As an newer user of Squidoo it occurred to me that there must be a million Squidoo lenses.
That's what squidoo users (Squids) call a FREE domain and website at Squidoo.
Very impressive, really.
These sites are reputed to be perfect for affiliate marketing, and I think they really are.
Just remember to pick the right offer and keywords.
Come to think about it, it's a little like that everywhere. There IS competition, after all.
So, just for sake of example lets say you have picked an affiliate offer from clickbank and it's for FREE home electricity from solar panels called Solar Panels HQ. It's purely for example but in case you don't know this is a fairly hot topic and it will probably grow.
One of the main ways affiliates get traffic to their sites is by article marketing with good, traffic producing content and SEO improvement by means of keyword text links in the authors resource box.
It's just a GREAT two-for-one!
Wouldn't you know it but there's a catch to the great free site and domains you can get at Squidoo.
The catch (there's always a "catch") here is that Google will usually only show one Squidoo site in the top ten results. Sometimes, but rarely, two.
In order for Google to show YOUR Squidoo lens you'll have to make your lens the best one in your group.
Think of it this way...Typically, Google will only pick ONE squidoo lens and ONE Ezinearticles and ONE video.
Having the product name in the title is one of the best things you can do so that Google will want to rank the site for "Solar panels." Now, we can check out our competition! which is just another way of saying find out who we are up against.
I ran this search in the Google search box. Type in... site: Squidoo.com "solar panels" and you'll see approximately.... Results 1 - 10 of about 21,400 for site: Squidoo.com "Solar Panels". (0.27 seconds)
Gee. That's a lot. 21,000 or more sites mention "solar panels."
So how many Squidoo sites are actually targeting that phrase?
Type in allintitle: "solar panels" site:squidoo.com - Results 1 - 10 of about 466 from squidoo.com for allintitle:"Solar panels". (0.17 seconds)
Well. That's less competition. but still quite a few.
Note: Before I knew better I picked a keyword title that came up with 775 in this search and I'm doing OK...but. But I would prefer LESS!
So I typed in "Home made solar panels" and got, with the allintitle search Results 1 - 1 of 1 from squidoo.com for allintitle:"Home Made Solar panels". (0.16 seconds)
DUDE!!! Only ONE COMPETITOR AT Squidoo for Home Made Solar Panels! Amazon has an affiliate program for solar panels! Some of you aspiring affiliate marketers might want to get going on this!
Checking further I went to Google keywords Tool (type google keyword tool into Google search - you can learn a TON from Google searches) and got 2600 searches per month for "home made solar panels" and "home made solar panel." You can't get it much more targeted than that! The best key phrase would have to be "buy home made solar panels" which is a strong indicator of buying intention.
I checked the page one Google results for those terms and I saw that the results were filled with PR3 and PR4 sites.
You can handle those guys! Competition? Nada! Just be sure to get a few links from .gov and .edu PR 5 and 6 sites and I think you'll soar right past them with a well targeted Squidoo lens and find yourself with the Holy Grail of Internet marketing. Which would be FREE TARGETED TRAFFIC direct to your offer by way of Google and the other search engines.
It really can't get much better than that.
This current and real plan is published here at 5PM Dec 24th 2009.
You might want to get moving!
Author Resource:
Riley West has been telling folks about the idea of simple affiliate marketing for some time now. The formula is Web Page with Offer + Traffic = Sales. You DO need a place to put your offer! This is explained at Squidoo Marketing and don't miss out on the unique description of a simplified affiliate marketing plan at One Week Marketing .
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Author Resource:-> Riley West has been telling folks about the idea of simple affiliate marketing for some time now. The formula is Web Page with Offer + Traffic = Sales. You DO need a place to put your offer! This is explained at Squidoo Marketing and don't miss out on the unique description of a simplified affiliate marketing plan at One Week Marketing.