How to use SquidUtils

Then simply enter your lensmaster ID and click "login"

Some of the great things you can do with squidutils involves adding module for your Amazon affiliate links as well as Ebay modules. I prefer using squidutils for this over the Amazon affiliate site as it just feels easier, more user friendly and has some nice options for how you want to display your affiliate image link.

There's also some great RSS feed options. You can add RSS feeds with constantly updating Amazon products associated with your lense topic as well as ebay auctions. Squidutils is also kind enough to report any broken Amazon affiliate links you may have. Let's say for example that you have a link to a product which is discontinued or no longer available, Squidutils will let you know that there is a broken link and even let you know where it is. This helps to make cleaning your lense easy.

With so many great affiliate options available, lets take it one step at a time. First lets see how to add an amazon product link using Squidutils.

Squidutils provides a nice, easy to use interface for adding your amazon affiliate product links. Once your logged into squidutils.com you can simply follow the steps shown in the screenshots below and you're on your way to adding your amazon product links!

First you can click on "amazon product links" from either of the two locations shown below:

Then enter in your amazon associate tag and the ASIN or URL of the product you would like a link for:

To find the ASIN / URL just go into Amazon and look for product you want. See below screenshot:

Once you input the tag and ASIN you simply click "get HTML code" and it generates the code below as well as a text link. As you can see in the screenshot there are options for right/left alignment as well as a large or small images. Per the example below, I went with the large image option and chose left alignment.

To see the end result of this, see the module below:

Click here to see an example of what the product link/image looks like in a lense

If you aren't focusing on one specific product, but rather a few or a bunch in the same category than the Amazon RSS feed is another great utility provided in squidutils.

First you can click on "amazon feeds/amazon rss feeds" from either of the two locations shown below:

Then as shown in the screen shot below, choose what type of feed you would like to use, for purposes of this tutorial, let's choose "items by category":

Enter in your Amazon Associate Tag and on the right hand side drill down to the category of producs you would like to display. Let's drill down to video games/categories/wii/racing and flying/car:

Now choose your format style. I'm going to go with small images & HTML this time as well as "left align images". Then once you chose the desired settings, click "Get RSS Feed HTML"

Once you do so you will see your RSS Feed link at the bottom of the page as well as link to preview what the feed will look like:

After clicking on the preview link, you'll be treated to a preview of how the feed will appear once you've added it to squidoo. See below:

And there you have it, You'll even noticed they provided you with your RSS Feed link in the preview screen as well in case you don't feel like going back to the previous page to retrieve it.

If you want to post EBAY RSS Feeds in your squidoo module, it doesn't get any easier than doing it with squidutils!
As you will soon see, adding Ebay feeds is just as, if not more simple than adding the Amazon feeds. When you first access this option from squidutils, you'll notice the following message:

As of July 20th, this tool can only be used on Squidoo, and only with Squidoo's Campaign ID. All clicks will be automatically attributed to the lens on which the RSS feed appears. Any commissions earnt will be shared with Squidoo, and will appear on the 'Revenue' stats tab for the lens.

I believe what they are saying here is that you cannot use your Ebay affiliate tag for promoting Ebay products within a squidoo lense. GREAT! One less step to worry about.

To generate an Ebay RSS feed within squidutils, first you can click on "ebay feeds" option from the left side of the screen

Then a window opens where you can specify your parameters for the type content you'd like to promote in the ebay RSS Feed":

Then you need to enter the parameters. For this example we will use "Optimus Prime" as the search query and chose to display "new items only" Then simply click "Get RSS Feed URL"

As you can see, the Link for the RSS Feed is displayed below along with the preview of what it will look like once added to your squidoo lens

There you go! The link is now ready to be added to a squidoo lens. The process for adding the feed to the lens is the same exact process as adding an amazon RSS feed so I won't go into detail. But incase you easily forget, not a problem. See the bottom of the above screenshot where it says "What to do next". Squidutils is nice enough to provide you the steps at the bottom of the preview.

SquidUtils also provides other useful tools other than ones to suit your affiliate marketing needs. SquidUtils makes checking your lens statistics easy since they provide many of the same diagnostics tools included within your default Squidoo dashboard.

1) Ping your lens.

This is the ping tool included with SquidUtils. It will notify a number of blog search services that your lens has been updated and has been formulated for squidoo optimization. This may be a useful tool for assisting with getting your new lenses indexed by search engines.

2) Backlink Checker.

The backlink checker tool included with SquidUtils will find all the backlinks to your Squidoo Lens. This is helpful in seeing which other websites have links to your Lens. They are grouped by domain name

3) Lens Health-check.

This tool runs a health check on your lens which provides details to assist with optimizing your lens and maximizing it's potential.
It basically provides information similar to that of the health check included in your standard squidoo dashboard, but conveniently located as an option in SquidUtils as well.

There are some other useful tools located under the "LensMaster Tools" section of squid utils. They are Advanced Dashboard, LensMaster Feed and Squidoo search. Let's take a deeper look at these tools:

Advanced Dashboard

Simply click on this handy tool, enter your lensmaster user name and BAM, your window will open up to a modified version of the standard squidoo dashboard with different sort options, stats & other features. See the below screen shot for a glimpse of the advanced dashboard:



LensMaster Feeds

This is another handy option with provides RSS Feed links to your squidoo lenses, groups and other variables for other RSS Feeds you may want to generate for your squidoo lenses. See the screen shot below for an example of one I generated based on my lenses:



Squidoo Search

This simple yet effective tool allows you to search for squidoo lenses and groups. This is great if you want to find lenses on a particular topic or if you are looking for groups in a certain niche to add specific lenses to.

The items contained in the "Lens Workshop Tools" sections of Squidutils include the following sections: create tables, workshop add-on and browser toolbar.

These have already been covered extensively in some other lenses I've come across in my travels so here are the links to provide some useful information on these sections:

Creating Tables with SquidUtils

Adding the SquidUtils Browser Toolbar

Lens Workship Add-on