Selling Wordpress Theme Sponsored Links

Make $100/day selling footer links to Wordpress Theme sponsors.

(Disclaimer: For educational purposes only)



Method Type:
Grey Hat

Revenue Source:
PayPal

The Concept:
Create Wordpress Themes and sell footer links to webmasters through online auction.
The links the webmasters buy are placed in the footer section of the Theme. The Theme is then promoted. Users download and install the Theme and the webmasters get backlinks.

Average Reported Income:
$100 - $200 per Wordpress Theme.

The Method:
Webmasters are always looking to get their website placed higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). To achieve this, they must have a lot of backlinks to their website that are built up over time. One way to get backlinks over time is to pay you to include a link to their website in the Wordpress Themes that you create.

You sell the available link spots for the footer of your Wordpress Theme through online auction at the Digital Point Forums. After auction closes, you collect payment from top bidders. They pay you through paypal, you then add their links into the footer of your Wordpress Theme as a "Sponsored Link".

What you put in the footer looks similar to this:



As you can see above, you also have the option to sell the "Designed by" link, which would make the total amount to be 4 (four) links. Always sell your Designer link for a little bit more than your other links.

A great resource to learn to how to create Wordpress Themes can be found here:
WP Designer: Creating Wordpress Themes. You can always Google for "Create Wordpress Theme" and find many other pages that explain how to do make a theme.

Finally, you to promote the Theme. Zip up your theme, create screen captures of it, and submit it to the following Wordpress Theme submission websites:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com
http://www.bloggingthemes.com
http://www.freelayouts.com
http://www.freewordpressthemes.com
http://www.namepros.com
http://themebot.com
http://www.themesbase.com
http://board.themevibes.com
http://web2feel.com
http://www.webtalkforums.com
http://www.wpthemesfree.com
http://www.wpskins.org
http://www.webmaster-talk.com
http://www.wpthemedatabase.com
http://themeboss.com
http://www.wordpressthemebase.com
http://www.wptmp.com
http://www.talktheme.com
http://ithemes.org
http://www.blogzoop.com

Summary Overview:
1. Have a domain and hosting to showcase your Wordpress Themes.
2. Create a new Wordpress Theme.
3. Install the Theme into a subdirectory of your website as a "Demo".
4. Goto Digital Point Forums > Buy, Sell, Trade >
5. Create an post showcasing your Theme and asking for bids for the footer links.
6. People will bid for the links, auction-style.
7. Close the thread 72 hours later.
8. Contact the winning bidders for payment through Private Message.
9. Receive payment. Add their links to your Wordpress Theme.
10. Promote the theme, by submitting it to Wordpress Theme submission sites.
11. Recontact winning bidders, let them know it is completed.

Final Word:
I am always suprised when I read about how Wordpress users are so angry that they downloaded a free Wordpress Theme and discover that it has sponsored links. They get upset, so be forwarned. Sometimes, people think that the authors should just create the themes for the hell.

Also note, this technique has been considered "Grey Hat", because Google does not approve of webmasters purchasing links in order to get higher listing in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). However, these are Google's rules; there is nothing against the law about doing this.