Amazon Spotlights & Starting All Over!

Well I did promise to let you in on something new with this post, but I was computer-less for a few days with a nasty virus and then this pesky thing called Christmas means that I can't spend as much time on the computer!   Speaking of which I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas, ours was pretty quiet this year and very wet.

I decided to open a brand new account with Squidoo, when I first started I really didn't realize how important creating a niche was so I wrote about all sorts of things under my one account.   Watching an episode of How Things Are Made with my hubby inspired me to write about Lego.   I was thinking about what I could write about and with a piece of paper was able to come up with 39 ideas for Lego lenses, that was without doing any research into what sets were now available!!   Because I had a clear objective I decided to set up a second account that I could keep as a very niche account - would I recommend it?   I'll let you know.

With the monsters things have changed and it was quite an eye opener to see what people first starting out had to work with - no Amazon Spotlight modules to start with, they only come in at Level 4.   Now it really doesn't take long to get to Level 4, but if you're writing your first lens and when you read recommendations you're told to use the spotlight module it would probably get a little confusing.

My plan for my first lens included -

• Amazon Spotlight modules - Denied!
• Blackbox module - Denied!
• Talk Bubble - Denied!

Time to go back to the drawing board!   I decided that I would have to use my own Amazon associate links and I used the Text with Big Picture module to display them.   For the blackbox module I just used html to add a colored background.   The result was Lego Architecture Series .

I then decided to start my lensography lens right at the beginning.   I had lots of information about Lego that I wanted to convey and then add my other lenses in the appropriate place as I went.    Featured Lens - Level 11 - not there yet!

By the time I had written my second lens I was able to use the Amazon Spotlight and the result was Lego City Police Sets.   I have since realized that I'm going to have to change some of my plans - I wanted to create lenses about different themed sets etc which means adding all of the sets in a particular series available and writing about them.   Sometimes this might be more than 10 items and this became a problem just before Christmas.

Squidoo Changed The Rules!

Now it's Squidoo's playground so if they want to change the rules it's up to them, but what can we do?   Well I was actually thinking about telling you all how I was going to be changing over some of my lenses so that I had less Amazon modules and more of my own associate links.   One of my best lenses made over $200 in Amazon sales (through Squidoo) a few months ago, which I thought was great, but another lens which was similar, but had affiliate links made me $200 in commissions through an affiliate as well as royalties through Squidoo!   I had far less sales on the second lens so I know how much better I could do without using the modules.   With the restrictions that Squidoo are enforcing I personally think they will lose money, but hopefully we'll all make more :)

Back to Lego!

Now I've already got some visits from Google on my new a/c, but I haven't started promoting them yet.   I will start promoting them more in the New Year and I'll be devoting a blog post a week to keep you updated on everything I've done as well as the results.   I thought that by starting with a new account it would be good for non-giants as well as giants to get an idea about how to earn on Squidoo.

Tier Payments Are A Small Way To Earn on Squidoo

The tier payments are nice to receive, but they’re only a fraction of what you should be making on Squidoo and this is where affiliates come into. One of my most successful affiliates that I use on Squidoo is Amazon.

Now if you live in the wrong state in the US then you won’t be able to earn as an Amazon Associate, but you can still use the Amazon modules on Squidoo. The best Amazon module to use is the Spotlight one (IMO). Now Amazon are shutting down Associates with no warning when legislation in their states change apparently – the states affected at the moment are Colorado, Rhode Island and North Carolina. This can mean a lot of work for people to change over their lenses taking out their associate links.

Is your state considering the same legislation? If it is then let me tell you about how I first earned money through Squidoo on my associate account. I had a lens on Penny Vincenzi books and I put the books into a spotlight module, but added my associate link in the text within the module as well. My first sale came through the text link for 4 of her books……none of my sales on this lens have come through Squidoo!

Why do I tell you this? Well this lens was accidental I used text links because I didn’t know how to add image links, but it does show that text links work really well on some types of lenses. The real reason I mention it though is because if you live in the States and are worried that your account could be shut down then setting your lenses up like this will be a lot easier to update should you suddenly have your associate account shut down.

I would not get rid of Amazon as an associate until you are forced to because it really is one of the best earning…..that does not mean that you shouldn’t look for alternatives however. I really like Shareasale. I’m also a member of Linkshare, but I haven’t earnt anything through this one yet as I’m still relatively new to it. I have found though that people trust Amazon and are more likely to buy through them then a different affiliate if you offer them both. I found this out through an experiment on one of my lenses so whatever you do ‘don’t cut your nose off to spite your face’ as my Nan used to say!