How to add an Aweber subscribe form to your Squidoo lens
November 13th, 2008 by 
John Dilbeck
In a previous post on another of my blogs, I wrote about adding subscribe forms on our Squidoo lenses:
Squidoo module request - Sign-up forms for Aweber mailing lists
Last week, Lewis Smile added a comment to the post and told me my dream was answered. Today, I finally found enough time to see what he was talking about.
Update: Before you get too excited about this, I’ve learned that the folks at Squidoo are working to defeat this “trick,” as it is being called. This means that any AWeber sign up forms on our lenses will stop working at any moment.
Please see the comments on this post for more information.
I purchased his report for only $7.00 and downloaded it immediately.
Well, that’s not exactly how I started. I read Lewis’ blog post, AT LAST! Aweber Opt In Forms On Your Lenses!, and read in the comments that he had an active form on his Squidoo Traffic Tricks lens.
There it was. Cool!
Being the frugal person that I am, I looked at the source code and saw that the form was actually a javascript widget that was powered by Clearspring.com.
Immediately, I grasped the concept. Lewis was using a widget as an intermediary between the Aweber javascript, which won’t work on a Squidoo lens, and the lens itself.
I joined Clearspring, but after a few minutes of looking around, I decided it would take longer to work out the details for myself than it would to purchase the report, download it, read it, and put what I learned to work.
If the report had been $47, or $27, or some other higher amount, I’d have learned how to do it myself. But, for a report that costs only $7.00, it was a no-brainer to just buy it.
You can find the report at SquidooTricks.com.
As someone who earns his living from affiliate marketing, it pains me to send you to such a valuable site without using an affiliate link, but the information here is too useful not to tell you how to get it for yourself - even if I’m not earning anything from it.
Sigh.
In just a few minutes, I bought the report, downloaded it, and read it.
My initial thoughts were correct. I probably could have worked it out for myself in an hour or two, but Lewis has done an excellent job of telling you just how to make this work for you.
I went to Aweber.com and added a new sign-up form for my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog. I use Aweber to manage email subscriptions for what I post to this blog, as well as a growing number of mailing lists I manage for myself and for my clients. I wanted to create a new form that I would use only on Squidoo lenses so I’d be able to track the source of new subscriptions.
That took maybe 10 minutes to do.
Following the instructions in Lewis’ report, I copied the code I’d need and proceeded to the next step - create the new widget on Clearspring.com.
Even though I’d not done anything but look around Clearspring for a few minutes, I found his instructions extremely clear and easy to follow.
It took maybe 20 minutes or so to create the new widget and another couple of minutes to add it to my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing lens on Squidoo.
(If I had broadband, it would have gone much quicker, but slow dial-up is still all that’s available here where I live.)
I didn’t follow all of Lewis’ instructions on creating the widget.
He advised us to hide the “get and share” links at the bottom of the widget. While I can see reasons for doing this, I don’t like to ever use code on a site that hides the text by making it the same color as the background.
Plus, I don’t mind if someone gets that widget and puts it on another site. I’m not sure why anyone would want to do it, but I’ll take all the subscribers I can get.
It took a total of maybe 45 minutes from the time I bought the report until I had an active Aweber sign-up form on my lens, and that includes downloading and reading everything.
Lewis has done a remarkable service for us by providing such clear instructions.
Now, all I have to do is add this Clearspring.com widget to the other lenses where I syndicate this blog.
Then, over the next few weeks, I’ll be doing the same thing for other mailing lists I manage through Aweber.com.
This has come at a particularly fortuitous time, because I am in the planning stages of setting up quite a few new mailing lists and Squidoo lenses. Lewis’ method of adding a subscribe form to a lens will make what I plan to do much easier and probably more effective.
Thanks Lewis. My dream really was answered.
Act on your dream!
JD
| 2.9 |
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Aweber Autoresponders, Squidoo Lenses, Squidoo Marketing, Web Services, email marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
[...] You can read more on my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog about how I followed Lewis’ method to add a live Aweber mailing list subscribe form on one of my Squidoo lenses:: How to add an Aweber subscribe form to your Squidoo lens. [...]
November 13th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
I had to chuckle to myself as I read this blog post - because I also bought the $7 info pack for the exact same reasons, and was equally as pleased with it. It’s nice when I buy something that actually is worth what I paid for it.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Hi CCGAL,
Welcome to 21st Century Affiliate Marketing and thanks for the comment.
I agree. I wish all the reports and ebooks I have purchased were as clearly written and as valuable as this one.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 14th, 2008 at 10:02 am
It looks like we should not get too excited about this, because the team at Squidoo are looking for a way to stop this method of using a Clearspring.com widget from working on our lenses.
See this thread at Squidu.com:
YES! A Form on a lens - iframes are back
I understand that iframes and javascript can do bad things, but there has to be a way that two companies like Squidoo and AWeber can work together to create a widget or module that will allow us to put mailing list subscription forms on our lenses without potential for misuse.
If you’re planning to put a lot of AWeber sign up forms on your lenses, you may want to think twice about it. I know this news has stopped me dead in my tracks.
Sigh.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am
OK, I’m a wee confused now. Should I save my 7 bucks?
And why would they want to stop it?
Dennis Edells last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…
November 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Hi Dennis,
Yes, you probably should save your $7.
In the past, there have been some devious lensmasters who used iframes and javascript to do some pretty nasty things on Squidoo, including, but not limited to, redirecting people to porn sites, stuffing cookies to steal affiliate commissions, and so forth.
So, they banned the use of iframes, forms, javascript, and other things on lenses.
Apparently, this method of using a Clearspring.com widget gets around the restrictions on javascript and forms and it will probably be disabled when the Squidoo techs can develop a way to do so.
I still have no idea why two companies such as AWeber and Squidoo can’t work together to create a widget or module just for adding AWeber sign-up forms to our lenses.
In the meantime, I’m just going to continue to work on the sites I control and put the AWeber forms on my pages.
We can still use Squidoo lenses to drive visitors to our sites, so I guess it’s not something worth getting all worked up about.
I went from happy, to mad, to calm about this whole issue in about 24 hours.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 15th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Is it possible Aweber has no idea there’s a problem, or even that people want it?
Heck, if they can hook up with Twitter, they should with Squidoo…..Hubpages, and maybe a couple others in the process.
Dennis Edells last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…
November 16th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Good morning, Dennis.
You bring up a good point. I know the issue is well known at Squidoo, but I don’t know if AWeber realizes how important it is to some of us. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to bring it to their attention. I’ll do that tomorrow.
Sending tweets to Twitter is much simpler than getting around Squidoo’s prohibition of forms, iforms, and javascript. Actually, I’m not sure that there is an easy way to do sign-up forms, given Squidoo’s past experiences.
Still, while they won’t allow the use of these HTML elements generally in their pages, I would think there would be a way to allow them in a specific module the two could work together to create.
I don’t really know the technical details of doing that, but it seems that two of the best companies could find a way to work together.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 16th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Yep, I’m sure if any two companies can work out the techie difficulties, they can.
I love the idea of you contacting Aweber on it, please keep us updated.
Dennis Edells last blog post..UPDATED - We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…
November 17th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
[...] I’ve been looking for a way to do this simple task on my Squidoo lenses for months. I thought I found a solution last week, and it worked very well, but it is being killed by [...]
November 17th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I wrote an open letter to Tom Kulzer, CEO and Founder of AWeber, and Seth Godin, Founder of Squidoo, and published it on a new lens at:
Can AWeber and Squidoo Work Together?
I also blogged about this at:
Can AWeber and Squidoo Work Together?
If you have any opinions, please feel free to respond to the lens or the blog, or both.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 17th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Very cool JD. How about getting a “petition” going blog style?
Round and round it goes with bloggers blogging about the situation all asking these guys to work something out…
Dennis Edells last blog post..$5 Paypal For The Best Favicon Idea!
November 19th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I don’t think we need a petition.
I got an email from Tom Kulzer, of AWeber, that said, “Someone on our development team is looking into its feasibility.”
I’m hoping they will be able to work something out so that those of us who need this functionality can make use of it.
However, I’m hoping other bloggers will pick up on this and pass the word, especially if they are Squidoo lensmasters and AWeber customers.
I have big plans for greatly increasing the number of mailing lists I’m going to be using next year. I know AWeber will play a big part in this and I’m hoping Squidoo will, too.
I can already put the signup forms on my websites, blogs, forums, communities, and almost everywhere I want to, except for Squidoo.
The main reason I want to be able to do it on Squidoo is because it makes it so easy to create highly-focused pages on a particular topic and they are well indexed by the search engines.
The second reason is because Squidoo changed the RSS feeds of each lens to show the most recent Squidcasts. Now that they’ve done this, we can set up email subscriptions to the lens updates, almost like a miniature blog.
That means I can create a lens about a particular business, product, service, or topic, and can incorporate a mailing list into the mix almost effortlessly - as long as we can have a way to get someone to sign up for the updates.
Then, whenever I make a significant change to the lens, all I have to do is post a Squidcast and it will automatically be posted to the appropriate list using AWeber’s RSS feed to email broadcast function.
It won’t kill my marketing plans for next year if AWeber and Squidoo don’t make it work, but it would cause a significant reduction in the ease of implementation since I’d have to find another way to get a visitor to a lens to sign up for the updates list by going off-site.
So, while it would not be a complete deal-killer if they can’t make it work, it would cause some problems with my plans.
I also have some ideas I’m not ready to talk about in public, yet, because I want to see if I can make them work, first.
Act on your dream!
JD
November 20th, 2008 at 11:51 am
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what you do with it all. next year I will be getting more into Squidoo, Hubpages, Forums and the like as well.
Dennis Edells last blog post..A Monkey Can Do Your Job!
December 30th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Squidoo is so great! When you learn how to use it effectively it can be a wonderful asset. I have used squidoo for at least a year now and it has provided me great results. Thanks for the tips here. I appreciate it.
January 9th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I was about to follow your lead and purchase the guide, but then read your comments. Guess I’ll use the $7 towards a domain name and just forward traffic to a standard squeeze page.
Kelly Verge´s last blog post..Another “Do-follow” Blog and Forum Search
February 25th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Hi,
I offer the guide on how to add email opt in forms to a squidoo lens, from my lens, for free.
http://www.squidoo.com/How-To-Add-An-Opt-In-Autoresponder-In-Squidoo
The guide was just updated to reflect recent site changes that both Aweber and Clearspring have instituted.
As well, when you download the guide, I will also send you information on advanced form tips like adding images, changing the look of your buttons and adding simple animation.
You can see what I am talking about on my lens.
Take care,
Des
February 27th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Good morning, Des.
Welcome to the conversation.
I went to your lens and downloaded the guide. I skimmed it, and it looks like it details pretty much the same method that Lewis Smile described.
The last I heard, the folks at Squidoo said that this method would probably not continue to work.
Have you heard anything different from Squidoo?
Act on your dream!
JD
February 27th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Hi JD…
The only place I heard about that we here on your blog????
Where did you hear it?
Des
February 27th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Hi Des,
This was a popular topic on SquidU after Lewis released his report.
There was a topic about it at:
http://www.squidu.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24849
Please see Gil’s response on 11/14/2008 in that thread. That was the last official response I saw from anyone at Squidoo.
Hang on a second. I’ll do a search to see if anything has been posted more recently…
Nope. I can’t find anything more recent.
I have a bunch of lenses planned for later this year and I want to put an Aweber sign-up form on each of them, but I’m not going to do it until I get official word from Squidoo that it won’t stop working.
I’ve asked the CEOs of both Aweber and Squidoo to develop a module to make this easy, and haven’t heard back since the first of the year.
If they won’t do something official, I’ll develop the webpages elsewhere. I’ve already had to delete 50 lenses when another company pulled the rug out from under my feet.
You can read more about all of this on the original post at the top of this page and some of the comments in this thread.
Act on your dream!
JD
May 17th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Hey John,
I just wanted to say that my method does indeed still work! Opt in forms are still going onto squidoo lenses.
It has worked ever since I released the guide at SquidooTricks.com.
I had to update it one time, but it still works.
Lewis
May 20th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Good evening, Lewis.
I’m happy to hear that your method still works on Squidoo lenses.
The negative feedback from the Squidoo staff had me convinced that they would be disabling it in the near future, but apparently they haven’t done so.
Thanks for the update.
I’m planning several lenses where it will come in handy.
Act on your dream!
JD
October 28th, 2009 at 12:56 am
sorry but I can not get it to work, clearspring does not allow anymore java or html to go on squidoo, only flash and image do.
so having aweber or alike javascript or the html code do no good!
What can be done, how does it work now?
Ken
October 28th, 2009 at 5:29 am
Hey Ken,
if you are following along to my squidootricks guide you must have an old version (did you get it aaages ago?). The step by step taught in the latest version works just fine.
Just email me for an update and I’ll get it out to you.
Lewis
Lewis´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at
November 20th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Good post I have also been looking for a way to add emails to Opt in list, Thanks
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 am
Good morning, Edward.
Welcome to our discussions.
I’m happy to help.
Act on your dream!
JD