about Penguin iphone cases, penguin jewelry etc. This is how you develop a niche and it will be interesting to hear from Rhonda next Christmas to see how successful it's become. The other great thing that Rhonda did was to create a lensography - The Best Penguin Gifts Ever - which gives them all free backlinks and another thing that she could do is make sure that this lensography is included on each of her penguin lenses - she's already on the front page of google for penguin gifts.

Which niches have you developed and have they been successful? Let us know in the comment section. While you're doing that have a good think about who you're writing for.

The penguin picure is here thanks to Lord Biro.

11 comments:

  1. I just joined Squidoo recently, so I am still trying to figure it all out. I only have 2 (totally unrelated) lenses, but your tips make sense. I need to focus on creating related lenses. Thanks so much for explaining. Count me as your newest subscriber! I am loving RocketMoms!

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  2. Welcome Jeri, there's a lot to take in at first so it can be a little overwhelming. My lens How To Earn Money On Squidoo is a great one to bookmark and refer to as you go.

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  3. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed by all the information I need to be able to be successful. I have, however, despite not having it "all together' started making good sales. Not ready to retire yet, but I have taken that first vital step. I made 60 lenses without really knowing what I was doing, and now have the dubious pleasure of sprucing them up....lol. I cannot figure out what a potential customer is thinking when they land on my lens, but some of them seem to be working anyway. Most of my lenses are not niche, but I do the keyword research, and because of the number of lenses I have, backlinks are building (along with a blog or two).

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  4. Louanne, you are my role model when it comes to making money on Squidoo. I am always concerned about the Squid likes, but it isn't about Squidoo traffic. It is the traffic outside of Squidoo I should think about. Thanks for the information.

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  5. Sandy - I'm blushing! Thanks for the kind words.

    selecteddee - I'm not surprised you're getting sales if your Tinkerbell jewelry lens is anything to go by. The information is overwhelming so the best thing to do is implement one thing at a time and take it from there.

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  6. Well, what can I say other than thank you. I am honored to be featured here. I do agree that it will be next Christmas that will be the most telling, although there have been some penguin sales already. The cross linking really helps. Great advice you offer to all of us. Thanks.

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  7. Louanne, everything you've written here has been very helpful. Thanks for writing about your successes.

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  8. No problems Cheryl, I'm just glad you've found it helpful.

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  9. i'm honestly trying to follow how the page break module is being used. i'm still not getting it but maybe it's because i'm not yet trying to apply it. once i make my next lens i'll make sure to give it a try

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  10. @Kweni - HQ have done away with page breaks now and there are no more page break lenses.

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