Arr... This Be The Captain! Thanks for Stopping by to check out my piratey bag of Squidoo Tricks! If you are new here, you might want to get free updates and squidoo tricks delivered straight to you via RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Just an FYI,
I’ve finally found a way to convert my training videos to a format that would upload on YouTube. If anyone is interested in seeing them again, or putting them on your lenses (hint, hint 
)� They can be found under Captain Squidoo.
The Next series of videos will be on using CJ to maximize your Squidoo Earnings. From the feedback I’ve gotten, this seems to be a subject area that many people wish to know more about.
The Newsletter Subscribers will get the first crack at the first video ‘Commission Junction Orientation’ , so make sure you’ve signed up. (psst.. the form is at the top of the left sidebar)
-The Captain
The New Year is a time for goal setting. Anything is possible. Looking back on 2007 and my Squidoo experience, I get really excited.
Excited about the people I’ve met.
Excited about the potential of Squidoo.
Excited about helping others learn about it.
I’ve set a new Squidoo goal for myself in the 2008 year.
I want to have 1,000 Published lenses on my Dashboard by my wedding date - Friday, June 27, 2008.
Currently, I’m sitting at 223. That means The Captain will need to get busy. 778 lenses in 180 days is about 4 1/3 lenses a day or 30 a week.
Not only do I want to have 1,000 Published lenses by June 27, I also want to have the lenses hold up the standards of quality I outline in my Lens Publishing Checklist. If anyone out there feels my work beginning to slip, please feel free to contact me or drop a line right here.
I challenge all of you to also come up with a definite goal that is Squidoo related for the coming year. It could be a traffic goal, number of lenses built, amount of $$$ made, whatever you like.
Post your goals up here and I will create a Page on Captain Squid just so we can track them all and see how we do. (I won’t add your goal to the page if you don’t want me to)
Am I Crazy to make this a goal? or just mostly nuts?
-The Captain
Seth and the team over at HQ have been super busy, as always. The latest in the line of Squidoo Developments is experimenting with a new ad setup.
The New Squidoo Ad Setup
The old Google Adsense Ads remain on the page. A new 300 pixel ad has been added in the upper right hand corner, a tower ad to the right sidebar, and a banner ad at the footer of every page.
These ads appear to be part of a CPM (Cost Per Impression) network where Squidoo (and therefore lensmasters) get paid based on how many times the ads are seen, not clicked on.
In Seth’s year end letter he mentioned that they get 6 million unique visitors a month and about 12 million visits. That a ton of impressions with three ads a page…
Is there a precedent for these ads?
The ads don’t really bother me but I wanted to see if they were over the top so I started checking out some other news sites. Surprisingly, the ad placement is very consistent with other major media sites on the web, from the big blogs all the way up to CNN.com .
Is everyone screaming about how they are the end of the world?
Of Course.
Are the new ads worth it?
Well, lets do some quick math here.. 12 million visitors at 2 pageviews a piece with 3 impressions per page is 72 million ads served in a month. If Squidoo get’s paid $0.50 CPM (which is pretty cheap) that brings in $36,000 in extra revenue. After Charity and Squidoo’s cut that leaves an additional $17,100 every month for Lensmasters.
To give you an idea of how much this is, that is enough to raise the top adsense payout tier to $10 per lens and the second tier to over $2.00 per lens.
Potentially doubling the Captain’s adsense payout? Definitely worth a look….
-The Captain
