Initial Thoughts on Writing at Squidoo

I only recently signed up to Squidoo. It is, after all, one of the top sites for online writers in terms of traffic, but then again, one can't do everything simultaneously - multi-tasking can well turn into over-extension. But with articles to re-cycle I thought it time to sign up.

What at Xomba are called Xombytes, and Hubpages are Hubs, at Squidoo they are called Lenses. A Lens is just a webpage. Like Hubpages, apart from your text there is a wide range of other modules such as polls and advertising units. Earnings at Squidoo are calculated by their admin so there is no immediate earnings such as having your Adsense code on Xomba. They do, however, update our earnings on a daily basis. For many people the upside of this is that they don't personally have to sign up to affiliate schemes such as Amazon and eBay, or even Commission Junction. You can just focus all your attention on creating the best possible Lens.

Because of the huge flexibility in Lenses I see that many of the most popular ones are regularly updated with new links, images or extra notes. Rather than creating 10 articles on "Make Money Writing Online" it seems that writing just one Lens and putting everything into it appears to be more popular. Perhaps there is a good reason why this style of presentation works on Squidoo, and this is also one feature I find baffling.

How does anybody find your Lens? The Squidoo homepage has nothing of interest on it and is an eyesore. There appears to be nowhere to go apart from clicking the least pointless article title or looking down at their informational links. The only other option is to do a search. This indeed seems to be the only way of navigating Squidoo; either by searching or by clicking tags. All the category or tag pages rank the articles with the most popular one at the top. There is an option to list the most recently updated but on first impression that isn't the same as being just published. There is nowhere a page showing the most recent articles! Nowhere! Strange.

But now it makes sense as to why people create these mega-pages. The only way to get readers is to search for a bunch of "friends" or groups who might be interested in your article and build repeat business by updating it. Unless you pick a category with few articles you're going to be seeing yours stuck down in the nether region of #100,000. If you like the idea of creating a few mega-articles then go ahead but, in contrast to other sites like Xomba or suite101 I don't see too much search engine traffic as yet.

One thing that may explain its high visitor traffic is that they do allow articles on adult topics - always a winner! As they are not wholly dependent on Adsense they can adjust their advertisers to fit the categories. So the second reason to join Squidoo is if you're into writing adult material - or reading it!

I will see how things develop with Squidoo but the one lesson is that there are no quick bucks to be made there.

Make Money Bookmarking Sites and Articles - Have Found Only Two

Bookmarking has become all the rage, with people Buzzing and Digging and Stumbling all over the net. But just as there are revenue sharing article directories, like Xomba, what about some bookmarking sites with the same revenue-share programs. I mean, it can't be that difficult!

Well, there is one article that I keep finding copied in various locations that lists over 100 revenue sharing websites. Many are for sharing videos or photos so I didn't look at those. There were, however, about 30 potential sites for writers. Many of those we already know, like Xomba and Associated Content, Hubpages and Squidoo, and a few more. However, what about simple bookmarking sites?

Bookmarking your own articles can be a good way to get more traffic and, hopefully, a greater income. The big ones are very crowded and it really is a hit-and-miss affair on which go viral and which get quarantined. I'll write more on which ones seem best, but here I was specifically looking for ones that pay. So what did I discover?

The article I quoted above with all those links is over a year old and obviously a lot can happen in a year. Many were dead links with the admin giving up. Most had actually removed their revenue sharing program - I assume the original article was correct so something must have happened for the admins to scrap their program. A small number were still running but felt like the webmaster had gone AWOL as the entries were full of spam and adverts with little or no worthwhile content and precious little traffic. I found only two that seemed functioning - Xomba and Infopirate.

Xomba is a very interesting mix between articles and bookmarks - called Xombytes and Xomblurbs. You can use it to both post longer articles and to bookmark to either third party content or to your own articles published elsewhere on the net. I must admit that other writing sites seem to have more features but there is no doubt that earnings on Xomba are currently higher than anywhere else. I don't really know why this should be, but pages do appear on Google search very quickly, there is an active community exchanging comments on articles and a light but effective moderation, thereby avoiding complete rubbish. You don't have to be a writer to use Xomba, just join and post your bookmarks there. Xomba pays 50% of Adsense revenue to you.

The only other site I found that is currently earning money is Infopirate. This is a much smaller site than Xomba but, for some reason, it is getting the page views and the advert clicks. After all, that's the only thing that matters. As of writing it has about a tenth of the traffic of Xomba according to Alexa but, as mentioned above, it hasn't folded and although has precious little community activity that could change with more people using it. Infopirate also has a handy and very simple bookmarking toolbar button - not one of those huge add-ons that take over your browser! Infopirate pays 80% of Adsense revenue to you.

So... unless anybody knows other bookmarking sites that pay, these are the only two I've found. Sure, some blog features on some writing websites could be used to bookmark content but that isn't what they're designed to do. So why has revenue sharing bookmarking not taken off? What went wrong? lack of traffic could be one reason as pointless running a server if it costs more than the revenue. A dedicated admin is also required to stop the sites turning into a spam feast. But some, such as Newsvine, seem to be running effectively but abandoned their revenue sharing. Perhaps in the end it boils down to content. If thereis money to be made then a bookmarking site is going to be filled with adverts and links on topics that seem to generate the most income. This may well swamp a site with noise so that people genuinely interested in other topics just cannot find them easily. Perhaps that is just in the nature of giving people money for doing something. I don't know the answer to this question but interesting to ponder it. One personal experience may have the solution.

I started using Flixya but noticed very quickly that most articles were either copy-and-paste from dull article directories or copies from advertising websites. I know it is supposed to be for videos and photos but they do claim a significant article category too. I'm sure they make their money from the media listings but if they were only an article website and had the same content I still wouldn't bother using it.

So, if you like to share your bookmarks and earn some money, or link to your other articles, blogs or websites, then it looks to me like Xomba and Infopirate are your best bets.