Comments on: What’s Your Biggest Question?

By: Jackie Lee

Jackie Lee — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:12:22 +0000

Heather, the two do not integrate… Squidoo has its own analytics ~ check the stats tab under any given lens in your dashboard.

By: Jackie Lee

Jackie Lee — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:11:42 +0000

Congrats on taking action Christina! That’s awesome. I’m not sure there’s a great niche left that isn’t competitive these days. The kitchen related niche is an evergreen niche ~ where people will always be looking for kitchen stuff ~ however, there’s always new kitchen related items coming into the marketplace… this gives you the ability to keep your ear to the ground and get content out about new products. Also ~ it’s also not JUST about the niche… it’s about you. If you have a love for all things kitchen, and you’re willing to share your enthusiasm with your readers ~ and connect with other kitchen stuff lovers (I am one as well!) on social media platforms ~ maybe do videos etc… you can make it work. Creating a community and driving them to your own list is the best way to ensure long term stability in any niche these days. Once you’ve got people who want to be updated on kitchen stuff ~ it doesn’t matter how competitive the market is, you can email them directly.

Hope that helps. Hey you should also connect with me on FB ~ have a new page and group related to family/food/fitness ~ should probably be a good match for you. (page) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Family-Food-and-Fitness/228073360595158 (group ~ still in infancy stage!) http://www.facebook.com/groups/102771503173636/

By: Christina Walker@Calphalon Tri-Ply Stainless Steel Cookware

Christina Walker@Calphalon Tri-Ply Stainless Steel Cookware — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:03:21 +0000

Hi Jackie! I know I’m a little late to this post, but I do have a question. I downloaded your Squidoo Christmas Cash blueprint a few weeks ago, have written 4 lenses so far, and am considering starting a blog to get links and help drive traffic to my lenses. I’d like this blog to focus on kitchen-related gifts because that’s where I’m headed with the lenses. My question is, how do you determine a good niche? How do you know if it’s too saturated or competitive?
Thanks!
Christina Walker@Calphalon Tri-Ply Stainless Steel Cookware´s last [type] ..Calphalon Tri-Ply Stainless Steel 13-piece Cookware Set updated Thu Dec 8 2011 10:56 pm EST

By: Heather McGlaughlin

Heather McGlaughlin — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:17:42 +0000

Question? I am trying to integrate my squidoo acct. with Google analytics. Is this possible?

Thanks
Heather McGlaughlin´s last [type] ..Microphone Cake

By: Jackie Lee

Jackie Lee — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:49:51 +0000

I just go right to Amazon as well, but a LOT of people don’t… I was just talking to someone last night who was looking to buy a flip and did a bing search for the flip. When I mentioned just going to amazon she sounded a little surprised and told me she hadn’t thought of that. So if your lens came up at the top of the bing search, and you’d written a helpful and informative lens that helped them make the decision you’d probably make that sale.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:21:08 +0000

What I do not understands is why anyone goes to a squidoo lens. I know about
Amazon and if I wan to buy a product I just go there and look it up for myselp and make
a purch=ase.

Why would I go thru a squid lens?

By: Jackie Lee

Jackie Lee — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:09:31 +0000

You’re going to lose some people… but if you’re targeting really specific keywords you’re going to get them at the END of the buying cycle when they’ve already done all the thinking and decding and they’re just googling for the best price or place to buy.

I think it’s smart to have some low priced items for sale, and some high priced items for sale.

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:10:44 +0000

Hi Jackie,

First off, I just want to tell you how much I love your fantastic Blueprint! Right now, I’m trying to decide on a cut-off price for amazon.com products to feature in my Christmas lenses and I have some questions.

For higher priced items (anything over, say, $200-300), do you ever worry about amazon.com’s short cookie duration of 24 hours? I know that when I am shopping online for some higher priced item, I take a fair amount of time (at least several days) to think things over before I finalize my purchase, and my guess is that many other people probably think much the same way, especially in this crummy economy.

What I worry about is that on the higher priced items, people will click on my links (from my Christmas lenses) to amazon.com but not add the item to their shopping cart within the first 24 hours. Perhaps they might bookmark the product webpage on amazon.com and come back later. Then, by the time they do decide to add the item to their shopping cart and finalize their purchase, the amazon.com cookie on their computer will have expired and I won’t get properly credited.

It seems to me that there is a trade-off between promoting lower-priced products and getting lower commissions, but having a higher immediate conversion rate and losing fewer prospective buyers due to cookies expiring, and promoting higher priced products but getting few or no commissions, not necessarily because the products are bad and don’t convert on amazon.com, but because the prospective buyers did not finalize their purchase before the 24 hour cookie expiration period because of hesitating over the higher prices.

Do you think there is such a trade-off, and if so, do you have a cut-off price above which you generally do not exceed on amazon.com products because of the 24-hour cookie?

Sorry this is so long. I hope I have worded my question clearly. Please tell me what you think.

By: Jackie Lee

Jackie Lee — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 15:32:34 +0000

to be approved for Amazon you do need a website. It can be as simple as a couple posts set up on a free blogger blog, but you’ve got to have something to show them. Also if you’re just redirecting urls to point to Amazon you might want to read through their TOS, to make sure that’s going to work. I also think it might be difficult to get good conversion doing that with physical products just because there isn’t a huge sales page to sell them… you really have to do more “pre selling” for physical products before they hit the amazon page.

Amazon commission starts at 4% and then goes up depending on how much you sell. When you jump to the next level everything you’ve sold from the beginning of the month jumps up to the new level as well.

By: Duy Nguyen

Duy Nguyen — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 10:41:44 +0000

Hi Jackie How are you?

I’ve been following your blog recently and to be honest, your blog is amazing! You’re offering so much useful information here. I’ve learned a lot about Squidoo and Affiliate marketing. But today I have some questions that need advices from you.

They’re about the affiliate program of Amazon.

The first question is about the registration phase. It looks like they want a bunch of information from me. I mean the “Your Website Profile” section. You know, I’m an affiliate, and I own many domain names but none of them are being hosted. I just simply redirect them to my affiliate links. What confuses me is Amazon requires my site’s information. I don’t have any “real” website (hope I made my point clearly), how can I provide them such information? Things like “what your website is about?” and “what is the URL of the website you will send traffic to Amazon?”, etc.

Another question is about the commission percentage. I believe I heard someone says that it’s 4% or 8% but I don’t remember. Could you please let me know? I used to work with Clickbank so I’m a little inexperienced with “physical” seller like Amazon LOL!

That’s all for today. And thanks again for providing us so much useful content. Best wishes for you and Hanna!

Duy.