Ok, so we are about to hit December and sales for Amazon stuff is about to heat up ALOT in the next few weeks.I’ve heard a lot of people say that they don’t have time to set up their own sites, but that’s negative thinking, I remember I made a hubpage last year three days before Christmas that still made some decent sales (actually it made most of the sales in the post Christmas sales but the point is that it still made money).
So there is still time!
Now the choice is yours whether you choose to set up a hubpage (faster rankings) or squidoo (better flexibility) but both react nicely to some backlinks and should be able to make you some nice Christmas cash – or rather February cash when you actually get your money 
(Oh and yes you can use your own sites too, but they might not rank quite as quickly as the web 2.0 sites – they are a better long term solution).
How do you choose whether to target Squidoo or HubPages (or other web 2.0 site of your choosing?).
Usually I’ll check how many pages are already on those sites using the keyword that I want to target. Let’s say I want to write about the new Fisher Price Dance Star Mickey doll. If I do a search for site:squidoo.com Fisher Price Dance Star Mickey I can see that 384 lenses are targeting that toy and site:hubpages.com Fisher Price Dance Star Mickey have 402 hubs targeting it.
Usually I choose the one that has the least amount of sites with my term in it (by the way – I’d actually probably go with snipsly.com for this toy because it only has 3 other pages that have that term (and only two that are actually targeting it) – much easier to rank better with them even though I hate the layout for that site).
Squidoo
As I told you last post, I’ve been pretty pleased with how Squidoo has been reacting to backlinks and while it still takes a few days to a week for the lenses to get indexed, they are very responsive to backlinks and have been moving up nicely.
The problem is that SO many other marketers are using Squidoo too, so it can sometimes be difficult to get your lens ranked higher than theirs (which is why I usually don’t target products that have too many other pages also targeting that term).
By the way – I’m LOVING the Amazon banner creator that you make from SquidUtils.com – all you do is place the product code and your affiliate id in the generator and it will make a cool banner just like the one below for you! Just copy and paste the html onto your lens and voila – image banner created! LOVE IT !!!
This banner was created by Squidutils.com - cool ain't it!
It’s not too late !!
Anyway back to the point of this post. That it’s not too late to set up some more sites and start ranking them. So I have a challenge for you.
Create 5 Amazon product sites on any web 2.0 site of your choosing before the end of the month and start backlinking them.
You can choose any products you like – although I usually prefer to find products that are on the Amazon bestseller lists that have at least a four star rating AND 10 or more reviews. Price is not really an issue for me, but I tend to prefer products that give at least a decent commission – so if there are 10 products that you like, choose the five that cost the most –
That’s it. 5 review type pages. Then start backlinking them. Use Build My Rank if you have it, or write articles if you don’t.
If you manage to make more than $500 from them, then thank me by giving me a little donation – I just bought a new house and want to update the kitchen in it 
Your lens looks cool, and I was actually going to write about them too, you beat me to it. I am going to take you up on the challenge and make some lenses, that squidutil looks really good.
Do you want a toaster or a percolator?
So, a $500 challenge eh?
Bring it on.
Yeah the squidutils thing is really cool – and I’ve noticed the banner it creates is highly responsive to getting clicks too – hehe [rubbing hands together with glee] – bring on the money baby …
Never knew about that SquidUtils banner…heading over to check it out! I’ll take you up on this challenge too Tracey!
Awesome. Good luck and may the Christmas Elves be watching over your lens (or something like that
)
Just made my first one in what must be two years, the Amazon squidutils tool rocks. The lens looks kick ass.
Let the moolah roll in.
Woohoo! Go Dave. So you’ll have 150 of them done by the end of the month then??
Glad you like the Poster Ads!
Tip: The ‘small’ size ads will fit in the bio area of the lens, as long as you don’t have too much text before it.
Also, have you seen the new Holiday Gift Guide section on Squidoo? It’s ideal for any Christmas lenses…
thefluffanutta
Sweeeeet. That looks great above the fold in the bio box. Any more tips? I can see myself getting carried away with Squidoo for the next week.
Awesome. Plan on going and updating all my amazon lenses next week with the ‘new toys’ from Squidutils.
I did see the holiday gift guide section and love it as well. I like that it suggests good phrases to write about based on what people are searching for. Very powerful tool.
Dude. Your business acumen is astounding – holy cow!
Seriously, thanks for a great tool, and just wanted to say you’re a freaking GENIUS.
Absolute genius.
Hey James, Glad to hear they are working for you
Hi Tracey – just blew in from the Bear’s site – thanks for the inspiration, I shall get my act together and work on my hubs. I’ve got to say I find Squidoo an absolute pain to work with and so haven’t used it for about a year now, but maybe they’ve changed. I find HP much easier. Do you have an opinion about where is the best place to get backlinks from without spending any money, or is it necessary to pay for some sort of backling service ?
You can do backlinks yourself – article marketing, blog commenting, forum profiles etc. It’s a lot of work but it’s free.
I do pay for different services for backlinks because I can’t be assed doing it myself these days.
I suggest starting with writing articles for eza if you are broke. And then when you can afford it, get a subscription at buildmyrank.com
this sounds great and challenges always make me work that little bit harder… you know, they make me feel more like a man grrrrrr (sorry)
Have you got any tips on creating lenses? I have done a couple of hubpages but never created a lens before
They are pretty easy, and you can add links to images which I like. Just have a play around with one and see if you like it or not.
Thanks Tracey, I will give it a try.
If I am pushing to make Chrissy Cash then would it be better to use hubpages with the quicker indexing? Or, Squidoo?
Hi Colin,
Why not do both? Or if you want to just choose one, check the site that has the least competing pages, so do site:squidoo.com “your keyword” and then site:hubpages.com “your keyword” and go with the site that has the least competing.
Challenge accepted and I just published my first Squidoo lens. Four more to go and then a heap of backlinking.
Still don’t think I have Squidoo figured out. I think I prefer hubpages but I figured I should try Squidoo out. Expand my repetoire etc.
I like both but for different reasons. And I usually just go with the place that makes me the most money though – I’m not that loyal to either really. In the end I’d prefer to do my own sites, but they seem to suck in the rankings at the moment so I’ll happily go where I can make some quick Amazon cash
Squidoo is a bit more of a learning curve though because you need some html knowledge.
Hi Tracey,
I’ve been writing for years, for my site, for EZM and more – just have to find a way to make some $$ from it!
I have a superb e-book written about digestive problems & yeast infections, just need to look into DRM and then get my head around all this affiliate stuff. Should I put my ebook with Itunes, Amazon, or just sell my e-book on a squeeze page? You may have some suggestions, as your’e clued up in this department!
Hi Eric, ooh interesting question. While I haven’t tried ebooks on itunes or amazon I’m not sure how they would go there. I’ve sold plenty of books from my own sites though, and they have done well. If you have been writing for your site for a long time, I think it would make sense to sell your ebook from there since you probably already have a good following. You could set up a squeeze page, or just sell it directly. It’s a tough market as there are plenty of IBS and yeast infection ebooks already out there – but they are mostly bad and if you have a great one then you could do very well.
I’ve seen the SquidUtils site – it’s awesome – but you didn’t mention the caveat – you give up 10% of your earnings to the Fluf…eh…the guy who runs SquidUtils (he commented here).
Not sure if you and Dave just didn’t mind or it was a calculated cost or what – but it’s why I’ve never used it.
My $850 Squidoo lens didn’t mind that I didn’t share the loot…just sayin’.
Hey James,
Yep I knew about the 9/1 split from the squidutils banner. But it’s a quick way to get an image banner on your site. If you have the time then I’d always recommend doing one yourself – but they are good for a quick image (and they seem to have a high clickthrough rate as well – much better than my own banners – LOL). I’m experimenting with my own banners though – the squidutils one just seems to have a higher clickthrough so I’m happy to use them until I hit my own sweet spot banner.
Worth a shot, I was surprised to see you and Dave plug it since you both are far from newbies – BUT if they receive that sort of attention…might as well try it out!
Can’t let you two have all the fun, now. Thanks for the review, I trust you and Dave so I’ll bite.
I put the Amazon capsules on my lens too – and they only earn me 50%. It all adds up.
If I could earn 100% on every lens then that would be ideal, but I’m seeing that some people click on MY images and text links, others click on the amazon capsule, and others click on the squidutils banner.
If you are using web 2.0 sites then you’ve got to expect a bit of bleed from your main money images/text links – and I’d rather they bleed onto images/ads where I earn a % rather than get nothing at all. The only way you can control that you’ll get 100% is with your own sites (where I would NEVER use a 3rd party rev share plugin/widget).
I still always put MY images above the fold, and the others (squidutils / amazon capsules etc) below. Plus I’m still experimenting with squidoo – I haven’t figured out the best layout yet. But if I have a lens that is doing well then I want to capture as much of the revenue as possible.
Great Post Tracey,
Tim’s Squid Utils tools are amazing. I’ve been tracking the performance of these amazon banners for several months now and they work great.
They do, I’m getting lots of clicks on them, so I’m happy. (cool gravatar by the way)
James I look at it as a much better rev share than in Hubpages or using the Amazon capsules from Squidoo.
And as Tracey said, they are so quick to set up and very clickable. My 7 lenses have only been up just under a week and are already ranking. So I think it was worth losing 1 in 10 sales as they are definitely getting some sweet clicks.
Well said, Dave – thanks to you and Tracey I’ll be doing this for the next few days.
Might as well put Tracey’s idea to the test.
I absolutely refuse to allow you and Tracey to take all the loot.
No donation for you yet but I thought I would give an update. I made 7 lenses 2 weeks ago. So far they have made just over $170 in total from Amazon sales.
Not bad if you ask me. Each one had 20 links from Build My Rank. I am definitely going to do more in the new year. You may even get your tip then, or sooner
Also a great reason to pay for BMR, it would have already paid for itself, and Tracey may make some cash if she offered an aff link!
not bad for new lenses. They should do even better next year. And yes, what sort of affiliate marketer am I without an aff link to BMR. LOL – Looks like I better sign up for their aff program then
Hi Tracey – this is the first I’ve heard of snipsly, is it any good?
I’m thinking of doing a massive web2 + amazon attack starting next month, which web2.0 should I target? I’ve heard horror stories of hubpages deleting hubs for too much backlinking! (And yes, I know, the sky is falling down…)
Snipsly is a bit annoying to use because they have lots of popups on their site, but they rank ok so can be worth it. Personally though I’d use either hubpages or squidoo.
Hubpages don’t like forum profiles to their hubs. I’ve pointed Build My Rank links (blog posts) at them with no probs, but be careful of profile links because they can delete hubs for that. Squidoo is a bit more lenient with what backlinking that you can get away with.
Hi Tracey, thanks for that quick reply! Also, I heart cougar town too! I think it’s a bit like 40+”frriends” though which is funny because i didn’t like friends. My fave would have to be grayson… but I think I’m a lot like (a female version of) that bald husband.
Sounds great!
…..what’s the quickest way to get an Amazon affiliate account?
Just head over to Amazon and apply for their associates program. It’s pretty easy to get approved by them.
I thought I needed a website before I could apply.
I don’t have a website – in that case wanted to know
the quickest alternative – maybe blogger, hubpage or something – how many would I need to create first and
which might be better or quicker. Thanks.
No website required. You can throw in a hubpage in the URL field when they ask. If you’ve already got an Amazon (shopper’s) account, use the same ID.