1. eBay’s reporting is still slow.
2. when eBay (or my generator or whatever) asks for your ‘Campaign ID’ , that is the 10-digit number of the campaign, not the name of the campaign that you gave it.
3. Currently, you HAVE to add some kind of tracking or the RSS feed won’t work. That’s not my doing, that’s straight from eBay.

4. The minimum payout for the eBay program is only $5, which is probably a smart move by eBay since it will probably draw a lot of smaller sellers to them.
5. EPN payouts to paypal do not have any fees associated with them.

I’m still working on some new tricks and such, but let me know how the new feed generator is working for you!

For the month of April, all the links for both Commission Junction and eBay will be live. All the links you have switched over to the new ebay program will earn an extra 5%! At the end of the month, your CJ links all walk the plank.

I’m working on modifying my current Ebay RSS Feed Generator. I will have it fully updated to the new eBay RSS feeds hopefully tonight or tomorrow. Ebay has now included the ability to add SID codes to RSS feeds which is a huge step forward. Due to this development, I’m considering releasing my feed generator as just an easier and faster way to generate eBay Links.

Go apply for the new program at ebaypartnernetwork.com

If I release the feed generator for free would people use it?

-The Captain

Socialthing is a site which will take your Digg, Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, Del.icio.us, YouTube, Flickr, Last.fm, LiveJournal and Vimeo profiles and combine the activity on your profile and your friends profiles into a ‘lifestream’.

The Lifestreaming concept is still very new and a lot of companies are trying to get it right. Another example of a Lifestreaming site would be Spokeo.

Why bring this up?

I have 10 more invites to the Private Beta and wanted to see if anyone wanted one. If you do, drop a comment and let me know.

Why you should keep an eye on these sites:

a Lifestream is a tricky thing. On one hand, there are some legitimate concerns with seemingly recording every action you take on the web. On the other hand it seems like there are 30 new services every week that people want you to try and keeping track of it all is very difficult.

Socialthing! shows some promise from what I saw, being very clean to use and fast. However, they are going to have to increase the number of services you can pull information from in order to really scale. Still, they have most of the big ones and it is worth checking out if just to see what these kind of websites do.

-The Captain

BDKZ has started a blog devoted to Hey! Monkeybrain called Cowabunga!. I think it’s a great and original concept that allows blogging about hot issues (Like Pirates Vs. Ninjas) while incorporating Squidoo at the same time. Very fun and very cool. Great job BDKZ ! (Psst… Ive got a few debates going on Chickens and Eggs, Star Trek and Star Wars, and Paper or Plastic )

Duel Modules now� load when a page loads making them Evergreen! More evergreen modules is good for search engines and by extension, good for lensmasters!

Fluffanutta has released the latest version of his Advanced Squidoo Dashboard Utility on SquidUtils.com . It allows some cool new organization methods such as sorting by lens category and lens type, which are both really really useful.

Meanwhile Back at SquidU:

There’s the beginnings of a good thread on Directories and Blog Submission sites for Squidoo Lenses. Look for some of these to get added to the Squidoo Training Center this week.

Sneaky Observation of the week:

There’s only 153 Squid Lit lenses… have you read a book or 20 lately?

The New Training Center has all the videos and the Free Lens Publishing checklist as always, but I’ve been working on some new goodies that are also included.

Commission Junction Training is Here!

I have Completed my Commission Junction Training Video Series. The 5-part Series walks you from a basic overview of the CJ interface all the way through finding, applying for, and inserting advertisers into your Squidoo Lenses (or anywhere else you want to!) . From there I offer in depth discussion about how to set up your reporting, which is probably one of the most useful and under-utilized aspects in all of CJ.

Power Squidoo Workbooks and Guides�

In Addition, I’ve compiled 3 separate workbooks and guides to help you through building, tracking and marketing your Lenses.

• Pro Lensmaster Workbook -� Walks you step-by-step through the lens research and design process, teaching you how to think about each lens as you attack it. A fantastic practical resource that I use myself.
• Lens Tune-Up Guide – Squidoo Lenses perform best when they are well maintained. This nifty guide will not only walk you through some recommended maintenance items, but will also help you to keep track of what lenses you have performed maintenance on.
• Special Report: Article Marketing on Squidoo – This Special Report was put together with the assistance of Remarkable Communication and is absolutely fantastic. It covers the ins and outs of writing articles aimed at building links and driving traffic onto your lens like an avalanche. A can’t miss read.

Squidoo Power User Super-Tools�

CJ-eBay Affiliate RSS Feed Generator - This tools is huge. I almost kept it to myself instead of including it into the training center. It’s that good. What are the two major beefs against creating your very own RSS feeds of eBay items and using them in your lenses instead of the eBay module?

1. �It’s difficult and time consuming to create the feeds. – Every time I try to use Ebay to create an RSS feed with my affiliate link embedded in the listings, it seems to take FOREVER. I was sick of it.
2. You can’t track individual feeds. - No tool for eBay affiliates allows you to embed specific tracking codes into each feed. So, you don’t know where your sales are coming from if you have multiple feeds across your lenses and other sites as well.

Those Problems are no longer an issue. I’ve developed a new tool that lets you make eBay Affiliate RSS feeds in seconds, not minutes or hours. I was able to retro-fit over 50 of my lenses with these new feeds in a little over an hour! It’s just that fast. In addition, you can add tracking code so you know exactly where your converting traffic is coming from. This is huge for determining which lenses to focus on sending traffic to (especially when you get up near the 300 lens mark and there are only so many hours in the day..)

Along with all this new stuff, I’ve got two packages that combine many or all of these super sweet tools and guides:

Commission Junction Gold Training
Commission Junction Platinum Training

Each week, I’m planning on adding at least one new feature, guide, or tool for all of you to use.� There is going to be a mix between super useful and informative free stuff as well as some products that are so powerful I just can’t give them away.

Of course, I put my full reputation behind the training, education, and tools on the site because I feel that it really is that good. If you don’t like it or find it useful, I’ll even give you a refund in the first 30 days. The only thing I ask is for a little feedback on why you didn’t like the item or couldn’t use it (This way I can learn as well!)

Take a look at the new Training Center and let me know what you think!

The Co-Brands are nice, but what if you could go the extra mile and use some custom text sizes, colors, lines and more? Yesterday, Fluffanutta (web, twit, FB) released� lens on CSS Tricks for Squidoo. Focusing on ways to easily create columns and float different elements around your modules, it’s definitely a must read for those of you using affiliate programs or linking pictures in modules.

Fluffanuttta’s sweet new lens should not be confused with Glen’s monstrous Advanced HTML tricks for Squidoo. While Glen’s is great for anything and everything to do with text formatting, Fluffanutta’s is great for learning how to move blocks of pictures and text around in your text/write modules.

Fluffanutta’s Lens receives a hearty Arrrrr from Captain Squid and is now enshrined in the Captain’s Picks.

If you have a lens that you would like to have the Captain review for a chance to make Captain’s Picks, leave the URL in the comments. Be warned though, if your lens isn’t up to snuff, I might make ye walk the plank…

However, there are some common lensbuilding and squidoo techniques that many people use that are just plain wrong. So, I thought that I’d debunk a few of those for you piratey squids this morning.

1. Squidoo RSS Feeds show google new information everytime someone visits - False -� the RSS feed is run on Javascript (AJAX), not php. Technospeak aside, this means that google can see your module title, description, and subtitle of RSS feeds. However, there are some Squidoo modules that will show different content to google every visit.
2. Excessive keyword tagging can hurt – Sometimes - I always recommend starting a lens with 8-15 keywords and then adding long tail terms as they are discovered. This is more about relevancy than number. I’ve got a lens with the full 40 keywords being used that is getting over 1k hits a week. I’ve got others where I’ve gone back and found I did a terrible job tagging them and only have a few tags that could be more relevant. worry about good relevant tags, not about having ‘too many good tags’.
3. You can’t make any money with Squidoo - If you believe this one you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog.. and whatever you do, don’t look here.
4. Google has Slapped Squidoo – Ahh the infamous ‘Google Slap’. Yes, a penalty was applied to Squidoo pages last July. Squidoo and Seth immediately set about beating up on some spam that had snuck into the system. They addressed the problem and traffic has been on the rise ever since August. Google is constantly changing its algorithm to rank on many different factors. I have some lenses that do great with google and some that don’t. Google is going to show what they think the most relevant search results are at the top of the pages. So, provide relevant content to your topic and Google will find your lens.
5. Gil’s Pony is the Secret to Lensrank - Actually, This one may be true…

-The Captain

Fluffanutta has written an exceptional article on Primary Tagging as a forum post. I’m going to repost it here after offering a few of my thoughts on Primary Tagging.

1) If your lens is about polka dotted teddy bears, I would just use ‘Teddy Bears’ as my Primary Tag. (as an example)

2) Primary Tags are going to be a careful balance between choosing a tag that has more than one or two lenses under it, but not choosing some of the most general tags on Squidoo (i.e. Marketing and Music should not be your primary tags)

3) Primary tagging has an effect on search results withing squidoo as well as on ‘tags’ pages. You can look at tags pages by either clicking on the ‘More Lenses About Primary Tag‘ link on the lens or by going to the Tag Cloud.

�Fluffanutta’s Initial Post: (Reminder: Check the Forum Post, the Follow-up Tips have been excellent also)

The Primary Tag is the first tag you get to define when creating your new lens, and it is an often misunderstood and very under utilised by many Lensmasters. Admittedly, it doesn’t seem do a whole lot, but there are some important points to note:

- In some lens formats (e.g. Ever.com and SquidWho) the primary tag appears at the very top of the page, next to “Explore more:”.

- Most lenses (maxxed) have a box in the side bar titles “Explore more…”, containing links to the Category and Primary Tag of the lens, plus all the groups it belongs too.

- Another feature of the sidebar (which is not always present) is the tag list, which is usually headed by the Primary Tag (on un-maxxed lenses), and then the first 5 regular tags (in alphabetical order). The remaining tags are hidden, and search engines may ignore these ones.

- Every appearance of the Primary Tag on your lens adds weight to that key phrase on your lens.

In addition, I am working on a new project that will make these Primary Tags even more important! So, you need to make sure that your these tags are as optimal as possible.

Here are some tips:

1. Your Primary Tag wants to be the most important key phrase that you can think of. For example, if your lens is about a person or a product, stick to just their name.

2. Keep your tag to just 2 or 3 words, where possible. One word is not always specific enough (unless the subject is a strong brand like Pepsi), and more than 3 words can sometimes be too specific. Of course, it does depend on your subject matter.

3. Don’t simply repeat your Lens title again (even though this is the default when building a lens). Your title should include as many keywords as you can sensibly fit (no keyword stuffing!), while your Primary Tag is about your key phrase.

4. Format your Primary Tag nicely – keep it Capitalised, spelt correctly (!) and don’t include any special characters or quotes (“). Use spaces between words, not dashes or underscores.

5. Make sure you repeat your Primary Tag as a regular tag too. The tags appear as the Meta Keywords at the top of the page, and you don’t want your key phrase to be missing from it.

6. Pick a Primary Tag which is popular, i.e. people will be likely to be searching for it and other lenses are might also have the same Primary Tag.

Here are some examples: Doctor Who :: Discworld :: Digital Camera Accessories :: Smart Phones

Bad examples: The Whole Lens Title Again :: Kee Frase Spelt Wong :: lowercasewithnospaces :: “Phrase in Quotes”

I hope that people remember these tips – I need to go and change a lot of my own Primary Tags having just looked at a few of them. And remember – I’m developing a project that’ll bring these tags in to their own…

How it works -

Very similar to eBay, you can place listings for sale, offer Squidoo related services via Classifieds, or buy lenses from other lensmasters. Fixed Price, Buy it Now, and different auction lengths are all supported.

I’ve also got Paypal integration and Google Checkout should be coming soon.

Listing Lenses on the auction house is 100% free. There are some fees for Classifieds and listing Upgrades (bold, featured, etc.) as well as a 2% final value fee (which is less than a third of what eBay charges last I checked..).

I’m planning on starting an Adwords campaign to drive traffic to the site, so get your lenses up quick!

Special for Captain Squid Readers -

If you haven’t signed up for my Newsletter yet, go over to Sell My Lens and sign up from there. I’ll deposit $5 in fee credit in your account to play around with.

If you already HAVE signed up for my email, contact me and let me know your login to Sell My Lens. I’ll give you $5 for free also!

Questions? Let me know. Also let me know what you think of the site design.

-The Captain

1. You can now communicate directly to your visitors with little thoughts and tidbits. This is awesome.
2. You can announce new events or updates across the squidoo universe (well, YOUR squidoo universe)

This is good. Really good.

But how do you promote your squidcasts to others ? Each Lens’ RSS Feed will show the casts you send out for that lens.

This effectively means that you can get the RSS aggregators (Zimbio, Technorati, etc.) to treat your lens as a blog.

Wait a minute.. submitting ALL of my lenses to these sites AND writing casts for each lens? That will take forever and probably piss off all your fans with all those casts.

Wouldn’t it be nice to submit ALL of your squidcasts as ONE RSS feed? Yes, it would.

But wait, there isn’t a way to promote that RSS feed because it doesn’t exist…

That’s what the Captain’s for!

I have written a yahoo Pipe that allows you to create a feed for ALL your squidcasts. When you submit this feed to blog sites, your feed is updated every time you write ANY squidcast.

How to use it:

Go visit the Pipe here:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/captainsquid/fan_feed

Enter your lensmaster name. Your SquidCast Feed will be automatically generated.

right-click on the ‘more options’ link and click ‘copy link location’.

Now paste your new uberfeed into whatever RSS submittor you want! Need some Ideas? Check out my posts on Free RSS Submission Sites and Using Zimbio to automatically promote your site.

Ta Da!

If you are looking for some more sneaky tricks, make sure and sign up for the newsletter. The first copy goes out this weekend!

-The Captain