Niche-mkr.com

Now that you have a basic idea of how to set up Wordpress and optimize it for SEO (you watched the free videos, right?), you will need to know how to integrate affiliate ads and links to your site and posts. The free wordpress videos also demonstrate how to use the adsense and amazon plugins. On this site, you may have noticed links for adsense, ebay, amazon, and clickbank. There are as many affiliate programs online as there are niche products, but those listed above are the focus here. If you are promoting a specific affiliate product that has its own affiliate program, then they will provide your affiliate link for you and you can integrate it into your pages and posts.

You can join each affiliate program from their main site, but the ebay affiliate program uses Commission Junction (CJ) to manage it’s affiliate program. Just follow their sign up procedure and it will send you to CJ. Once you have joined CJ and included ebay as one of your affiliate programs, refer to the welcome emails for information regarding your ID number that you will need for the phpbay plugin. You can edit plugins from your Wordpress admin panel.

There are a lot of tweaks and setting up to do with Wordpress themes and plugins, but once you know how to do it, it will become automatic and each niche site will be easier to create as you progress.

You can download the free monetization zip file plugins from these links:

• adsense - once installed and activated, allows you to integrate adsense ads into your pages and posts. Another option is to find a wordpress theme that already has adsense integrated into it, like the Connections theme that this site is using (link at page bottom).
• amazon - once installed and activated, allows you to integrate amazon ads into your pages and posts based on keywords you specify. You can also select products to display from a list. (latest copy is for wordpress 2.1+).
• ebay - once installed and activated, allows you to integrate keyword based ebay auctions into your pages and posts. Just specify the keyword and enter 1 through 10 for how many auctions to display. The search engines can also read the auction ad text, so it will help with your site content. There is an instruction text file with this plugin. There is a pro version of phpbay for $39. You can read about it here if interested.

Here is an example of how the ebay plugin will display auctions on your site. With your ebay affiliate code embedded, you can earn a commission if the winning bidder clicked through from your site. I have selected to display 3 auctions with the keyword Apple Ipod. The free plugin allows up to 10 auctions to be display at once.

APPLE IPOD WHITE M9829LL/A 30GB MP3 PLAYER US $79.00 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Saturday Oct-11-2008 13:22:06 PDT Bid on this Item   | Watch this Item

MACALLY iPHONE 3G iPOD FM TRANSMITTER CAR HOLDER DOCK US $39.95 Auction Ends: Saturday Oct-11-2008 13:22:11 PDT Bid on this Item   | Buy this Item   | Watch this Item

Apple MA627LL/B iPod touch 16GB MP3 Player - Black US $162.50 (21 Bids) Auction Ends: Saturday Oct-11-2008 13:22:17 PDT Bid on this Item   | Buy this Item   | Watch this Item

There is no plugin available for Clickbank ads (that I know of), but for only $7, there is a script you can install on your site that will allow you to create ad blocks for clickbank products and then you can paste the code into your pages and/or posts. You can view the sales page for that here. Not a bad price if you intend to promote Clickbank products.

Once these plugins are set up with your affiliate IDs and you integrate them with your posts, it will begin to generate commissions for you as your site receives targeted visitors. If you get stuck on how to use a plugin, each one has a link to its home page within your Wordpress admin area. Just visit the plugin site and you should be able to get extra support.