Helium is essentially a site for the writing purist while Squidoo, while also affording excellent opportunities to the traditional writer, is more geared towards sales and marketing than the traditional form of writing. I use both extensively and have found that each can be used to complement my activities on the other extremely effectively.
Helium is an article writing site. Categories for the articles are listed on the left of the home page and are extremely numerous and varied. The writer simply selects a suitable title for his article from one of the sub-categories and submits it to be rated on the site against others which have been written to the same title. The performance of the individual articles will determine the extent to which the writer may be paid.
Helium pays its writers a share of the AdSense revenue it obtains from Google but also in several other potential fashions. Dependant upon how prolific the writer is and how well received his articles are, he may earn a series of writing stars which will qualify him for up front payments for each article written. These payments vary from $0.50 for one writing star to $2.50 for five. It is also possible to earn a $1.00 payment on top of this if the writer is the first to submit an article to a suggested title or one which he indeed suggested.
A number of competitions are held on a weekly basis which allows the writer to compete for three prizes of $60, $40 and $30 in each instance. External publishers also request articles via Helium which can afford the writer sometimes quite lucrative payments should his submission be selected.
Squidoo is a site where the writer builds a series of miniature websites, called "lenses." He does so by selecting from a magnificent array of different types of building blocks called, "modules." While the text module allows the writer to write in conventional fashion, there are a great many others whereby he can include such as photos, external links and products to sell via the likes of Amazon or eBay for commissions.
Squidoo pools its AdSense revenue and distributes it on a monthly basis dependant on the performance of each individual lens. There are no limits to the number of lenses any one writer may have so a high number of good lenses may prove moderately lucrative in this respect. There is no question, however, that the way to make money on Squidoo is in affiliate sales as described above.
Helium writers can link to their Squidoo lens on their profile, or "About Me," page on Helium while the writer can link from any Squidoo lens to relevant articles on Helium via the link module. This provides reciprocal back links in both instances, which is of course always to be desired.
Helium and Squidoo are the two sites I use most frequently on the Web and I find that one complements the other more than adequately. Why not sign up to both today?