Squidoo – Yes or Mooo?

Look. I had to do it. “No” doesn’t rhyme.

Stephanie asked me the following in the question thread. Good question so I’m using it as a new post. Please go by her site and leave her a comment telling her it was a good question, if this information proves useful to you.

I’m curious what you think of Squidoo as a traffic-building tool? I’ve done one post on baby gifts, and it wasn’t very time-consuming. Seems like it would take about as long as an article if you’re going to give it some thought.

Some have criticized Seth Godin as making money off of other people’s content, but isn’t that what all the article directories do too?

Great question Stephanie. First let me tell folks what Squidoo is, then I’ll answer you.

From the Squidoo About Page:

Squidoo is a co-op run on behalf of its members, the Lensmasters.

We have built an online platform that makes it easy for anyone to build lenses on topics they are passionate about. These lenses help you find a unique, human perspective on things that interest you… fast. Not only can Lensmasters spread their ideas, get recognized for their expertise, and send more traffic to their Web sites and blogs—they could also earn royalties.

To answer your question, I think Squidoo is an excellent traffic-building resource for a couple of reasons.
First, it’s not just a one-off transaction. Squidoo isn’t just about writing articles and getting someone to see your site. The way it’s set up has the potential to build a relationship between the expert and the reader, the reader and the site, and the experts with each other.

Second, you can use it as a quick guide to an important topic to you or to others, which makes it a viral kind of resource. People are going to link out to this kind of page when they see it. A few great ones – Introduction to Web 2.0 and  Marketing Bookshelf.

The only downside I see, from a writer’s viewpoint, is the time it would take to create.

And like you said, if you have the time to do an article, you have time for this too. Unlike an article, your reader can participate in this, by subscribing to the RSS feed for changes to the page, rating your page or submitting it to a social bookmarking site, all without having to leave the page to find the tools to do so.

I’m actually a bit surprised to hear that people are miffed at Godin for making money off it. Most folks aren’t mad at fast food places for charging for burgers, or newspapers charging for ad placement. I mean, you get free exposure at a highly trafficked site if you’re a writer, and free information if you’re a reader. You’d think that would make everyone happy, but maybe there’s a perspective here that I’m not seeing.