Internet Marketing with Josh SpauldingMaking Money through Ethical Internet Marketing.

71 comments

1. Linus Rylander (1 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 6:57 pm 

   I agree… partially.
   Depends on your purpose. If you’re using these properties solely to drive traffic from for example squidoo or EZA to your website, I can imagine EZA having the upper hand.

   However if you’re using these properties to build links back to your website, to get YOUR website ranking better, then I’d say Squidoo would be the better option, not in terms of value of the links themselves, but more because of ease of use. No approval and so on.

   Of course you’d want as many links as possible from as many different sources as possible, but I’d still go with Squidoo first.

   Interesting case study though…

   Linus

2. Amanda (2 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 7:01 pm 

   Thanks Josh–this more or less confirms what I’ve discovered with Squidoo over the past year or so. I still like building lenses though. Looking forward to part two . . .

3. Mark Mason (68 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 7:03 pm 

   Nice job — I am anxious to see what Jennifer (Pot Pie Girl) has to say about all of this. I should have my portion of the study done by the end of the month (maybe sooner) so stay tuned.

4. Normal Joe (5 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 7:03 pm 

   Thanks for this one Josh…this is a great study man, I love seeing the facts. Mark is a great guy and honest too…so I look forward to seeing his results as well.

   thanks again man

5. Wayne (2 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 7:06 pm 

   This is an interesting dilemma. I have looked at Squidoo and wondered if it was really worth the effort. Godin is one of those whom I trust and mostly he makes lots of sense, but something felt kind of off about the whole squidoo project. I think I get what it is now. It seems like it is more a project for the stay at home mom or the part time marketer than it is for the person seeking to create a real income.

6. Carl Pruitt (2 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 7:08 pm 

   Not that this invalidates the study in any way, but the difficult part of comparing EzineArticles traffic is that probably half to 2/3rds of the initial traffic is other marketers trying to find out what you’re doing.

7. Jeremy Kelsall (3 comments.)
   9th February, 2009 at 7:09 pm 

   Josh,

   I believe that your point is valid, but you can have your Squidoo lens indexed rather quickly with a couple bookmarks.

   If you do that, the benefit Squidoo has over EZA or any other article directory is you can sell directly from your Squidoo lens instead of forcing people to go through another step or two.

   I definitely don’t use Squidoo as much as I once did, but I still think that they are more effective than a lot of the other options that are out there.

8. Rich
   9th February, 2009 at 7:11 pm 

   Josh my friend you are right on point. I will definitely follow this blog post.

   More to follow…

   Rich
   “Results are what counts!”

9. Josh Spaulding
   9th February, 2009 at 7:16 pm 

   @ Carl – I don’t agree. Not really any way to prove it though. Most, if not all of the traffic is coming from those top 10 rankings. Of course this blog post will make future stats invalid though.

   @ everyone else – I’m not going to argue with anyone Let’s see what the result of Mark’s case study is and all arguments after that will be followed-up with more case-studies! We’ll see this through to the end and if I’m wrong on ANY points at all I give you my word I will publicly admit that I was wrong… I don’t think it’s going to happen though

   I would still love to hear your thoughts though!

10. Beth Partin (12 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 7:22 pm 

    Josh, thanks for the post and the link to Pot Pie Girl. I’ve been debating whether to do more with Squidoo and apparently they just deleted a bunch of her accounts. I’ll be proceeding with caution.

11. Courtney Ramirez (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 7:36 pm 

    Wow! It’s very interesting to see the results. I’ve been looking forward to this post. I’ve used a squidoo landing page for years, but finally moved my writing services to it’s own domain. For me, the ease of creating a lens was the benefit. I didn’t do it for traffic. It seems like it’s best as part of a network and not a sole source of traffic.

12. Courtney Ramirez (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 7:36 pm 

    Also, you solved the mystery of where all the new writing inquiries are coming from.

13. John (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 7:47 pm 

    Hi Josh,
    Great post.
    How did you pick your key phrases? Did you follow the method in the $5 a day report?
    Thanks,
    John

14. Steve@Colon Cleansing Treatment (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 7:49 pm 

    very interesting Josh. I think someone mentioned that using it for linking power back to my money page is a different story. I know I have had pages in squidoo rand and still do, and the main page on my site not rank. But did like the report you did and look forward to part 2.
    Steve

15. Paul Duxbury
    9th February, 2009 at 7:49 pm 

    [Removed at the request of commentator]

16. Josh Spaulding
    9th February, 2009 at 7:56 pm 

    @ Courtney – Glad to help

    @ John – Yes, like I describe in this post.

    @ Steve – We’ll be looking at the link-building aspect in future case-studies.

    @ Paul – I’m very surprised you’re taking this tone. I thought you might appreciate a case study rather than “I think this” like most people do.

    This has nothing to do with my mindset or any bias. This has to do with proof. You may want to read the entire post above, Paul. This isn’t and wasn’t mean to be a complete case study. Did you see the “part 1″ ?

    Why so negative? Why not start up a case-study of your own so you can prove me wrong? I’m open to it and I’ll even link to you… I’m not here to be biased. I’m here to teach with proof.

17. Deb (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 8:07 pm 

    Josh,

    I am wondering how you know if your traffic from ezinearticles is due to google searches or people looking at ezinearticles directly? Do you separate these in your stats?

    Interesting study.

    Debbie

18. Josh Spaulding
    9th February, 2009 at 8:10 pm 

    @ Debbie – I don’t know for sure, you’re right. I just seriously doubt it. A few definitely, but I’ve been doing this article marketing thing for several years and I’ve come to realize 99% of the traffic is from the article ranking in Google. If they don’t’ rank well in Google they receive VERY few views.

19. Kris (19 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 8:15 pm 

    Josh, interesting case study. Certainly, article marketing is much simpler. I have not spent much time building my squidoo lens, but to me it was way to difficult just to make the lens look good – and then I would need to spend time getting it to rank? Heck, I’d rather spend that time getting my regular site to rank.

20. Paul Duxbury
    9th February, 2009 at 8:20 pm 

    [Removed at the request of commentator]

21. Marc
    9th February, 2009 at 8:23 pm 

    Hi Josh. You mentioned potpie girl in your post. Right now she’s not very happy with squidoo. See her post:

    http://www.potpiegirl.com/2009/02/squidoo-deleted-nine-of-my-accounts/

    I think that squidoo is ridiculously understaffed and place too much reliance on software. This means your lenses can get locked at any time because of quirky software.

    With all the money that they make, they won’t hire an adequate staff. Very weird.

22. Josh Spaulding
    9th February, 2009 at 8:23 pm 

    @ Paul – I’m not concerned with “What it is intended for” I’m concerned with ANYTHING that it can do do improve an online business. I’m starting at the top of the list and working my way down.

    I’m not concerned with whether or not it’s “featured” obviously it’s not. Being “featured” means absolutely NOTHING to me.

    If you would like to take this conversation further feel free to publish your own proof as I have. From now on I won’t respond to “this is what I think” type of comments.

    Any proof you can provide will be greatly appreciated and as I always have int he past I WILL admit if I’m wrong… I’ll even announce it to my entire list!

    I’m SURE I’ll find some good uses for Squidoo. As I’ve stated before I don’t think Squidoo is worthless. I just think there are better ways to invest your time and that’s what I’m setting out to prove starting with this post (emphasis on starting.)

23. Chelle (1 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 8:26 pm 

    Squidoo is terrible. But yesterday I wrote an article for Associated Content – I am number 5 in Google for my search terms. I did not even link to it or do anything. Best thing about it? It’s a phrase estimated to get about 1000 searches a day, so that means I will earn a decent amount from it each month too

24. Mark Mason (68 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 8:28 pm 

    @Paul — you have uncovered part 2 of the study — that is, what is the result of a properly promoted lens versus a promoted article.

    One of the measures should be effort versus traffic (or conversions) or something like that.

    So, can you comment on what you think a “fair test” would be.

    I think what Josh is demonstrated here is that for very low levels of effort, eZA wins over Squidoo.

    Your point as I understand it, is that a low level of effort is not really appropriate for Squidoo lenses. Point taken. So, if I spend 2 hours promoting a lens and then spend 2 hours promoting an article — what is the result?

    Does that cover it?

25. Josh Spaulding
    9th February, 2009 at 8:32 pm 

    @ Mark – Or 2 hours promoting your own page (for conversion reasons) since one could argue Squidoo would convert better because with an article the user has to click your link, then click an affiliate link or advert and with a Lens they’re already there.

26. Paul Duxbury
    9th February, 2009 at 8:39 pm 

    [Removed at the request of commentator]

27. Peep
    9th February, 2009 at 8:39 pm 

    This “test” doesn’t show much.

    The speed of indexing does not show anything. Everybody is in the SEO business for the long run, and in the end its the link juice those pages pass, not how fast they get indexed by Google.

28. Bob Blick (3 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 8:41 pm 

    Interestingly Potpiegirl is having an issue with Squidoo right now. A Google kind of thing where they shut down some of her accounts and no explanation is given and no one to contact.

29. Josh Spaulding
    9th February, 2009 at 8:42 pm 

    @ Paul – Yep, it says you have to have at least 3 modules and I have 3 modules in each of the lenses. Are you saying Courtney’s articles are crap? I think they’re excellent. Would you like my comments on your blog content and recommendations?

    Mark and I are considering all points here and we aren’t dismissing any of them. I’m really very surprised and disappointed that you, someone who calls himself an experienced Internet Marketer, would take this tone and attitude regarding a very fair and clear blog post.

    How many times should I tell you that this is ONE SMALL PART of the overall case study??

    Is this how you go about business with your coaching students as well?

    @ Peep – True, but would the lenses have been indexed if I hadn’t pointed any links to them? Doesn’t look like it.

30. Jeremy Kelsall (3 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 9:06 pm 

    Josh,

    I’ll be interested to see how long your articles stay on the first page. It looks like one already moved to the second page in Google. Usually with decent keywords that have been researched correctly you can get a good ranking with EZA simply for the link on the front page.

    However, it usually starts sliding a bit after the first 48 hours or so.

    I think some of the comments that you have received come from the fact that trying to decide which one is “better” should not be determined by which one gets indexed the fastest, at least not in my opinion.

    I’ve had good success with both EZA and Squidoo…Hell, for the first 6 months that I was marketing online, I used Squidoo as my only landing page and was making a considerable amount of cash. Even lenses that I have not updated in over 4 months are still holding some pretty good positions in the search engines.

    I will be curious to see what the results are after 30 days or so if you put the same amount of effort into both of them.

31. Josh Spaulding
    9th February, 2009 at 9:11 pm 

    @ Jeremy – For long-tail phrases they normally stay up there in the top 10, not always, but normally. When you target more competitive phrases they tend to rank well then drop off. At any rate, as you can see by the dates I posted, it’s been MUCH longer than 48 hours since the articles went live.

    It’s not about how long it takes to get indexed it’s about it’s inability to be indexed AT ALL without boost from you, the “lensmaster” a squidoo lens WILL NOT BE INDEXED without you manually pointing links to it.

    So this portion of the case study, as I previously stated, proves that Squidoo is not good for quick results.

    Whether or not there are better time investments with more effort will be determined in future case studies.

32. Jeremy Kelsall (3 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 9:31 pm 

    Josh,

    From that aspect, you are completely right as shown by your test. Articles at EZA always get indexed incredibly quick.

    Glad to see someone actually taking then time to do a case study rather than just slapping an opinion up on a blog!

    Jeremy

33. Andrew Larder (1 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 9:56 pm 

    Squidoo is wonderful! But it is what it is – it’s a tool – a technique – a method. Sometimes this tool was very highly ranked by Google, sometimes it is penalized by google as more and more “marketers” or spammers – you call it what you want – deluge the results that Google delivers.

    What makes EzineArticles good is the high trust involved, because they really closely scrutinize your article – checking it is unique, not promoting something, not linked directly to an affiliate link, etc.

    What makes EzineArticles bad is the same thing – tough to pop out an article – it takes more time.

    The beauty of Squidoo is that you can, within reason, do what you want – I get lenses deleted every now and then, especially anything to do with spam hot beds – online poker, etc.

    Comparing the two is a very cool idea – I read it with interest – and I HAVE beend rawn back to EzineArticles, GOArticles, and just signed up with ArticleBase after seeing it mentioned here.

    Its funny, because I am in an seo contest foir the term “Ninja Superstar on Twitter”, and was just looking at what ranks the best – after submitting to GoArticles, making a Squidoo lens, a YouTube video, bookmarking, digging, etc

    Wordpress.com is a winner, and GoArticles are a winner – they flip around almost daily.

    The Squidoo lens doesn’t show up, or not ranked well so far – but I have other phrases where the Squidoo lens is #1

    It must depend on the time around, the competition for the phrase, the links to it – thre are many variables involved!

    I DO like the results shown by GoArticles – at least today, as I wirte – when i can’t find the Squidoo lens even indexed – yep, it ranks higher! LOL

34. mark harrison (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 10:39 pm 

    Josh,
    I agree to some extent but I find (and I know thgis wasn’t part of your test) that Hub Pages work better for me than Squidoo and I think it has a lot to do with how strict they are on self promotion. I don’t know why but I never achieve great results with squidoo and yet all 3 of my lenses have at least 6 modules and lots of content.

35. Mark Mason (68 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 10:46 pm 

    @Paul — well, I am not sure that I understand your point. As I understand it, you can use Squidoo for about three things:

    1. Getting search traffic
    2. Sending that traffic somewhere (and hopefully converting that).
    3. Linking to something for SEO (backlinks)

    I think we are trying to compare Squidoo versus eZA on items #1 and #2.

    Of course, we want the the comparison to be fair — that is why Josh has been completely transparent with this initial test.

    So — what are the “other things” that make a properly promoted Squidoo lens a “pear” compared to the eZA apple.

    I am honestly seeking to understand your point of view (not to argue). Just wanted to be clear since blog comments tend to be terse and sometimes intent can be misconstrued.

    Thanks!
    Mark

36. Andy Bacon (7 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 10:54 pm 

    Hey Josh,
    Nice piece of work. It always helps to have good information to read because there is so much cr*p from so called experts out there. You are right – proof is what counts not some idiot’s opinion.
    Congrats on the shout out from Griz.

37. Alex (2 comments.)
    9th February, 2009 at 11:13 pm 

    This is interesting. Right now I am trying to rank some squidoo lenses and hubpages. I have had more success with HubPages.

    EzineArticles is easier to rank than Squidoo that´s 100% true! The problem is that not everybody read your links at the bottom of the article. In squidoo yoiu can use your links at the top, the middle or at the bottom. That’s and advantage. I suggest creating a lense and submitting articles to ezine articles linking back to lenses

38. Jo
    10th February, 2009 at 12:16 am 

    I find all this conversation very interesting…

    I’m new to internet marketing and the only way that I learn anything is to try it and see what happens even when somebody says it works I am too curious that I have to sus it out for myself anyway!

    I like your $5 niche formula by the way…I went and tried it and I see how it can be very profitable if you are strategic about it. I am setting up a website that will use the $5 niche formula as one of its strategies. Thanks!

39. Jo
    10th February, 2009 at 12:19 am 

    Just to add on the the above comment, I didn’t find Spyfu very useful I used Market Samurai (they have a free keyword research tool for 30 day challengers) and it gave me so much more info and a wider spread of keywords.

40. Internet Marketing (5 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 12:31 am 

    I like that you compared the two… but don’t like that you gave Ezine Articles a head start. You should probably do another comparison where start with Squidoo… using what works for Squidoo.

    Obviously 2 different sites are not going to have identical processes in making them work for your efforts. A good comparison would use what works best for each individual site and compare them against each other. Of course there is no 100% effective method for comparing sites like those against each other. Too many variables at play.

    Dennis Grubbs

41. Mike (4 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 12:54 am 

    Well Josh you’ve certainly opened up a can of worms, and that’s a good thing.

    This post and the responses to it sure gives me a lot of food for thought, so I’m going to do a little case study of my own now and see if it helps get my site back in Googles index.

    If nothing else, using all of these strategies will hopefully get some organic traffic to my site. I’ve put this off for a long time because I’m not the best writer in the world, but it’s time I gave it a shot.

    Looking forward to part two now!
    Mike

42. Doug Hudiburg (1 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 1:29 am 

    Thanks for your hard work on this Josh. Nice clean facts that provide another piece in the puzzle.

    Articles are, indeed not dead.

43. Alexander
    10th February, 2009 at 5:01 am 

    Thank you Josh. But you’ve proved only that the articles beat the bad lenses. Your articles are good, but your lenses are pretty poor. You show that article as a lens is no good, but the lens is much more than one article.

44. Bob (1 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 6:35 am 

    Josh, I kind of did this unscientific stuff in early Dec after reading some material from various ebooks on squidoo. I didn’t use as many articles as you but my results as far as page views is rediculous. Ezine kicked the panties off squidoo and I still try to refresh my lens weekly.

    When I saw your email, I kind of hoped that your blog would confirm my findings but I know there are two sides to a coin and I truly believe squidoo is a perfect complement for those folks who don’t own a website and need something to get their info out on the web.

45. Rob Forbes (7 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 6:51 am 

    Hi Josh

    Thanks for the outstanding research. I have a squidoo lens, and it took 4 months to get spidered and listed as a back link. Article marketing is definitely the way to go!

    Rob

46. Jason (3 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 8:12 am 

    Thanks Josh, good research clearly laid out and explained as normal. Be interesting to see the Stats after 30, 60 and 90 days!

    Also good to see the famed duplicate content filter didn’t hamper things.

    Thanks for the potpiegirl link – reading some of her stuff too!

    Keep it coming…

    Jason

47. Wordpress SEO (2 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 6:07 pm 

    Thanks for debunking Squidoo. We used to see good SEO results from Squidoo. For the last six months or more, there seems to be next to no impact. Hubpages on the other hand…

    The non-curated aspect of Squidoo killed it. Tragedy of the commons and all that.

48. Sandy
    10th February, 2009 at 6:58 pm 

    I think the big misunderstanding was in explanation in the previous post.

    It sounded like squidoo and web 2.0 properties in general are dead yet you run test with ezinearticles (another web 2.0 site).

    You should position then differently – aka, faster indexing/rankings/traffic etc squidoo vs ezinearticles not saying that they are overrated.

    Anyways, if not that post, you’re very good content publisher, i’m reading and pleasing my mind keep up the good job and don’t make scary posts like one before

49. trade show booths (10 comments.)
    10th February, 2009 at 7:53 pm 

    hi Josh,
    Thanks for running the case study. I love seeing these things…
    I noticed that your articles on “Fish Tank Sand” are at #6 and #8 on google. Another question this raises is about duplicate content. I thought two identical copies of an article couldn’t both be on page one of google? Any thoughts?
    ~ Steve (aka trade show booths)
    PS. I clicked through to your site, so ignore a click from ezines. It’s a beautiful site!

50. PotPieGirl (11 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 12:32 am 

    Wow, am I ever late for this party! My apologies! As some of your readers pointed out, I had some issues the past few days going on with Squidoo.

    Good news is – everything has been straightened out (and I got to talk to Seth Godin on the phone… how cool is THAT?)

    I like this case study. In fact, when I get back in town after this weekend, I might give one like this a whirl, too.

    Props to you, Josh, for doing this =)

    Ok, let’s talk about this…

    Yes, your EzineArticles WILL get indexed and show traffic quicker than a lens in most cases.

    EzineArticles has all the newly published articles on their home page and Google grabs them super fast. This is not true for new Squidoo lenses.

    Also, as for your lenses…

    Yes, as you predicted, they are all indexed now that you blogged about them. It really is as easy as that…and many times for long-tail words, all it takes it that back link to KEEP a lens ranking well.

    Here’s the issue I personally have with this case study.

    You used both as an article directory.

    On your lens, all your content was put into that first intro module with a “bio box” at the end.

    You have WAY more flexibility than that on Squidoo (but, for the sake of this case study, I see why you didnt use the options a lens has).

    Also, you only have the intro module, an Amazon module, and a guestbook on each lens.

    Squidoo requires a lens to have at least 4 modules NOT including the intro and the guestbook. Therefor, your lens is most likely still considered a Work-In-Progress (WIP) lens and is not receiving the full power of the Squidoo site. (check and see if there is a green check next to your lenses on your dashboard)

    This is also causing all your on-lens links to be no-follow (or at least they are right now as I check on 2/10 at 7:30 pm EST).

    Once a lens gets the ‘green check’ the links on page are NOT no-follow.

    All this makes it kinda tough for me to agree which is a “winner” or not. You used both sites according to EzineArticles guidelines, not according to the guidelines and optimization opportunities available/required for each individual site.

    It’s kinda hard to compare apples to apples when one of them is an orange…lol!

    Your thoughts?

    Oh and Josh, THANK YOU for the really great things you said about me… It means a lot!!

    Let’s keep this going… I love it!

    Jennifer
    ~PotPieGirl

51. Step-by-Step Affiliate Marketing Guides (14 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 6:04 am 

    Well Josh, one of the main reasons your Squidoo lenses would not rank well in G is because they are content thin, they only have 1 module, they need more modules with h2 and h3 tags, which are the titles and sub titles for the modules which should be keyword optimized and there are a lot more techniques to be used to insure ranking.

    Squidoo should not be used as an article site but as a mini-website, the more content and SEO optimized the lens the better and quicker it will rank.

    I agree with PotPie Girl you are comparing apples and oranges and as she said, the guidelines for article sites and Squidoo lenses are different, lenses need to be built correctly in order to see rank success, and I have several lenses that are PR3+ and site on page 1 in SERPS.
    JR

52. Rika Susan - Home Improvement News (10 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 11:21 am 

    Interesting, Josh. When it comes to ranking, EzineArticles definitely beats Squidoo in terms of the time frame. I have seen that time and again. Squidoo has its place and I do use it, but for a quick listing articles still win.

53. Write Off Credit Card Debt (1 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 1:54 pm 

    Yes, this confirms what I see from my own stats from Google Analytics. EZA and other directories can pull quite a fair number of visitors and I have actually yet to see ONE visitor come from the majority of my Squidoo lenses. The referral figures at GA are very specific about it.

    Also, I think you’d have to factor in the time spent creating the lens in the first place, which is not inconsiderable, with its various mandatory modules. Several units of content will take more time to write than one unit of content. And, it seems, for little or no benefit.

54. Josh Spaulding
    11th February, 2009 at 2:02 pm 

    I think alot of people misunderstood my intentions with this post. In a way it is comparing apples to oranges. The reason I did this particular portion of the case study (remember it’s one part) was for my own curiosity because I saw quick results as one of the few benefits to Squidoo.

    However it’s obviously not. Believe me, I understand now that a squidoo lens needs more time investment to see it’s full benefits and that is what part 2 of this case study is about!

    In regards to those commenting on the quality of the lens: the content is of high quality, better than the content on most lenses I see. It’s a small lens but I can Google doesn’t care (I’ve been doing SEO for over 5 years, believe me) Squidoo says you need at least 3 modules for them to feature it and these lenses do indeed have 3 lenses.

    Mark and I will be studying some of PotPieGirl’s Squidoo stuff for the next portion of the case study.

    There is no bias here. I know Squidoo is not worthless. I just believe there are better time investments for each of it’s benefits. I’m working on fact here though, not belief, that’s what this case study is all about.

    Just remember, this is only part 1. I think many of you reacted as if this was an complete case-study and that I had already came up with my conclusion, I have not.

    @ PotPieGirl – No problem, you deserve it… I like your work. btw, I’ll go ahead and add another module to each lens and when I announce Mark’s portion (Part 2) I’ll also announce how the lenses are doing now as compared to the articles. Although I did read the guidelines for featured lenses and I could have sworn it said it was a minimum of 3, not 4… I’ll see.

55. Calvin Loh (1 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 3:14 pm 

    1) Seems that squidoo lens requirements have changed again (from one or two years ago)? That time, it needed 3 modules, two of which had to be text modules (if I remembered correctly). Are these rule changes grandfathered? I.e. if my lens is valid today, will it always be valid forever, or will it suddenly become invalid with a new squidoo rule?

    2) From your stats, it looks like both ArticlesBase and Squidoo do not send you any traffic, only EZA and the search engines. Is this correct?

56. PotPieGirl (11 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 3:20 pm 

    I can’t wait to read more of this on-going case study!

    As for required modules… yes, it is 3 BUT that does not include the guestbook module or the intro module (the one where your article is).

    To make them featured would be very simple. You could break the content up and put individual paragraphs into a new text module. This also allows you to give the paragraph a title (which is an h2).

    Or, you could keep the article as is and add a YouTube module with a video on the topic.

    I know this is not a complete study – sorry if I implied I thought it to be. In fact, you have got my little pea brain whirling with ideas to do something like this.

    I love testing stuff

    Thanks, Josh!

    Jennifer
    ~PotPieGirl

57. Josh Spaulding
    11th February, 2009 at 3:32 pm 

    @ Calvin, Squidoo hadn’t sent any yet because it wasn’t indexed yet. We’ll see what the result is in a week or two now that they’re all indexed and working on getting them “featured”

    @ Jennifer – ah ok they should have made that more clear Thanks for letting me know. I’ll do that then. Yeah, definitely, do a case study… we’ll make it a 3-part case-study and we can all three post to our blogs and lists. If you prove me wrong I’ll announce it to the world, that’s a promise! and I’m not saying you won’t, we’ll see.

58. PotPieGirl (11 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 5:51 pm 

    I am totally not about proving you wrong….lol! I think this is a good learning experience for all of us =)

    I’ve never done a one against the other test in full so I would like to see for myself.

    However, I DO know the power of using all these things together

    I’m out of town tomorrow thru Sunday (Friday is my “twenty-first 21st birthday” – yes, Friday the 13th….lol)…. but I will put this on my list for next week.

    Jennifer
    ~PotPieGirl

59. Arlene Markette (1 comments.)
    11th February, 2009 at 8:15 pm 

    This is a great case study, Josh. I’ve never bothered much with Squidoo because creating a lens always seemed so time-consuming.

    I just wanted to say a word or two about Buzzle. I’ve been able to get good traffic and rankings from the articles I submit there. However . . . as I have learned the hard way, you should ALWAYS submit your article to Buzzle FIRST, because of their duplicate content policy. When it is accepted, then post it to EZA and other directories.

    Here is a snippet from their editorial guidelines:

    Duplicate Content Not Allowed
    Articles that are already published online will not be accepted. Please understand that it is important for us to ensure we do not publish any plagiarized articles.
    At the time of editing a pending article, editors will search the Web to check if article already exists on any other website. If it does, or if it is wholly or partially plagiarized, editors will delete the article submitted on Buzzle.com, and mark the author account for possible termination if duplicate content gets repeatedly submitted from the account.

60. Mark (1 comments.)
    12th February, 2009 at 12:04 am 

    Given the time that it takes to put a Squidoo lens together versus the time it takes to research keywords and write articles on EA, EA will win hands down every time.

    How long does it take to do some decent keyword research? 15 minutes.

    How long does it take to write 300-600 words? About the same – 15 minutes.

    Plus I still have articles that are months and months old still sending me healthy amounts of traffic every single day and still appear high in the search engine rankings.

    EA wins hands down as far as I am concerned. At the end of the day, whatever screen I am looking at, it is the speed and efficiency with which I can push my fingers across the keyboard that really matters in the best sequence possible to get the maximum amount of ROI for my time put in, everything else is just pretty pictures, whistles and bells.

61. Elisabeth Kuhn (1 comments.)
    12th February, 2009 at 6:37 pm 

    Hi Josh,

    I like your experiment. I’m enjoying watching how different article directories compare with sending traffic to my website — and the number of readers they get.

    I’ve found it interesting that some of them drew different readers, so articles that just do so-so on EZA, do really well on Amazines occasionally. And vice versa.

    About Squidoo… well… I don’t think it’s an either/or proposition. But I agree that EZA is generally the biggest, fastest, bang for the buck when it comes to lead generation.

    Elisabeth

62. Iowa Freelance Writer (8 comments.)
    15th February, 2009 at 1:31 am 

    Really good study, Josh, and I’m interested to see how you break the two down as it goes on. I’ve done fairly decently on Squidoo, so I’m a fan, but I would agree that as far as traffic generation and easy ranking, ezinearticles is probably best, but Squidoo definitely has some strong points that online marketers can use, and is easy for the beginner to get into. Thanks for the great posts!

    Best,

    Shane

63. My Point . . . And I Do Have One, Ellen — Terry Heath
    16th February, 2009 at 3:42 pm 

    [...] So I’ve been trying to spend some of that time to make some money and ay, there’s the rub; first I have to decide how. I could write an entire self-help blog on that subject alone (and some do). [...]

64. mark harrison (1 comments.)
    17th February, 2009 at 1:28 pm 

    I’ve been checking through all my sites and whilst I thought Hub pages was the one for me, Squidoo links are still showing up even in my old, untouched blogs and sites. Perhaps I was wrong about squidoo after all but i do think that it deserves extra analysis as it will save all of us a lot of time wondering whether to EZA it, Squidoo it or Hub Page it. Perhaps all three?

65. Rico (1 comments.)
    19th February, 2009 at 5:30 pm 

    I look at squidoo as yet another important source in my links & marketing mix.

    Yes, the traffic you get from EZA is great..especially if one of your articles goes “viral”…but getting a variety of links for SEO & traffic in general can’t really hurt..can it?

66. Internet Marketing Blog (5 comments.)
    21st February, 2009 at 1:40 am 

    That goes back to his original reason for not wanting to invest any time into Squidoo and the like… TIME. His original issue with it, was he didn’t have enough free time to spend on Squidoo and it was just more efficient to use Ezine Articles.

    Dennis

67. mark e (3 comments.)
    24th February, 2009 at 5:46 am 

    Thanks for the info on Buzzle – dont like wasting my time either. I can’t believe they deleted your articles!

68. Loretta (1 comments.)
    26th June, 2009 at 9:19 pm 

    I love that you’re doing this case study style instead of “I say blah blah blah” like so many others do. It gives us something real and concrete to look at with actual comparisons and no hyped up gunk! Thank you for that.

69. Trade Show Tom (1 comments.)
    10th August, 2009 at 11:19 pm 

    Wow, those are incredible stats. I always use Ezine and Articlesbase and I never used Squidoo because it was a pain in the butt, and I guess I got lucky and did the right thing!

70. My Point . . . And I Do Have One, Ellen
    17th August, 2009 at 4:48 pm 

    [...] the rub; first I have to decide how. I could write an entire self-help blog on that subject alone (and some do).Since it’s Monday, I thought I should write the sort of post that makes us all want to get [...]

71. Options Trading Tony (1 comments.)
    30th August, 2009 at 8:33 pm 

    Is anyone still having success with squidoo as they used to? I think google penalized them. But i guess if you have a good product you should be willing to pound out any legitimate means of promotion to get noticed. I’m starting to think that if more folks (me:) had offline retailer type localized promotion mentality on the net – they could get a lot of free traffic.