Just a little over a year ago, I bought my first premium WordPress theme – Thesis. And, while I really like it – and I have been using it a lot since (still do) – I felt that I needed more time and technical know-how to make Thesis to look less like Thesis and customise my blog’s appearance a lot more.

I mean, JMMO has had the standard installation of the Thesis for over a year. I didn’t tweak the design much partly because I found it a bit of a challenge to make it look really different without a lot of coding/designing knowledge. So, I kept it “as is”. Having said that, I did tweak my Thesis installation on my personal blog a little bit. But, it took a lot of time. And, it still looks Thesis-like to me.

Anyway, I guess that’s why I thought it’s time to start experimenting with other WordPress themes.

That’s why when I encountered the Headway theme a few days ago, I decided to give it a whirl. Partly because I was impressed with some of the reviews I found. And partly because I was blown away with some of the sites and blogs that were shown in their showcase section. Each one of them looked really different – and nothing like the basic template that comes with Headway.

After purchasing Headway, I immediately tested it on one of my sites. I couldn’t quite get the hang of it. Plus, the header upload feature just wouldn’t work. So, I stopped and restored my old theme. I was initially really disappointed. Especially since I already paid the Developer’s License fee.

Then, I kept reading about Headway and posting some questions on their support forum. I found that while Headway’s community isn’t quite so big yet, they do have a handful of really helpful folks over at the forums. So, I decided to give it a go again.

Since it’s JMMO’s 5th birthday this month, I decided to give it the makeover treatment. It took me over a couple of hours to get the hang of it.

When I started getting to know how some parts of Headway’s visual editor works, I began to work quicker. And, I started liking it more. That’s why after over a year of being on my old plain blah Thesis theme, I managed to jazz up JMMO’s site a bit more. Nothing major (I’m still a Headway newbie after all), but at least my initial disappointment with Headway has been abated. The header uploader feature still doesn’t work (I’m using version 1.6 at the moment)… and the Visual Editor still freezes on me every now and then… plus, the whole “drag and drop” thing isn’t really as easy as they make it sound… some aspects of the layout still isn’t all that flexible.

But, having said all that, I like the fact that it IS possible to customise a blog site on WordPress using the Headway theme and make it look totally different from its original template. In fact, it’s even possible to come up with different themes and layouts for different pages of your site. Without tweaking any code – just using the visual editor. So, yeah, there’s potential here.

My plan is to play around with it a bit more to see if I can make it work the way I really want it to work. I’ll keep you posted.

What about you? What theme are you using on your WordPress site? Have you bought a Premium theme yet? If yes, which one and how do you like it? Have you tried Headway?

If you’re interested to give it a go too, check out Headway Themes.

And yes, they do have an affiliate programme, so you can sell the theme as well. The affiliate programme has its own tracking and reporting system so you can easily see your referrals, etc. Affiliates get paid 33% of final fee. And, there’s a $75 payment threshold (which sucks, as I’m really not a fan payment thresholds ).

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Headway Premium Theme for WordPress: My First Impressions

If you’re looking for a place to make money with books, then check out Alibris. This online bookshop offers three ways to make money online:

1. Join the affiliate programme – If you wish to sell products from Alibris, you can earn commissions by signing up as an affiliate through Linkshare. You can sell new and used books, movies, CDs, and textbooks.

2. Sell your own used items – Have an old textbook that you don’t need anymore? Any DVDs or CDs that you wish to clear out? Head to Alibris and make money from your items by selling them online.

3. Review books – Every month, Alibris runs a raffle for all their reviewers. Five winners are chosen each month to receive $100 gift certificates that enable the recipients to have Alibris shopping sprees.

Alibris has both U.S. and U.K. versions. However, they do ship internationally. They accept Paypal.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Alibris: 3 Ways to Make Money with this Online Bookshop

If you’re a blogger who might have been thinking about do-it-yourself text advertising, then you would’ve been on the hunt for the best solutions out there. Something that doesn’t rely on third party services like TextLinkAds.

Well, if you’re a WordPress user like I am here at JMMO, then you’d have a few options available. One of them is a WordPress plugin called WPTextAds.

Some of you may remember that I mentioned playing around with it about a month ago. After one month, here’s my review of WPTextAds plugin.

Overview:

It’s a cool little plugin that you add just like any other WordPress plugin. Once activated, you can specify your advertising requirements. It has a few features, which include being able to offer Homepage, Site-wide, and Per-Post ad links, as well as being able to offer 30, 60, and 90 day ads for purchase. WPTextAds has a limited-edition free version, where you can install the plugin for trial with some limitations.

Pros:

• Easy to install, good admin interface.
• Features like homepage/site-wide and per-post ad links, and the multi-days package availability.
• Has customisable email templates that may be sent automatically to people requesting to advertise on your blog.
• Offers a free trial version that you can use to play around with.
• Automatic ending of ads when their subscription is over.

Cons:

• A bit pricey at US$127 compared to some other similar plugins out there.
• There’s no affiliate programme running, so people don’t have extra impetus to promote it.
• Only offers text advertising, so you need to look for other solutions if you wish to offer graphic ads on your blog too.
• There are no ‘extensions’ to the plugin/service. That is, there’s no way to track clickthroughs and such.

Overall:

Although the free version only offers 2 links per area (2 for homepage, 2 for site-wide, 2 for per-page post), it’s still something worth looking in to if you’re not anticipating a huge number of advertisers clamouring for ad space on your blog. In my case, I found it quite useful trying it out – as I managed to gauge the interest levels of direct advertisers on my blog. I would’ve purchased it, had it not been for the “cons” that I found in this plugin. I especially found the limitation of not having the ability to offer direct graphic ads using the same plugin to be quite a difficult hurdle to get past. And, the fact that there was no way that I can track statistics made it even tougher for me.

So, that’s why even though I’m still currently using the free version (I especially like the ability of being able to sell homepage ads separately from site-wide ads!), I’m considering phasing it out when I find a better DIY advertising solution. But, we’ll see how it goes.

In any case, if you think that this is something that might be of interest to you, you might find that WPTextAds is still worth exploring.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

WP Text Ads: WordPress Plugin for DIY Advertising

One of the things that I’ve been doing here at JMMO is highlighting various affiliate programmes available for online entrepreneurs. And today, I’d like to share DIYThemes’ Thesis WordPress Theme affiliate programme.

Admittedly, the reason I’m sharing this particular affiliate programme is due to the fact that I have recently bought a Developer’s License for the theme. And, I decided to use it when I updated the look of my personal blog. I guess, that’s why I’m quite excited about it. I actually bought and used the product – and like it.

If you’re someone who’s looking for a clean, simple theme to use for your WordPress blog, then you might want to try Thesis out. And, if you’re someone who’s in touch with people who might be interested in buying WordPress themes, then you might like to sign up as an affiliate here today.

Image source: DIYThemes

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Thesis / DIYThemes: Affiliate Spotlight of the Week

If you want to make money online selling iTunes products, then you might want to become an iTunes affiliate. They run the affiliate program via LinkShare. And, it’s available to residents of the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

The program offers a 5% commission to all qualified sales that are generated from your affiliate link.

Types of products that you can sell from iTunes: music, audio books, videos, podcasts, radio shows, TV shows, and iPhone applications.

For more info, check out the iTunes Affiliate FAQ page.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

iTunes Affiliate Program

Recently, I came across this affiliate site called Web Warrior Tools. And, I was immediately attracted to its clean, simple look. When I signed up and checked it out, I found the process quite easy and simple as well. Then, I found out that it was started by bloggers Leo Babauta from ZenHabits and Glen Stansberry of LifeDev.

Basically, the products they sell at the moment are ebooks related to business, money, lifestyles, and technology. Some of its sample products include: The Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting and Jump Start Your Work Space. Many of their products are well priced and affordable.

They run an affiliate programme that pays resellers 30% from the sale price. Plus, if you recruit other resellers, you can also receive a tiered commission from their sales. And, they offer to pay via Paypal. So far, I have not seen any payment threshold and other restrictions on their site. So, we’ll see how it goes.

If you do try it out, let me know. If you have other thoughts on Web Warrior Tools’ products and services, I’d love to hear about them too. If I learn anything else, as always, I’d be reporting them right here.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Web Warrior Tools: Affiliate Programme

In true JMMO Show Me The Money tradition, I’m sharing with you a report on a first payment from an affiliate experiment. This time, it’s from The Pepperjam Network. Yes, I received my first payment via Paypal with them the other day. Woohoo!

If you want to check out my previous blog posts about Pepperjam, here’s one where I talked about their Blogger Incentive Programme. And, this one where I announced that I signed up with them and started experimenting with their service.

So, if you want to try it yourself, Sign up with the Pepperjam Network today. They do pay via Paypal, with a payment threshold of $25 in the cycle. If you don’t reach that threshold in a month, it gets rolled over to the next month. It took me just over a month from sign-up to payment.

And yes, I believe they’re still running their blogger their blogger incentive programme and sign-up bonuses.

If you’ve received your first payment from Pepperjam too, let us know right here.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Pepperjam First Payment In!

A few weeks ago, I came across another content site where you can make money online. It’s called HubPages . The basic idea is that you can make money either through (or both):

1) Affiliate Referrals – You sign-up in their affiliate programme and you promote different articles called “hubs” using your unique affiliate referral tracking links.

2) Writing Content via Revenue Share – You write content about any topic you might have in mind (or create content as a response to requested topics).

With the revenue share, you need to provide your affiliate account info with: Google Adsense, Amazon, Kontera, and/or eBay Affiliate Network. From HubPages:

After you’ve joined the affiliate programs from eBay, Amazon and Google, ads for these three companies (and we’re looking to add more) appear on your Hubs. Any revenue generated during one of your impressions (a click-through with Google, an actual purchase with Amazon or eBay) is 100% yours.

HubPages splits the impressions with you in the following way:

1. Your own Hubs: Hubbers receive 60% of total impressions.
2. The HubPages Affiliate Program: You can refer new writers to HubPages and they become Hubbers within 30 days, you receive an additional 10% of their Hubs’ lifetime impressions.
3. Traffic Referral Program: If you send traffic to any Hub, you’re entitled to either 9% or 12% of total impressions. You’ll receive 9% if the Hub you’ve referred people to already has impressions allocated to an Affiliate. If there are no Affiliates, you’ll receive 12% of the total impressions.

Whatever is left from the splits above goes to HubPages. Note that these splits apply only to HubPages and User Profile pages. On all other pages, such as a referral to a Tag page or the HubPages home page, you’ll receive 30% on a traffic referral, with HubPages getting the rest.

Basically, it reminds me a lot of Squidoo, with some adjustments here and there (and not as many affiliate link partnerships). One thing I like about it is that it seems to have a decent community. And, the points system seem to encourage better content quality (or at least, better networking skills).

I have yet to see what are the advantages (or disadvantages) of Hubpages, compared to other content revenue/affiliate sharing sites. If you have any experience working with HubPages, I’d love to get your feedback.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

HubPages: Writing Content for Cash

The Pepperjam Network has been named as one of the Top 100 fastest growing privately-held companies in the USA by Inc. 500 recently. That’s an honour that they’ve received 3 years in a row. And, they want to celebrate their success with bloggers through an incentive program.

According to Pepperjam:

The Blogger Incentive Program pays bloggers $10 for every post they make about Pepperjam Network news or tools. You also get an additional $7 for every new affiliate your refer to our program. Top blogger affiliates are making thousands of dollars per month as part of our incentive and referral program.

So, if you want to take part, sign-up with Pepperjam today. You even get a $10 sign-on bonus once you’re accepted in to their program!

And, once you’re a Pepperjam affiliate, you can then blog about their Inc.500 listing success – and get an extra $10. So, that’s a good extra $20 in your account. If you end up with affiliates signing up using your link, you even get more affiliate pay-outs.

Sounds good?

To read more about Pepperjam, I’ve blogged about them right here.

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Pepperjam’s Blogger Incentive Program (+$10 Sign-on Bonus!)

Last year, I wrote about BlogWorld Expo ’07 (see here, here, and here). Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go. Too bad because I heard that it was a really wonderful event for bloggers and other web workers.

Well, thank goodness I won’t be missing out this time. Yes, I’m going to BlogWorldExpo 2008 in Las Vegas, through b5media.

The official events will be happening between the 19th of Sept to the 21st of September, I believe. And, if you haven’t signed up yet, you might want to do so before the 22nd of August (2 more days!), as the early bird discount will then finish.

And, if you ARE going, please let me know. I’d love to meet up with you, if it’s possible.

Oh, and if you’re wondering if you can make money from this – yes, you can. BlogWorldExpo offers an affiliate programme to folks who wish to promote the event.

Hope to see you there!

This post is originally from Just Make Money Online. Please respect copyright.

Are You Going to BlogWorld Expo 2008?