Posts
The first thing I looked at was Squidoo and I decided I had to change my lenses as far too many of them have amazon modules on them. This would greatly affect my Squidoo income however and I'm not sure I want to see that go down - dilemma, dilemma.
I make 6.5% on Amazon under my associates a/c and if I didn't make so many sales through Squidoo I'm sure that would be up to 7 maybe even 7.5% (although that might be wishful thinking). At the moment 94 of my lenses have pending dollars from Amazon so this is where I need to start - and I have.
I am changing over amazon modules to text modules slowly - why? Because the lenses are ranked well in Google and I don't want to spook Google by changing them too much. This is the reason why I hadn't changed them over before - well one of the reasons, the other is my natural laziness!
I am spending 30 minutes per day changing over modules in lenses, but only one module at a time. I've started with the lenses that have the most sales from Amazon and I'm working my way down.
What about my Squidoo income? I am worried because most of my income from Squidoo comes from sales as opposed to tier payments and psychologically I know I'll feel upset if my income starts to go down (even though overall it'll be going up). To counteract this I am taking a few steps.
- Updating
- Legofun
- Updating
Wait you've got updating down twice! That's because I'm using a two pronged approach to my updating so before we go into that I'll get the Legofun out of the way!
I am going to be writing 2 legofun lenses per week - those of you who are regular followers will know that this is my niche a/c. I'm also running a Lego on Squidoo blog and I'm hoping that this a/c will do well as it's a niche a/c.
Updating 1
The first type of updating I am doing is a 30 minute per day routine. It is often said that keeping lenses fresh will help with ranking...........I must admit I didn't pay a lot of attention to that as I have had lenses in the top tier that hadn't been touched for months. However, I've looked around at some of the top lenses in certain areas where I 'know' the lensmaster makes a lot of their Squidoo payments through lensrank and they do keep their lenses pretty well updated.
Any lens in the top two tiers will be updated at least once a week and I will be working my way down the list so how many in tier 3 get updated will depend on how quickly I work my way through them! This is quick updates and nothing major.
Updating 2
I haven't worked out how much time I can allocate to this, but I need to spend so much time each week doing major updates on some of my lenses. My older lenses in particular are in dire need of a change. I will be starting by looking at keywords, then the serp tool etc. I need to update amazon modules as well and make lenses click friendly.
Using these techniques as well as continuing to increase my lenses should keep my Squidoo earnings steady for the year (fingers crossed).
Where else am I going to get my income from? Amazon, as I've already mentioned, Zazzle, Google and Shareasale are the areas that I am concentrating my efforts on.
My question to you today is - how much do you want to earn in 2011 and have you planned how you are going to achieve it?
Before you go - would you like to buy a set of steak knives?
I'm confused....you are taking amazon modules out? or are you just replacing them with your own associate links? I'm also an amazon associate and know that I would make a lot more from sales through my own account with links other than squidoo being the middle man.
ReplyDeletep.s. I hope you will join me on my blog and link up some of your squidoo posts each week. The new linky goes up on Thursdays, but you can link to it any day until the next week's is put up.
ReplyDeleteWell put. Wondering what you mean by "click friendly?"
ReplyDeleteWow This is alot of planning and should need alot of time. I do wish you luck and success :)
ReplyDelete@Marsha - I'm replacing the amazon modules with my own associate links.
ReplyDelete@Vikk - In many of my older lenses I didn't really put anything that people could click on like links, featured lenses, amazon modules, flickr, polls etc and as clickouts count towards lensrank it's something that we should be doing (as long as it doesn't dilute the lens content of course)
@Aysha - thank you it is a lot of planning, but if you don't plan to succeed then you won't!
@Marsha - just checked out your blog and added my link, thanks for the opportunity.
ReplyDeleteWell I had thought my year 2 goal of $6,000 was ambitious, but after reading this, I want more. Good suggestions, especially about changing over Amazon. I think I will start that as soon as I have all the products in my zazzle store linking over to my blog. So much to do, at this point I think the number one thing I can take from this post is time limits.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've found that if I say I'm going to do something (that is let's face it boring!) for 30 minutes it's a lot easier to do than to just look at how much needs doing!
ReplyDeleteI'm a newbe at squidoo, just got through my initial month of activity. Looks like I'll be spending a bit o' time here learning things from you. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Squidoo Ruthi, I hope it becomes a profitable enterprise for you.
ReplyDelete