Hubpages Report - October 2009

I have steadily been publishing hubs since mid June of this year. Before that, I only had a few. Now that I am more comfortable with the site, I have found that I really like using it. It is very straight forward and easy to write articles on because it is so streamlined. The only thing I have to focus on is what my topic is, and how best to use the keywords that will attract people to it. I have been publishing a few hubs per week for several weeks now. I now have 74 hubs and I have deleted a couple of my very early efforts. One because it was not really a very good article, and really couldn't be fixed. Another because it relied on Youtube videos that are now not available. I have about 100 hits a day, and make something on Adsense about 14 out of 15 days. My average Adsense income as of today is about $20 per month, but it is steadily increasing.

For those of you looking for an alternative to Squidoo for writing, or just want to spread out your writing, I highly recommend Hubpages. Before Hubpages, my Adsense income was dripping along, $1 or so per month. Now I understand it much better, and am earning more on all my Adsense sites, although Hubpages is by far the best. Hubpages also is adding to my Amazon and eBay income.

If you have any Hubpages questions as related to Squidoo, feel free to contact me to ask them. I will answer what I can and refer you to someone better if I can't. If you would like to take a tour of Hubpages to get a better sense of the site, click here.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

Changes at Ebay

I know that right now a lot of people are in an uproar about the changes at EPN which is Ebay's affiliate network. For those that don't know, Ebay has made changes in it's TOS that may mean that Hubpages Ebay capsules, and Squidoo Ebay modules will have to be changed or deleted.

I am confident that we will hear from the staff on both sites before August 1, which is when existing affiliates need to change their links. There is discussion about this on forums on both SquidU and Hubpages.

I am going to wait to make any adjustments until I am totally sure I need to do so. The instructions from Ebay have been a bit vague so far, so I am going to wait until they are clarified. I recommend that everyone else do the same.

You can follow the Howling Squid Review directly from Twitter.

SquidBids--The Squidoo Ebay Template

Since Lake Erie Artists Gallery's Ebay store has become more active, and we are loading it up with lots of great art products, I decided to try out the SquidBids template which is made for Ebay sellers.

I have to admit, although I do like the SquidBids logo at the top of the template, I didn't really like what I got when I filled it in. I ended up changing the entire set up of the lens including the way the title filled in.

My lenses are selling art so here is the order of modules I ended up with:
Introduction
Wikipedia
Ebay(featuring my store)
Poll (but I completely changed all the poll topics)
Duel
Amazon Spotlight
Craigslist or alternate
RSS feed to my blog for the gallery
Amazon
Wikipedia featuring one of the artists I am selling
Guestbook
Featured Lenses
I left the Text module with the Thank You
Google Blog Search

See if you like what I came up with: Custom Framed Abstract Fine Art Prints Showcase

Squidoo is a Great Place to Showcase Your Online Store

Squidoo is a terrific place to showcase your online store whether it is your own website, Zazzle store, CafePress store, Etsy store, Ecrater store, Ebay store, or any other kind of online store.

There are many fine examples of this kind of showcasing on Squidoo. I am going to just highlight two of them for you to take a look at:

The first one is to showcase Jaguar Julie's Ecrater store:
JaguarJulieBuys eCrater Store -- Everything Must Go--Depending on the type of store you are highlighting, you can use the Squidoo modules in several ways. Many of the online stores have RSS feeds, or direct linking abilities. In this lens, Julie adds other modules that relate to her store's merchandise like the flickr slide show.

The second example is a showcase of Noadi's art on Etsy:
Noadi's Art on Etsy--This lens makes use of Squidoo's Etsy, flickr, and Youtube modules to highlight Noadi's work.

Some of the sites are already affiliated with Squidoo so they have selling modules like CafePress, Zazzle, Etsy, and Ebay. But don't let that hem you in. There are so many creative ways to create a selling showcase.