All Posts Tagged With: "WordPress"

WordPress is a near ubiquitous blogging and content management systems out there. Not only do some of the biggest blogs out there like techcrunch utilize it but so do small niche sites that end up with a few pages before whithering into the ether, and everything in between, including NicheBuilder.net. But while ubiquitey makes WordPress platform a reliable proven choice it also means there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of sites that look just like yours. If you want to spend the money or you have the time and expertise you can contract out or develop a custom one off theme yourself. Since my expertise isn’t in PHP/CSS but rather .NET I decided I would purchase a theme. Why didn’t hire a developer to create a custom theme for me so the site would really stand out? Three reasons. One, I could still get a very clean, professional looking theme without spending a few thousand dollars. Two, if I want to start other niche WordPress sites, I would need a theme that I could use over and over as a starting point. Three, the theme developer I settled on offered an affiliate program (af).

Why was an affiliate program a factor in where I purchase my theme from? Simple, were I to ignore a potential revenue stream through the referral of new customers to the theme developer would be contrary to the whole point of this blog. Affilates programs are what are referred to as PPA/CPA programs, Pay Per Action or Cost Per Action depending on whether you are the publisher (affilate) or the advertiser (seller). I’ll be discussing affiliate programs and CPAs in great depth in future articles.

I settled on a theme from solostream (af), specifically, the Solostream 3-Column theme. Solostream utilizes e-junkie.com for their affiliate program. The sign up was easy but they don’t offer creatives for their various sellers which puts additional work on the affilate if they want to use more than text links, it’s not a huge issue but it would be nice and it highlights the differences between e-junkie and some of the big boys like Commission Junction. Regardless of where you get your theme from, search google there are numerous sources, take the time to get a good theme as the base for your site, you won’t regret it.

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