Squidoo Do Do
If you have the skills of a four-year-old
you can put your business online!
If you’ve a business but no website, this is your lucky day.
Today we explore the simplest method I’ve found to get you online.
Despite its funny name, Squidoo is one of the internet’s top 500 sites*.
It’s easy, effective, fun and free.
Paint by Numbers
Squidoo is to web content what building blocks are to toddlers.
You can be illiterate and uncoordinated yet still produce an attractive, functional result in minutes.
The whole thing is done with ‘modules’.
You don’t need to pay an IT boffin or learn HTML, CMS or any other technical language.
You just pick the modules for whatever content you want to display (text, pictures, videos, links, surveys … the list is enormous).
Once you’ve strung some modules together, you ‘publish’ the result and it’s live – with its very own URL (web address) that you can broadcast to the world.
Many Facets
In studying Squidoo for two years, I’ve gone through three phases.
In Phase 1, I created ‘lenses’ (small web pages or microsites) to glean passive income via monetarisation modules (e.g. Amazon, eBay, AdWords). This was not terribly successful, but some dreams die very hard.
In Phase 2, I began showcasing my cartoons, short stories and photographs. This was great fun and extremely rewarding in terms of audience feedback.
In Phase 3, I started promoting my professional copywriting services – again with good results.
Now, having encountered several clients who’ve struggled to create business websites, I perceive a fourth use for Squidoo.
Phase 4
(MYOB) Naomi told me the other day that around 65% of Australian businesses have no online presence.
I was stunned by this figure – not least because, in the eyes of our young, if you’re not online you don’t exist.
Yet I’ve witnessed the angst and expense that go with trying to build a website.
The way I see it, Squidoo:
- Helps you define goals and organise ideas and content before you start spending money on IT specialists.
- Serves as a de facto website until you have the cash, time and stamina to go through the World Wide Wringer.
You & Squidoo
You can use Squidoo lenses as brochures, industry portals or retail outlets to:
- Educate customers.
- Build your profile.
- Sell products and services.
The better your content, the higher your lenses rank.
This attracts fiscal and other benefits (which I can cover in another post if there’s interest).
And did I mention that Squidoo is 100% FREE?
A glance at my 39 lenses will show you the versatility of this extraordinary invention.
I highly commend Squidoo as a business-building tool and warmly welcome your ideas, thoughts, questions and stories.
* Source: Wikipedia.
Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire
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Hi Paul,
Good to see you are having success with it. I can understand the points you highlighted and my question to you is what are the advantages of having a page on someone else’s site versus a free wordpress site with your own domain name which cost about $10 per year?
The reason for the question and it is the same for those who have a facebook page versus their own website is if something happens to the sites then as you do not own it you can lose all that you have built up.
Hi, Susan. What a fabulous question! Let’s see if my answer satisfies.
I figured a device invented by Seth Godin, with an Alexa ranking of 216, is a VERY safe bet for your content. But perhaps I’m being naiive … I wonder what Arthur would say about this point.
I’ve been running a string of WordPress blogs for many months. While I think it’s a phenomenal application, I consider Squidoo superior (at least for my purposes) in three ways:
1. Squidoo is even easier than the easy thing that is WordPress. No matter how tired I am, I can always find the brainpower to upload more content on Squidoo.
2. The Squidoo community is robust (almost fanatical). Working from Empire House, I enjoy enormous encouragement from the amazingly kind and clever folk who Squidoo. And people who helped me out two years ago are STILL supporting me today. I haven’t had that with WordPress – notwithstanding the excellent comments I’ve received on those blogs.
3. I find the Squidoo dashboard second to none in showing how my content is faring.
I’d listen to anyone who argues that WordPress may be technically superior to Squidoo. However, for ease and enjoyment of use, I can’t beat it.
How does all that sound to you?
If you are a small business who wants to look like every other small business, fighting for the online business client, then using a product like squidoo is fine. The “IT Boffin” who designs a site for you gives you one distinct advantage – you become unique.
The different dreams of small businesses for their websites means that they each have a unique picture, name and message to deliver. Bundling them into a templated site means that the impact of your unique offering is lost in the static. If you do, however, use the free site, at least get a professional view of it to confirm that it is doing what you want it to. Many companies (like mine) provide an accessibility check for incorrect code, viewing issues and checking to see whether there are any problems when trying to view your site if the user is vision impaired (red and green are NOT friendly colors. ever.)
Great to hear from you, Peter. I was hoping we’d get a view like yours.
Having invested $3000+ in my own website, I totally agree that serious players need a proper internet presence. I guess I’m simply trying to jump-start those who’ve never put their toe in the water online.
The points you make are tremendous. I agree with them all and am now wiser about the use of colour. I never knew that! Thank you for commenting.
Fair points on both sides. I don’t think it’s a fabulous idea to use Squidoo exclusively, nor do I think your best pages on Squidoo will be about you.
On the other hand, if you approach marketing with a sense of abundance and you set out to help the surfer or the prospect, a dozen or a hundred pages on Squidoo are free, generate income, teach people about you, share your expertise, build credibility and even permission.
That sounds like part of a plan, no?
Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by, Seth!
I’m obviously on the same page. But we have had a great question. How safe is the content we post to Squidoo? Could Susan be right that it could all be lost if Squidoo has a technical (or fiscal) meltdown?
Hi Paul,
Seth Godin is a smart guy. I guess where I come from is that I would rather own something than rent space, but we should never put blinkers on if it works and it seems from your post it is certainly doing that for you.
Good luck with it and look forward to reading more about your successs with your lens.
Good on you, Susan. In these tricky times, it pays to have your fingers in many pies, while also trying to grow those pies.
Sometimes I think NOTHING is safe in this world. I must look into backing up my lenses – just to be on the safe side. Now where’s our Carbonite friend?!
Squidah dah dah is all I want to say to you.
Great discussion though.
Thank you, Ad!
Knowing you as well as I do, I know you speak from a position of authority.
Always beaut to have you here.
A couple of points here:
Squidoo is not a mickey mouse service so I would presume they have their sites set up with an established hosting provider who offers redundancy etc and backup. Backup would be for everyone not just your specific files. However, I am sure somewhere in the T/Cs that you signed up it says that they make no gntee that your data is protected. The challenge is that I am not aware that you can actually backup your data on Squidoo even if you wanted to. They would need to give you some sort of access to the files.
So you would be relying on Squidoo doing it. Which I think its fine but not if it was your only web presence.
Doing it yourself with your own website means that you are responsible for the data on your site and it being backed up. If you host your site with a hosting provider then they will normally provide you with tools to backup and they offer redundancy etc but your files are your responsibility. So should something happen and the server crashes, gets infected and the files are lost, then you need to have a copy to restore them.
Backing up your files is not then just a matter of keeping a copy on your PC, you need to keep it locally, online and on an external drive to ensure you never lose the data. And you need to backup regularly.
Ah, here he is! Good show, Arthur. I feel like Ged the mage being able to summon expert spirits like yourself.
Barely a day passes that you don’t teach us something. Thank you for your swift and comprehensive reply!
… I wonder if Disney.com is a Mickey Mouse service …
Dear Mickey,
Well it’s good to be back in the ‘Disneying’ heights of the blogosphere. It’s also good to see that everyone remains in fine fetter…especially Adam ;-P
I haven’t got anything specific to add here. I haven’t used Squidoo, beyond scoping Paul’s multiple lenses.
I will say this though – I have in the past been known to use a term I call ‘anti-marketing’. In a nutshell this refers to the damage that can be done to a reputation/brand by doing something ‘half-assed’.
I used an example in my now ‘ex-business’ plan – If I was at a Footy Night at the local Stadium with my little one-man pizza show and there was a crowd of 30,000 people what would happen? Consider the dynamics of the crowd. They’re only going to buy Pizza’s at half-time. So if I do all the right marketing and get all tricky with TXT ordering etc, I might get 3000 orders during the first half of the game. So everyone turns-up at half-time and all I’ve done is pissed 2900 people off. What will they think of my business…and what will they say about it?
I reckon this can be applied to websites. I have talked more people out of websites than into them. People still seem to think that computers can read-minds and websites somehow magically look after themselves.
I reckon if you’re going to have a website, understand that it is a ’shop-front’…with all the requirements of a shop-front, virtual though they may be. If it doesn’t add to your business, don’t do it.
That’ll do for me for now… ;-P
Cheers
Stephen G
PS: Yep! I got my new computer
Wonderful to see you back, Stephen! What a lovely surprise! You’ve lost none of your touch either. I reckon your assessment is spot on.
Looking forward to hearing all that’s happened to you in recent months.
I have used Squidoo quite a bit and I think its a great tool for showcasing microsites. Its also a great resource for link building as the lenses created are looked upon favourably by google.
The key thing is that your sites need to have unique content. So you basically write a unique article and post it along with some images and basically make a story out of it.
Have never tried to make money out of it but my topics are very Australia specific and I am not sure how much Aussie traffic the lenses receive.
I have and will keep using it.
As far as using it for your own website, then I would say begin here and then branch out to your own site, great testing ground.
Thank you, PPP, for your perspective. I’m pleased to be getting a wide variety of comments today. It makes for a much more satisfying discussion.
Hi Paul,
You won’t be surprised to hear me say this – regardless of where or how you build your website, the first focus must be on content. What you want to say to your customers is the first key element. Design is important and having an easy way to build a website is very attractive. Still, I implore your readers to consider WHAT they plan on saying before they worry about HOW they’re going to get there.
Thanks for another good post and a lively discussion.
I’m delighted you said it, Sarah; thank you!
When lecturing clients about job ads, I used to say that if the MESSAGE was good, they could write it on a piece of toilet paper, nail it to a tree in the forest and STILL get a huge response due to word of mouth.
So I totally agree with you and am grateful for your visit.
Speaking of ‘proper’ websites, here’s a brilliant article from @valeriekhoo
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/managing/blogs/enterprise/the-one-thing-your-website-must-do/20101007-16829.html
Come to think of it, brilliant is all Valerie seems to do!
Great post Paul.
Nothing to add but I enjoyed reading all the posts.
Be afraid, the man in the hat is back!
To answer your pizza question – increase your price to $250 per pizza, reduce your orders to 30 and make a killing with minimal input costs. Work the market baby, demand drives the price.
Greed is Good.
Regards
Gordon.
Dear Gordon,
Your surname wouldn’t be ‘Lethal’ would it? ;-P
The man in the hat? Oh! That’s me!..I forgot…I don’t actually wear it very often in ‘roolly rool’ life. Except when I’m rustin’ cattle.
If I worked the ‘market baby’ like that mate, it would never become a ‘market toddler’ let alone a full-grown market.
Oh! And you spelled ‘God’ wrong mate ;-P
Good to see you and good to be back.
Cheers
Stephen G
Just a quick note of thanks – I follow you on Twitter – and recently chose Squidoo for my website – I researched it for months following from my Twitter account – and I am not worried about Squidoo crashing and no recovery – this is BIG business… and they have back up for it. I love the community – makes a huge difference -and the other communities do not seem to have the support and help (I tried a few) – and fun – of Squidoo. And – IT IS EASY TO USE. This is big for getting started quick. So appreciate your insights re. the $$ side too – thanks! Sundae
Welcome, Sundae (and sorry you had to wait to see your comment). This often happens first time. You should be fine from now on.
I’m delighted to hear from the Squidoo community and glad you found this post valuable. We’d be most grateful for any further thoughts you have on this or other topics. Best regards, P.
Hi everyone!
I’m Julian and I work with Naomi at MYOB (@JulianTSmith). The lovely Naomi is currently sipping wine in spa country and has asked me to check in from time to time to say “Hi”! So – “Hi”!
Paul, thanks for this post – I’m often struck by how many Aussie (and Kiwi) businesses have not yet made the time to get their business online. But the reality for many folks in business is that their priority is working in their business, and finding the bandwidth to explore new communication channels is often tricky. If you’ve technically challenged like me (still working how to get my pic up on wordpress… help Naomi!) – then making the time to learn about the online world can seem daunting.
But the rewards are huge when I look at the numbers – our MYOB research shows that you can really get ahead by getting online. Businesses that have a website and or use the web for shopping, paying bills and booking travel deliver better business results. Revenue, sales pipeline and profitability is generally 5-10% higher for businesses that are living in the online world.
The key is to give it a go! Does anyone have any great ideas on how a technophobe can make the online move? (I’d also love some advice on that pesky wordpress photo thing!)
Julian
Looks like I’ve cracked the picture challenge!
Hi Julian (and Naomi – by proxy)! I still can’t get over that non-participation rate online. I fear that the people we most need to reach aren’t reading this blog. Hopefully the word will spread – especially if you keep throwing impressive stats at us.
I can’t top your advice to just give it a go. I’ve lost count of the mistakes I’ve made. But if your intent is pure, the online world is very forgiving I reckon.
Nice piccie, BTW!
PS. I’m hearing reports that some subscriber’s email blog post notifications are ending up in their Spam or Junk folders. Would it be a good idea to ask our readers to mark emails pertaining to this blog as ’safe’? The last thing we want is for people to be lost in transit.
This handy little article talks about Squidoo as an ‘SEO sandbox’. I like that idea. See what you reckon:
http://www.pixelrage.net/seo/things-ive-discovered-about-seo-on-squidoo
Sorry, Malcolm; just realised I didn’t respond to your kind comment. Thank you! I’m VERY happy with how this post worked out.
Traditional bricks and mortar businesses just haven’t woken up to the fact that they can have the best of both worlds (particularly small biz) Was speaking to Ferguson Plarre, cake shop and they achieve something like 10% of their sales via the net. So if a cake shop can sell over the net then why can’t any business. They have even built a simple tool to help you design your own cake.
You keep on giving us gems, PPP. Another tidbit that’s news to me. Thank you for your time.
Another timely piece:
http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-tech/three-easy-steps-to-get-your-business-online-20101014-16klg.html
Even MYOB gets a mention!
In his comment, Seth wrote:
‘… teach people about you, share your expertise, build credibility and even permission …’
Here’s an example of what I think he means:
http://www.squidoo.com/why-you-need-a-copywriter
It’s not a website. It’s not a brochure. It’s not even finished.
But it is a little beacon of info on the intramanet that may improve someone’s view of me or my profession.
And that can’t hurt!
Good onya Cobba
If there’s one thing that works best, that us ‘grown-ups’ have so much invested in forgetting, avoiding and/or denying, it is what children constantly and consistently request as the most simple and effective learning and communication tool – ‘SHOW ME!’
And I’ve always respected your dogged tenacity in doing just that…come what may. Nice job!
Oh! And you might remind your council and others that insist on insulting our intelligence via our wallets that:
“Wunce you jernie down the Park Darth, forever will it moderate your density”
I think some cool alien Guru said that.
Cheers
Stephen G
You are SO encouraging, Stephen. Thank you for that wonderful shot in the arm. I shall proceed with kompleat confedanse!
… and another thing, when you make a Squidoo lens, it keeps working for you FOR EVER. Unlike press ads, Yellow Pages entries, brochures, fliers, direct mail, business cards etc. Guess I’m a fan.
Here’s a person who’s wringing the last drop of utility and value from their Squidoo lenses:
http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/OnePhoto
The merest glance at this extensive body of work tells me this person is very very very serious about cameras.