Celebrating Six Years On Squidoo

My Squidoo TrophiesYesterday was my 6th Squidiversary on Squidoo! Here’s a pic of the new 6 year trophy that appeared on my Squidoo bio page last night. I’m not sure if that’s a cake or a cupcake.

My Squidoo journey started as an experiment. I had no idea that I’d stick with it for six years. But I’ve had fun building lenses and learned a lot along the way. Making a little money helps, too. I wouldn’t have been able to invest this much of my time on Squidoo if not for the money.

Speaking of money, did you know that when Squidoo came out of beta, lenses made about 25 cents per month from the ad pool?

That was before the pay tiers were added. Now, a top tier lens gets over $50 from the ad pool payout. So Squidoo has grown at a strong rate. I’m looking forward to being part of Squidoo’s continued growth for (hopefully) many more years.

I was also reminded yesterday of how strong and helpful the Squidoo community is. That’s something that I’m glad has been a part of Squidoo since the early days.

To everyone who’s ever rated, liked, lens rolled, blessed, commented on, shared or just visited one of my lenses in the last six years…Thank You!

Catch of the Month: Delicious Dump Cake Recipe

Each month I’ll feature a lens that I discovered while exploring Squidoo.

This month’s catch was discovered by my wife (who is not a lensmaster, despite my best efforts). She was recently at an event where she tried dump cake for the first time and loved it. Last week she went online, found the recipe and made one.

As we were enjoying the delicious cake she made, my wife told me there was a Squidoo lens on page one of the recipe search results that she visited and liked. Naturally, I was curious to see it…right after a 2nd serving of cake. The lens she found was Delicious Dump Cake Recipe by Susan52. It’s a good one and worthy of representing Squidoo on page one.

Susan does a nice job of providing the right amount of recipe related info. There are tips on making a bigger or smaller cake, ideas for recipe variations, a video and links to helpful products. My favorites were the apron and refrigerator magnets with the dump cake recipe on them. Brilliant idea.

This was the first time I’ve seen the recipe module in action (I haven’t visited many recipe lenses). The module looks clean and professional with a pic of Susan’s dump cake and a link to the printable version. Definitely make use of it for your recipe lenses.

Susan’s recipe is almost identical to the one my wife used. The key difference was shredded coconut…the dump cake my wife first tried had coconut and she wanted a recipe with it (maybe Susan will add it as a variation). We learned after making the first dump cake with 1 stick of butter that Susan’s recommendation to use 1 1/2 sticks is better. That’s how much we’ll use next time. Recommendations based on personal experience like that will help any lens stand out and add value for the reader.

The cake is delicious and the kids loved it. Maybe now I can convince my wife to build her own recipe lenses…

Image by Mac33