From Courtney Tuttle’s Internet Marketing site comes Dateless Sniper 2.0 quite possibly the perfect WordPress theme for a niche blog. Based onthe popular Modern paper WordPress theme Court has overhauled it to maximize your keywords potential. Your blog will get better rankings with this theme. Better rankings mean more traffic for your niche and more money when using a program like Google Adsense.
Note: When installing the theme make sure you add “your keywords” in the header.php file in the theme.
Why? Why would changing your WordPress theme get you better ranking?
From an SEO point of view FOR THE MOST PART designers make great and sometimes beautiful themes but they could be improved when it comes to SEO and page semantics.. For example if a header 2 tag is good than header 1 tags are is better ( its not).
One of Court’s specialities it to take well known existing WordPress themes and seo-ize them making them even better. If you are new to blogging and want to jump in but are intimidated by the amount of choices available for WordPress themes and just want a great, solid theme that check out the other themes Courtney has Tuttle-ized.
I am literally in WordPress theme hell and my mind has gone. I need a new theme for a popular blog and it is NOT going well
I have also been overhauling another blog for friend and wanted to share an exceptional WordPress theme site- WordPressthemes.pro you can look at themes by type of blog you have like Flowers, Education and more. The themes are very nice – very slick and Web 2.0 , visually very well done. There are very few I don’t like. A fabulous site. They free themes are superior quality and the also have premium themes. Their free themes are better than most premium themes you normally see. Take a look- you will not be disappointed!
One of my blogs needs a serious makeover. I have had the same look for 3 years and besides looking dated I am having space issues.
Prime real estate above the fold is long gone and you need to scroll several minutes to find the footer. The best solution I can come up with is to add another sidebar which mean I will go from a 3 column theme to a 4 column theme. Hard to to without looking crowded. I have avoided a theme change for many many reasons. Most of my images will need to be resized. I have spent months and months testing best ad placement and the thought of do it all over makes me cringe. Even now as I type I am re-thinking and wondering if there is another way.
I looked into just adding another column and widgetizing the WordPress theme that I use now, Gila . Perhaps some one else would like to take on this one? If you do know of or tackle yourself I am happy to place info here and link to it.
I am not sure I have the time or want to spend the time playing with it. It is tempting because if I over haul the theme I can place it on this site and use it as link bait.. but on the other hand time is big issue for me right now and since I would in effect have to learn how to add a column and widgetize I may not be doing anyone a service by giving them a flaky theme to use..,
I have always preferred a 3 columns theme with a 1-1-1 split and now I want to go to a 1-1-2 split. ( 1 sidebar on left , content , two sidebars on the right).
I also want the content section to be smack dab in centre so AdSense ads place in a post will be in reader’s front line of vision. I have fiddled with tables and wrapped code in theme templates and I much prefer to be able to drop code into a post whenever and wherever I want either manually or using Adsense-Deluxe plugin. A 4 column theme will laso free up more room for above the fold ads- both graphic and text link ads
Also, I have 3 125×125 spots for graphic ad and they have been filled. All advertisers demand ( and should!) above the fold placement for their ad and I have run out of space. if I put in another column I can double that lucrative space and have 6 125×125 ads running. Having a huge long line running down the sidebar of ads is cumbersome- readers can barely find what they are looking for and have to scroll down…. way down… . This ssems like best option an dconvinced it will give blog a cleaner look- as well as make advertisers happy.
My Picks for Best 4 Column WordPress Themes
The Gorgeous Dark Theme for WordPress from Bartelme Design I think I have a new eCrush. Deigns and graphics by this guy are absolutely stellar. Take a peek on his site for his other stuff. Other themes call also be seen and downloaded here.
Slined Mod 2.0 – If you know what you are doing in CSS change the reverse type colours.
Techicon 4 column WordPress Theme. This is quite nice.
Sensible Blogging So far this is front runner exactly the layout I was looking for in a 4 column theme.
Garden Theme 3.0- Quite possible the worst header I have ever seen. Could Also be called Pan’s Labyrinth theme Not only is is garish but takes up WAY too much above the fold real estate. I really like the layout however and may try this out.
Pink Identification Band Quadruple Also come in baby boy blue. I think I would like content area to be bit more prominent however. Would have to see it on my blog before I ruled out, tho.
Quadruple This is just about perfect but I think shading in backgrounds of sidebar and header will not jive with solid AdSense ads. I will try this and see if I can remove and add solid color.
Do you have a free 4 column wordpress theme? Have you seen some that I have missed? Please let me know.
Wordpress Theme Resources
The term is bit vulgar – I apologize. This is a term I use when I take a very popular post on a blog and completely pimp it out to squeeze every once of money and value out of it.
There may be better or more effective ways to do it but this is how my mind works and how I get from point A to depositing a cheque in the bank.
To Pimp Out Your Blog Posts
You MUST ave a popular blog with good, solid traffic and lots of quality content. If your blog is new or you don’t have many posts or readers then you will piss people off. You are taking a popular post and totally prostituting it so you better have some quality stuff surrounding it if you want to maintain credibility.
If your blog is new and you dont have a lot of good content- stop reading now and come back in a few months,
Figure out What ARE your most Popular Posts.
These change day to day depending on news and season. I generally just use something like Daily Top 10 plugin for wordpress You can also see what’s going on using Mybloglog or any analytics program. You basically want posts with lots of traffic. This method will also work very well on “Best Blah Blah Lists”, for example “Best Christmas Albums for Jazz Lovers” I may set this up as a test on the site a report back on result despite it not being a popular post (yet).
What Kids of Posts Work Well for Monetizing:
-Product posts work very well. This is why “top” or “best” lists work very well. I may have a popular post on how to stop page rank bleeding but will not get me a great return on any products. This is why if you are going to create “make money blogging” type site forget about the making any money part .
Take a look at your existing popular posts and see if there is a way to include products on the post- software? electronic something? tool? equipment? Beef up the post if you can with mentions of tools or utilities you use. Don’t be obvious about it- only add the info if it enhances the post.
Pimp Out Your Post
Throw every things you got at it -in an intelligent way.
1. Google Adsense – The Best Ad Size to Use for Highest CTR
What is the best Google ad size to use?
The BEST ad to use for Google Adsense HANDS DOWN no questions asked when you want a high click though rate is the 336×280 square. It is in your face but it does work. I wold not wrap your text if you to maximize. The first thing your reader should see when then land on your page is that ad- above the fold and preferably in the middle of the page.
2. Amazon Widgets
- I use a slideshow. I use the biggest size that will fit on my blog. I select 5-16 related products. Using my ” Best Christmas Albums for Jazz Lovers” scenario I would have in my slideshow all the albums listed and then some.
Place this bedside or under your large Adsense rectangle. Don’t embed it in your post. You want these ads above or as close to above the fold as possible.
Amazon recently added a widget for users to to listen to mp3′s- for this kind of post I would ad at the end of post and use some sort of call to action that will get them to listen, Like-” this is my favourite cut off the album- listen to it and tell me what you think” etc.
For the truly aggressive you could offer a contest or promotion and have readers write a review, or a post on their blog about a favorite memory that one of song invokes.
Add product images. If a long-ish post add some product images. Breaking up paragraphs create visual interest. Do NOT go too big and by all means embed and wrap into post text.
Text Affilate Links- Commission Junction, Amazon, etc.
Make sure you link your products to affiliates . I prefer Amazon for lots of reasons. I do a bit with Commission Junction for the really niche products . In a text link embedded in a post I rarely leave the anchor text untouched. I will edit to make it sound more natural and I almost always add nofollow tags.
You can also try linking to presell pages. Link to other posts on your site that review or describe the product in more detail and that pages links to affiliate.
Use Your Posts Popularity to Boosts Other Pages
Use your popular posts to encourage visitors to visit other related post that might be buried. A plugin like Related Posts is limited. With the ‘Best Christmas Jazz list” you could also mention in post that you have a list of “Best Fathers Day Gifts for Audiphiles” or whatever the season dictates.
Popular posts also are a good way to get readers to subscribe to your feed and newsletter- Make sure you are using call to action and not mamby pamby wording.
What NOT to Do to your Popular Posts
Don’t sacrifice integrity of your blog for some quick and easy money on a few pages. I do this to 10-20 pages on a blog where I have all ready established myself to my readers. My blogs are not littered with affiliate ads in sidebar and header. I will say this again you will PISS OFF readers if you do this to all your pages and lose all credibility .
Do not over sell a product or give too much information- This is directly opposite to the idea of linking to a pre-sell page where you go into greater detail about book/product/service. It is a bit fo trial and error.
If I use a popular post to links to pre-sell page then the person who follow the link is all ready pretty intersted and the pre-selll page can tip them over to buy the item. Sometimes.
Mentioning product in a post without giving away too much information may encourage reader to click on the affiliate link and a cookie is dropped and you will get cut of whatever they buy within a time period i.e Amazon is 24 hours and other affiliates can be as long as 30 days. There is no right answer on which is best- it is situational and you will have to test.
I will say during Christmas season getting a reader to click on affiliate link when buying trends are high is more effective then trying to “sell” one specific product.
You can really maximize a popular blog post and drive up its revenue by being aggressive with Google ads and affiliate links. It takes careful balance not to turn off your reader and should be handled with care.
If you want ideas for specific site then feel free to post site info in comments section.
are is better ( its not). 
