WordPress Theme with AdSense and Clickbank Ads Need Advice

I've been selling SEO/AdSense ready WordPress themes for years and have been selling them quite cheap (£10 a theme) via PayPal. Before selling them I used to give them away for free, still got some out of date ones (not updated since WordPress 2.2ish) available for free at http://www.morearnings.com/category/wordpress-themes/.

I've created a derivative of one of the AdSense/SEO themes I sell (Talian 04)that now includes Clickbank ads with keywords used being automated (this is an important feature, if you added Clickbank to WordPress it wouldn't select the keyword automatically).

Basically you add your Google AdSense publisher ID and your Clickbank username by editing a couple of files and the theme is ready to go, (less than one minute to setup) you then build your sidebars via widgets (like any theme) to select which sidebar ads you want etc... (lots of choice).

Each AdSense and Clickbank ad can be turned off individually (up to 6 AdSense ads for example) or all Clickbank/all AdSense ads turned off leaving just a WordPress SEO theme: Talian 04 is the best WordPress SEO theme available today. AdSense and Clickbank colours etc... can be changed, ad sizes etc... changed so there's a lot of options for those who like to mess around or for those who haven't got a clue just add the AdSense publisher ID and Clickbank username and forget the rest (very user friendly).

I offer really good support via the current themes sales page like http://www.google-adsense-templates...talian-with-adsense-and-seo-optimisation.html (closing on 200 comments on that page alone). I'm always looking for new ways to improve the themes.

Since this version includes Clickbank ads it makes sense to start selling the theme via Clickbank with affiliates.

I've not sold a Clickbank product before (promoted Clickbank products as an affiliate), so not sure the best way to set things up? Been wanting to set one up for sometime, but this is the first theme that makes sense to sell via Clickbank.

Since I sell the themes for only £10 each which I understand is not enough money to entice potential Clickbank affiliates (I wouldn't promote them as an affiliate for £5) I'm thinking of creating a membership site that gives access to all my themes including the new one: you can see the current themes at http://www.google-adsense-templates.co.uk/.

Obviously I'll run the Clickbank affiliate part under a different domain (maybe a sub-domain of the above domain) as I understand affiliates don't like their traffic leaked into AdSense ads, outgoing links etc... I'll probably convert the current site into a support site for customers and stop selling themes one at a time.

The new theme is based on the Talian 04 theme (see above site for AdSense only version information) which I've got a working prototype at http://www.warcraft-world.co.uk/.

There's 13 paid for WordPress themes and 2 Blogspot themes, also have one free WordPress AdSense theme on the site and planning to give one Blogspot one away (I get a fair amount of India and Pakistan traffic who can't afford to pay much for themes and like to give back).

I can see a lot of webmasters into the make money online scene being interested in buying the new version of the Talian 04 theme with Clickbank/AdSense and maybe promoting it as well.

I'm not sure where to start, never run a membership site before, what software do others use and recommend?

As potential affiliates how much should I sell the membership for and what percentage to affiliates?

I will add more themes long term if things go well, but it won't be loads of them like you see with some membership sites. The WordPress themes I convert are completely rewritten, so it's not just a case of giving them a new logo and saying this one is for the dentist niche, they are better SEO'd than any other themes online (no one has ever shown me a better SEO WordPress theme) and that takes time (which is why there's only 13 WordPress themes converted). Long term I'll aim for a couple of dozen themes with AdSense/Clickbank incorporated (thinking about including other ad types as well). Since I won't be adding lots of new themes regularly I think it would be difficult to justify a monthly membership fee, so thinking of a one off membership fee or a yearly membership fee?

Until now I've run the themes I sell as a hobby, my main income is from offering SEO services, but I use WordPress myself a lot and the themes I maintain and use keep me striving for improvements. All my current theme customers get free updates for the themes I sell, guaranteed free for as long as the version number doesn't change: when I updated Talian from version 03 to 04 (some major improvements) I sent out free updates to all Talian 03 customers even though I didn't have to (I'm too nice ).

Looking to take selling themes to the next level.

Looking for feedback from potential affiliates and customers.

David

 

Hi David,
If you provide an option to select the clickbank's product manaually, it will be great. Becasue, as you know, some clickbank products are lausy ones, so having the same ad spot which will show only the best sellers (high gravity, popularity) will surely increase sales.
(I am trying to create this code now)

I agree with you that in some websites the combination Adsense/Clickbank may work, am not sure if it will work for me (yet).

You should provide an option to bookmark the seo/ads wordpress theme website, I think it may get good traffic from stumblers and diggers.
Cheers,

 

I wouldn't personally use Clickbank on blogs, but for certain niche it's a lucrative technique of monetizing.

I've personally found the classic well laid out/structured landing pages more effective. And definitely wouldn't use adsense on a 'clickbank site'.

Al.

 

I'm using the Clickbank hopfeed.com option for generating the ads (think it's the only way to automatically generate Clickbank ads that are AdSense style).

As far as I'm aware there's no way to select a criteria for which ads should or should not be shown this way, which is a shame.

Basically you've got code along the same lines as AdSense and you select the keywords that Clickbank should use to generate the Clickbank ads rather than like with AdSense where the keywords are automated. That's the only control you have over what ads are shown, the keywords, so you can't block ads or choose specific ads.

A while back I used some basic PHP coding to create my own Clickbank based ad system for a site (bunch of PHP includes). Made a handful of relevant ads for a site, downloaded images for them, wrote a little blurb etc... and then had them show randomly on a site. Looked OK, but was a lot of effort to create a sites worth of ads!

David

 

David, I don't know if I read exactly what you are asking, but most of the themes I promote are using ejunkie. http://www.e-junkie.com/

 

I agree... why people put Adsense on Clickbank Sites is beyond me. Chances are those Adsense ads are other Clickbank affiliates promoting the same products you are trying to promote. So YOUR visitor clicks on their Adsense Ad and you get paid a few pennies. Meanwhile, YOUR visitor end up making a purchase of the product because of that Ad and someone else gets your $20 or $30 commission.

It's better to presell each product your advertising, right in your blog/site. The visitor is already on your site because of something else - make them even more interested with presell pages. This way, when the visitor clicks thru to the vendor page, you get the commission - not someone else because you allowed the visitor to escape through Adsense.

 

You've misunderstood what the new theme I've created is for.

It's a WordPress theme that has the option of showing automated

AdSense ads
Clickbank ads
Combination of AdSense and Clickbank ads.
Or no ads at at all (it's the best SEO theme by far on the market).

This has nothing to do with promoting specific Clickbank products which I know is best done through highly targeted pages (I review the CB product).

The theme I've created is for use on any site, for example I have it running at http://www.45-year-old-millionaire.co.uk/ which doesn't promote any Clickbank products (100% information site).

I originally created a Clickbank version of the theme because Google had banned a domain (they didn't like the content) from the AdSense program that receives up to 10,000 unique visitors a day and I needed an alternative ad system.

Made sense to combine the AdSense and Clickbank versions into one theme so customers can choose which ads to show. Also thinking about adding other ad systems.

You have given me a feature idea, currently if an ad is turned on it shows on all pages of the WordPress site, makes sense for those who review Clickbank products on their WordPress sites, but the site isn't 100% Clickbank reviews to be able to disable ads page by page (custom fields comes to mind). Can then run ads on non Clickbank review type pages or product pages etc...

David

 

David,
I am going to start an experiment.
My blog has 14,000 daily readers during the 4 busy days of the week and an average of 8k daily during the 3 other days. My blog topics are – job interview, resume and career.

ClickBank has variety of products on these topics and so is AdSense.

I have 3 major ad spots: top-left-sidebar, within the content top-right, bottom of post.
Other ad spots are – middle of left/right sidebar + footer + above footer.

I have 3 test cases to cover –
1. AdSense + ClickBank: AdSense on the major ad spots and ClickBank on the middle right/left + footer.

2. Only AdSense: AdSense on the major ad spots. (results are known

3. Only ClickBank: ClickBank on the major ad spots.

I would like to find out:
1. Which option works best?
2. Verify which ClickBank products were clicked (hopefully bought) so I can select these products and prepare an ad spot focusing on these and may add the high gravity ones.

Then, I will start the same 1,2,3 experiment with the selected products.

if you are interested, I am going to post results?

Regrading pre-sale pages where you don't want to display other ads. You know my site, see the pre-sale pages where I disabled other ads.
I turned off ads on these pages + I can turn off sidebar . I am sure you know how to do that..