Do You Squidoo? I Sure Do!

I first found Squidoo when I was looking for social bookmarking sites. It is listed as such in quite a few places. That is why I created an account then did nothing about it for about a year. I was surprised at the kind of site it was once I had registered.

Eventually, I used Squidoo to promote my Associated Content articles. I put up lenses with blurbs for and links to AC content. I wrote some patter and put blurbs and links for four or five related articles on each lens. It brought a little traffic to those Associated Content articles.

A few months later, I went onto Squidoo to add more links to AC and I saw this big blue box on my Squidoo control panel. It informed me that I had earned a few dollars. Wait, what?

My promotional lenses had earned a few dollars without any real effort on my part.

About this same time, AC implemented a format change which greatly reduced the impact of images associated with articles. Previously, several of my craft articles had been stripped of photos which greatly hindered their ability to illustrate a craft project. My AC views fell through the floor, especially on craft related articles. Ads were also taking up more and more of the page at AC, now appearing in the center of each reading frame.

Since my fun writing time (for places like Squidoo and Associated Content) is somewhat limited, I decided to switch my recreational writing focus to Squidoo. This was mainly due to a sense of discontent with the changes to Associated Content. With Squidoo's very photo friendly platform it opened up a whole new range of possibilities.

I'm big into crafts, floral design, cake decorating, and DIY and the Squidoo platform is just marvelous for such image dependent genres. I can put up as many relevant photos on my Squidoo lens as I want to show the steps involved in a project.

Squidoo also encourages longer articles and in depth coverage of subjects by the use of modules which break each lens down into bite-sized pieces. While you can put long articles up on Associated Content, many readers won't click past the second page. Squidoo's platform shows your entire article and accompanying photos, audio clips, feeds, and videos all on a single page which the viewer scrolls down.

On Squidoo, my text is not interrupted by advertisements. Squidoo uses the top, bottom, and right side column for advertisements. They have added text links for added revenue but users can easily opt out, leaving their text completely free of outside ads. I can also choose to insert as many or as few as zero money making modules on my lens to create additional income.

On the downside, Squidoo does not offer upfront payments. However, my monthly payouts have been higher, on average, per article than on AC. Squidoo also uses an algorithm to determine something called 'lensrank' which affects how much users get paid for each article each month. With Associated Content, there's no algorithm, payment is straightforward with each 1,000 views equaling a set payment amount. But I have found that the amount I get paid on Squidoo for each 1,000 views, while not steady or easily calculated ahead of time is higher than the amount per thousand views I get on AC.

Overall, Squidoo is a more relaxed and flexible platform than Associated Content and I'm completely hooked. I won't completely leave Associated Content but until something shinier and newer comes along, Squidoo is the toy I'll be playing the most with.