How To Add Amazon Product Links

As mentioned above, you don't actually need to sign up with Amazon Associates to promote their products on your lens. However, if you are already an Associate, you have the option to put on your own affiliate links, and potentially earn more.

Here are some facts to help you decide:

• Basic Amazon commission rate is 4%. This increases if you sell lots of items in a month.
• Because of the huge volume of sales it generates, Squidoo (probably) gets the maximum commission rate of 8.5%.
• Squidoo takes half of any commission that you make through your lens. 4.25% is as good as the basic rate.
• Using the Squidoo tag allows for your Lensrank to improve when you make a sale on a lens.

So, if you don't have an Associate account or you monthly sales are really low, then it's best to stick to the modules that Squidoo provides. The same is true, if you want to get your Lensrank up.

On the other hand, if you don't care for Lensrank, and if you can get a higher commission rate, then use your own associate tag. You only need to sell 7 items each month to get onto 6%, and if you sell over 111 items, you will get 7%.

There are some exceptions: Consumer Electricals (TVs, computers, etc) are capped at 4%, whether you use Squidoo's Associate tag or your own. If you do use the Squidoo tag, then you will have to share the commission. It's not all bad though: 2% on $2,000 is still a sizeable commission.

Wrap text around it

This is the easiest way to embed Amazon links into your lens. Simply paste the code at the beginning of your Text/Write module, and start your content immediately afterwards. Select between left and right aligned using the options in the tool.

Fusce orci purus, aliquet ac, aliquet a, mollis ac, est. Fusce eu ipsum. Fusce ac nunc. Maecenas congue erat at nisi. Proin pharetra. Duis consectetuer mauris nec est. Cras imperdiet elit vitae libero. Aliquam elit urna, venenatis nec, tincidunt nec, ullamcorper non, velit. Curabitur lacus mauris, cursus sit amet, hendrerit eget, aliquet volutpat, risus. In imperdiet justo interdum leo tempor lobortis. Suspendisse elit. Praesent leo felis, commodo in, tempus congue, sagittis a, ligula. Vestibulum eu augue sed tortor congue congue. Nulla arcu erat, bibendum nec, aliquam id, rhoncus a, nisi. Duis nisi turpis, ullamcorper non, fermentum sed, adipiscing quis, sapien. Integer malesuada tristique tellus. Pellentesque et nibh.

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Multiple links in a row

You can fit 2, 3 or maybe even 4 links in a row. This often looks good at the end of a piece of text. Paste in the code for the products immediately after each other, with no blank lines in between. You might want to tweak the widths of the paragraphs in this case, e.g. use 290px for 2 products, 190px for 3, and 145px for 4.

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If you have already got these links on your lenses, then you should periodically check the products are still valid. There is now this Amazon Link Error Report, which will tell you if any of your links point to products that have changed or been deleted. All you need to do is login with your Lensmaster name.