Stallion WordPress Theme Clickbank Setup

The Clickbank Hopad Builder which Stallion used to make the Clickbank ads was disabled in September 2012. Stallion versions below and including 7.1.1 include the Clickbank code (that no longer works), all you have to do is NOT turn Clickbank ads on. Clickbank hasn’t provided an alternative Hopad Builder so currently there’s no way to create Clickbank ads.

Log into your sites WordPress Dashboard after installing the “Stallion SEO Ad Theme” via the “Appearance” >> “Themes” page and on the left menu click:

“Stallion Theme”

This opens the main Stallion options page (labeled “Stallion Theme”). If you’ve not registered Stallion with your unique Stallion ID, please do so now, you can not save any options settings before registering.

When the Stallion theme is registered change the Clickbank on/off setting to “Clickbank ON” (Clickbank is OFF by default) and change the “Clickbank Username” setting to your Clickbank username.

The Clickbank username listed by default is mine : morearning

Your Clickbank username is the username you use to log into your Clickbank account.

Make sure you do not inadvertently copy a space/tab before or after your Clickbank username, it will break your Clickbank ads (please check there’s no space/tab, get quite a lot of support requests for this copy/pasting mistake with AdSense).

Click the “Save Settings” button and basic Clickbank is setup so you receive the ad revenue. If you are happy with the default Clickbank colours, placements etc… that’s all you have to do, all other Clickbank settings are optional.

On the main Stallion options page you can also select which of the three main ad systems (AdSense, Chitika or Clickbank) should be considered the most important (default order is AdSense, Chitika, Clickbank). These settings are under “Misc Ad Settings”.

The “Ad Post Number” sets which archive post that ad type should be shown on for the home page and archive pages (Categories, Tags, Search etc…). The ad network(s) set to “Post 1″ will be shown within the first post of an archive page AND in the main content of Posts and Pages (top of the main content). By default AdSense is considered most important “Post 1″, if you want Clickbank to be considered most important set Clickbank to “Post 1″ and AdSense to “Post 2+”. If you make this change the “Clickbank Main Content Ad Unit” (by default a 336px x 280px Rectangle ad) will be shown in a high click through area of all pages.

If you set more than one ad network to “Post 1″ it will look a bit messy, you can have them all as “Post 1″, but best to choose one of the main ad networks as the important one (I always keep it as AdSense as they tend to pay best, but if you are only using Clickbank set Clickbank to “Post 1″). Ad networks set to “Post 2″ and above will have their “Main Content Ad Unit” only shown on archive pages only.

Optional Clickbank Settings

For optional Clickbank settings click the “Clickbank Options” link on the left menu under the “Stallion Theme” menu. I realise these settings may appear a little daunting at first, but they are mostly self explanatory and very easy to use. On all Stallion options pages there’s a “Restore Default Settings” button at the bottom, if you make a mess or get lost with the settings, restore them to defaults (I do it all the time ).

At the top of the “Clickbank Options” page there’s settings for Clickbank ad colours, use the link to the “WebSafe Colour Codes” to select colours. You can also set font type and font size here.

Tracking : is a way to track where Clickbank sales have come from. If you have just one site leave it as the default “STALLION” all orders via that site will have tracking STALLION so you know where the order came from. Have multiple sites you can (you don’t have to) set a unique Tracking code for each site so you can track which sites are generating Clickbank sales.

Keyword List : By default the Clickbank ads are decided by looking at the title of a post, sitename and tags. If they aren’t niched the way you want them you can override this setting by adding keywords to this option. For example if you had a Forex site you could have a keyword list “Forex, Currencies” and only those two keywords would be used to find relevant ads. The setting below allows you to also combine the default keywords plus the keyword list you created.

Below this is a section for each of the Clickbank ad units, there are six ad units available, 3 are designed for the sidebars (widget areas) and are added via the widgets page (“Appearance” >> “Widgets”).

The “Main Content Ad Unit”, the settings are self explanatory as are the settings for most ad units.

The “Bottom Post Ad Unit”, this Clickbank ad unit can be moved around the archive pages (Home page, Categories, Tags, Search and other archive pages). By default it’s a very wide single line ad unit that’s shown at the bottom of “Post 3″ on all archive pages with the option to show this ad at the bottom of single Posts and Pages (turned off by default).

The “Sidebar Ad Unit 1/2/3″ are added by using the widgets menu : “Appearance” >> “Widgets”, drag and drop the “9GAT Clickbank S1″ and/or “9GAT Clickbank S2″ and/or the “9GAT Clickbank S3″ widget to whichever sidebar you want it on.

There are two additional settings for these ad units related to it being on a sidebar, you can have these ad show or not show a heading “Advert” and show or not show a background that matches the colours of the theme (I tend to have no heading and no background colour set, looks better IMO).

Please take into account some ad unit sizes will not work in some locations.

Built in Stallion Clickbank Affiliate Program

The Stallion SEO Ad Theme is sold via Clickbank with a 50% revenue share and I’ve built into this theme the ability to have Clickbank affiliate links and banners to the Stallion site. If your visitors click the Stallion footer link or Stallion banner ads and purchase the Stallion theme, you receive 50% of the sale price.

To use the built in Clickbank affiliate hop links (Clickbank affiliate links are called hop links) on the main “Stallion theme” options page set the Clickbank Username to your Clickbank Username. You do not have to turn Clickbank on, just change the “morearning” Clickbank Username to yours. When the theme finds a username that’s NOT “morearning” the optional Stallion footer link at the bottom of your site automatically becomes an affiliate link (hover over to see it).

You will also have access to two Stallion Banner ads that are added via the widgets menu under “Appearance” >> “Widgets”. The two widgets are called:

Stallion Affiliate Banner

And

Stallion Affiliate Banner for Content Ad Widget

The “Stallion Affiliate Banner” is 200px x 200px wide banner ad which fits perfectly on the two main Sidebar Widget areas. By default this widget is shown when you first install Stallion (when you add your first widget to the right sidebar it’s automatically removed like any other default widget).

When you’ve set your Clickbank Username hover over the banner image and you’ll see it’s a Clickbank hop link using your username.

The “Stallion Affiliate Banner for Content Ad Widget” is 300px x 250px wide banner ad which could be used to replace the main content ad unit (located in the middle of the content) to use an entire site to promote Stallion affiliate sales (maybe you have a WordPress theme relevant site or a make money online site). To add this banner ad to the main content drag and drop it into the “Content Ad Unit” widget area. You’ll probably want to disable any Main Ad Units of the three main ad networks (AdSense, Chitika and Clickbank) or change their post number to 2+ (on the main “Stallion Theme” options page).

If you have purchased the WordPress WP Expander Plugin (costs $10) the two banner ads will be delayed before showing (that’s a cool plugin), if not they open immediately. I have the WP Expander Plugin running on this site, note the left sidebar within 10 seconds of loading a page a banner ad slides open. I plan to incorporate this plugin into the AdSense, Chitika and Clickbank ads in a future Stallion update so they can be delayed opening as well.

There are more Stallion affiliate banner images in your themes folder at

/wp-content/themes/stallion-seo-theme/stallion-cbaf/

There’s also a text file with Clickbank hop link examples for linking from within posts etc…

Example Stallion Clickbank Affiliate Hop Links

Replace CLICKBANKUSERNAME with your Clickbank Username
Replace domain.com with your domainname.

Text Link Example:

<a href="http://CLICKBANKUSERNAME.stallionad.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=STALLION&dpdid=Stallion_seo">Stallion SEO Ad Theme</a>

Banner Link Example:

<div class="alcenter">
<a href="http://CLICKBANKUSERNAME.stallionad.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=STALLION&dpdid=Stallion_seo" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.domain.com/wp-content/themes/stallion-seo-theme/stallion-cbaf/stallion-200-200.jpg" alt="Stallion SEO Ad Theme" width="200" /></a>
</div>

How to Hide Clickbank ads on a Post by Post Basis

As of Stallion 6.1 the Clickbank ads have a CSS class you can use to hide the ads. The ads are still loaded on the page, but your visitors won’t see them.

For posts and pages you wish to hide Clickbank ads on do the following.

Edit the post or page, at the bottom of the edit form (where you add the main content) add one of the following. It’s best to add the code at the very bottom so it’s less likely to be loaded on archive pages, if a page is short of content the code might be used as part of the excerpt.

To hide all Clickbank ads add:

<style>.stallionhideads, .stallionhidewads {display:none !important;}</style>

To hide the Clickbank ads within the main content only (sidebar, header and footer ads will still be visible) add:

<style>.stallionhideads {display:none !important;}</style>

To hide the Clickbank ads within the sidebar, header and footer areas (main content ads will still be visible) add:

<style>.stallionhidewads {display:none !important;}</style>

Do not use this code on posts where you have selected a Post Format (on the right menu of your edit screen: Aside, Audio, Chat etc…) where the format results in the entire content to be shown on archive pages. This would include the formats Aside, Audio, Chat, Image, Link, Quote, Status and Video. Standard and Gallery are safe. Using this code on one of the post formats above will load the code on archive pages like the home page and your ads will be hidden on the home page and other archives the post is loaded on.

Note: this code will hide AdSense, Chitika and Clickbank ads (works for them all).

David Law : AKA SEO Dave, Search Engine Optimization Consultant at SEO Gold Services, Internet Marketer, Developer of the Best WordPress SEO Theme and Nice Guy :-) This is an example of the Stallion WordPress SEO Themes author biography box, everything within this box is built into the Stallion theme.

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