Over the past week, I’ve been turned on to Squidoo, a social networking site founded by author/marketing expert Seth Godin
You can also make money with Squidoo. Squidoo displays ads on its members’ lenses (members can choose to opt out if they want). The revenue is shared as follows: 5% is donated to charity; 50% goes to the creator of the lens; and 45% goes to Squidoo. Lensmasters have the option of donating their 50% to charity as well, and have over 65 charities to choose from. The more interesting and well-written a lens is, the more it will get viewed, and the more ad revenue it will generate.
Bloggers are natural candidates to be Squidoo lensmasters, since writing is the primary skill in use. Since one of the sites I run is a store that sells items related to learning to play pool, I decided to surf through Squidoo’s lenses on that topic. There really weren’t any. There were pool articles, all right, but most of them were just crappy “buy stuff” lenses full of affiliate links to sites selling pool tables, cues, etc. So I decided to sit down and create some content that was actually useful… a tutorial on how to learn left and right English in pool. “English” is when you strike the cue ball off center. Hitting the ball with left or right English puts a spin on the ball that causes its angle to either be widened or narrowed when it comes off the rail. There are also top English (follow) and bottom English (draw); didn’t cover those but maybe that’ll be the next article.
I have a feeling I’m going to be writing a lot more Squidoo lenses in the future… not only to promote my stores but for fun. I already have several Memphis-related lenses in mind.
If you’re into pool, check out the tutorial.
Now if I can only figure out how to write an interesting Squidoo lens on tube tops.