Before I proceed, I would love to throw more lights to what Squidoo is all about.
What is Squidoo
Squidoo is a social community portal that gives its users the ability to create pages (which is termed ‘lenses’) for subjects of interest. Squidoo current global alexa rank is 544 and is also ranked 442 in USA.
What Got Me Into Squidoo
I was startled when a reputable blogger said that he is still earning more that 1,000$ (one thousand dollars) on Squidoo monthly, when he published his monthly blog income report. The most amazing thing here is that he did publish his last article on squidoo last year December, and he is still earning from his Squidoo lens till date, this really got me excited and I decided to start making money on Squidoo too.
My First Squidoo Lens
Just like most bloggers, I thought that only original content would get my articles on Squidoo published, but that is far from the truth, I did not give up, even though all my articles were showing the green bar.
What You Need To Know About Squidoo
When you publish an article on squidoo, it says that you have successfully publish an article, but just go back to your dashboard, click on LENSES, and I bet you will see a red minus sign, here is it’s exact meaning.
Work in Progress
This red minus sign means your lens is not currently being featured in Squidoo, and is considered a Work-In-Progress (WIP). WIP lenses don’t get promoted within Squidoo search results, on profile pages, or to outside search engines. They are still visible via a direct visit, like if you email someone your link or post it on Facebook. We’d really love to promote your lens as often as possible. Read how you can make that happen.
New Lenses: A new lens will not become Featured (receive a green check mark) until it receives a LensRank.
This can take up to 24 hours after your first publish.
Just as stated above, you might think that your lense is published, yes it is, but it would never show on search engine. All links you placed from the Squidoo lens to your website is hundred percent (100%) garbage. (sorry about hat, though it is the truth).
Why You Need To Publish Your Article on Squidoo.
1. It gives your website a link from a squdoo, which has a high domain authority, and this will help increase your domain authority too.
2. You can earn money from your lens.
3. You can get more targeted traffic to your website.
4. A link from squidoo (which is an authority domain) will get your website to the top of search engine for your targeted keywords.
5. Squidoo is fun, the community has lots of readers, and you will surely build a strong relationship through squidoo with relevant bloggers and webmasters, which means that you are climbing the success ladder.
How Can I Make Money Through Squidoo?
Yes, squidoo even gives you the ability to make money online through their amazon affiliates, you publish your article on squidoo, place related amazon products, and when someone buys the product, Squidoo shares the money and pay you as their affiliate a higher percent, depending on the sales.
My First Frustration
I just don’t get it, why my articles would not get approved on websites like Hubpages, Triond and yes, Squidoo, but then, I learnt that these websites need some useful articles and tricks, unlike Bubblews.com which I love so much, butIi need link diversity, and this websites have great domain authority. So, I decided to get my article approved, either way, so I started trying all possible best, and right now, my article has been published and it is showing the green light.
First of all, you need to know that the reason why your article is not getting approved on squidoo is because squidoo banned some sensitive categories, as listed below.
Squidoo Banned Topics:
* MLM
* Get your ex back
* Rude XXX
* Ringtones
* Dieting and weight loss
* Gambling
* Pharmaceuticals and drugs
* Medical cures
* Downloading movies, music, and TV shows
* Dealing with credit card debt
* Song lyrics
* Illegal stuff
* Video game hacks and illegal downloads.
* And a few others!
* Weight Loss Fast
So the truth is that no matter how great your article might be, it would not get approved if you are writing on these sensitive categories. I would advice you to ensure that you change your category and write on something more useful.
Below are the Magic buttons that would certainly get your Squidoo lens approved!.
Just Make Sure You Do This:
1. You need to have at least 5 modules to get your Squidoo lens approved.
2. Please note that it is very important to add the guestpost module, because it points to the fact that you are trying to build up your reader list, which is also getting them some traffic too.
3. And most importantly, there might be repeated words in your article.
You should note that squidoo is very strict when it comes to things like this.
Please follow these guidelines on making a Squidoo lens. (Here is my big secret to getting my squidoo lens or articles published in no time).
Create and Add this When you want to Publish Your Squidoo Lens.
a. My modules;
b. Text Module
c. Big Arrow Link
d. Youtube
e. Google News
f. Guestbook
Secrets To Getting Your Squidoo Lens Accepted and Green
Secret Number 1.
Most websites don’t love short articles, and like Doncaprio.com says in it’s guest posting rules, all submitted articles must be above 400 words, and that means, the bigger the words, the better. Make sure that the article you want to publish on squidoo is 350 words or higher.
Secret Number 2.
Ensure that you proof read your article for repeated words.
Secret Number 3.
Make sure that your introduction comes with a picture – make sure you do have an intro paragraph (at least 2 or 3).
Secret Number 4.
Also ensure that your Text Module, which should be the introduction and paragraph module, comes with picture.
Secret Number 5.
Then add a Youtube module. Oh, how squidoo loves videos! On the module, edit it and tick the option (let me select my video, then you can add any video that is related to your article. It is not a robot that’s gonna proof read your article on squidoo, so add a related video that should be useful to your readers.
Secret Number 6.
Then make sure that you add google news module.
Secret Number 7.
Please add the guestbook comments module, it is very important.
Secret Number 8.
You need to make squidoo realise that you love varieties, so select a theme ( you can do this at the right sidebar when creating a squidoo lens)
Secret Number 9.
Before clicking the publish button located at the top of your screen, make sure that you complete your bio/profile and upload a photo that looks human, not some scary cartoons (though I love cartoons).
Secret Number 10.
It is very important that you add tags (make it more than 5 tags as possible), squidoo loves articles with tags on them.
Secret Number 11.
After doing this, just scroll up to the orange colored Publish button and click it.
Hey, wait! Before clicking the publish button, make sure you check your progress bar located at the right hand side of your squidoo dashboard. You can see on your progress bar, that you are almost 85-90%, which is a very good signal that your Squidoo lens might even get featured, which means more money for you. The truth here is that the main key to getting your squidoo approved is your content.