This is an Idiots Guide to creating Bursts on Netleeks for Amazon Products using Amazon Affiliate Links.

A growing number of Squidoo lensmasters are joining Netleeks, a new promotional site that was created by Squidoo lensmasters with the idea of promoting lenses, as well as articles from other sites, and it can also be used very effectively to create articles with Amazon or other affiliate links.

Articles on Netleeks are called Bursts,  and a Burst basically consists of a Title and up to 5 Links to articles.  They are called Bursts because if you imagine the details of these links have been contained in a pipe, the pipe springs a leak, and the information bursts all over the net.  Well that’s pretty much what happens.

Let’s make this happen with some Amazon links shall we?

Before we go any further, you will need to be a member of the Amazon Affiliate Program.  You are right?

Good!  You should also create an Amazon Tracking Id specifically for Netleeks so that you can tell where your Amazon sales are coming from.  If you haven’t yet done this for any other sites, it’s a really good idea, otherwise when you get sales, how will you know if they came from Squidoo, Netleeks or any other site where you have places Amazon links.

My Amazon Tracking Id for Netleeks is netleekspoddys-20 – feel free to use it if you wish.

STEP ONE

Create a document using a text editor.  This will be used to store the template for our Burst.  Creating a template and then copying/pasting the details into Netleeks makes creating a Burst much easier and faster.

You can use Notepad or Wordpad, but I prefer to use Notepad++ which is a free editor that you can download.  If you start using this you will soon see why it’s popular with coders, as it allows you to open multiple files in multiple tabs, and it also remembers the tabs that you last had open.  Plus a whole lot more besides…

This is the information that I have in my Netleeks Template file.  I am going to create a Burst about Dragon Movies that you can download from Amazon.

You can see here the basic parts of my Burst which are as follows (did I mention that Notepad++ also shows you line numbers as well?):

Line 1 -The Burst Title
Lines 2-6 – The 5 Amazon Links
Line 8 – My Burst Tags
Line 10 – My Additional Text
Lines 12-14 – Text that I add to the bottom of every Burst to promote my Squidoo lenses.

The important part is to correctly format an Amazon Affiliate link, and having created a link, the two parts that you have to make sure are correct are the Product Id and the Tracking Id.  You can copy my Amazon links and just change these two sections as necessary.

STEP TWO

Right.  Now we need to select our Amazon products to include on our Burst.  Search on Amazon for the items that you want to include in your Burst.  I find it best to open up to 5 products in separate tabs in my browser.

Take a look at the url for my first product selection below, which is How To Train Your Dragon:

 

Since we have already formatted our Amazon Link in our Text Document, all we need to take from this one is the Product Code, which I have highlighted as you can see.  The Product Code can always be found immediately following the /dp/ close to the beginning of the url.

The best way to select this is to hover the mouse over the Product Code, then left click twice.  The Product Code should then highlight (two clicks usually highlights a word).

Then copy the highlighted text by pressing the Ctrl and C keys together (Ctrl-C).  You can always use this in Windows, even when there is no option to Edit-Copy.

Now switch to our Text Document, double click on the Product Code in our first Amazon Link, which should highlight it.  Now press the Ctrl and V keys together (Ctrl-V) which should paste the selected Product Code and replace the code that we selected.

All ok so far?  I hope so.  If not, go back and read the instructions again. Hopefully the light will soon come on.  Once you know how to do this, it’s very easy.

Repeat the process of formatting your Amazon Links for the next 4 products.

STEP THREE

Now you need to add some tags for your Burst, to help it get found by the search engines, and also to help it get indexed better in Netleeks.

The tags that I used for my Dragon Movies are:

dragons, dragon movies, movies about dragons, dragonheart, dragon wars, fantasy movies, train dragon, dragon training

STEP FOUR

Add some additional text to appear at the end of the Burst.  This can include some HTML, so you can add nicely formatted text, images, even videos if you wish to make your Burst more visually appealing.

STEP FIVE

Now the clever bit.  A Burst consists of a Title and up to 5 Links, with a space separating each of the parts.

Even though I created my Burst over the first 6 lines in my Text Document, when I select them and paste them into the Burst area at the top of the Netleeks page, then hit the Burst button, the data will be treated the same as if it was entered on one long line – but it’s a lot easier to read.

 

Having pressed the Burst button, in a few seconds your Burst will be created.

You then need to edit this to (a) select the best images for each link (I find Thumbnail 2 is generally the best), (b) edit the link titles (I generally just remove Amazon from the beginning), and optionally edit the text for each of the links.

Under the product links you should also see three more fields, where you can enter a Title, and paste your Description (lines 10-14 in my Text Document), and your Tags (line 8 in my Text Document).

CONCLUSION

You might need to Edit your Burst, Save it, then Edit a second time to get the edits to the Links to take.  Not sure why, but right now I find it necessary.

For more information, see How To Create A Burst on Netleeks.

You can see my finished Dragon Movies Burst HERE.

If you found this article useful, please share it to help others.

If you found any errors, omissions, or areas that can be improved upon, please let me know.