What is a Niche Skin?

An Affiliate Theme Niche Skin is simply a WordPress child-theme designed to integrate with Affiliate Theme. This means that Affiliate Theme can be changed to a variety of different skins by simply importing and activating a new skin.. If you want to create a Niche Skin and you are NOT familiar with developing for WordPress, CSS, PHP and HTML, you should read our Basic Guide to Generating Niche Skins.

A Niche Skin sits on top of the Affiliate Theme framework. A Niche Skin is a folder inside the wp-contents/themes folder of your WordPress installation. It typically consists of the following files:

• functions.php
• /images/ (folder)
• screenshot.png
• style.css

The ‘images’ folder consists of the following files:

• images/jpg
• images/header.jpg
• images/graphic1.png (optional)
• images/graphic2.png (optional)

To make the process of creating a Niche Skin easier, start with one of the Niche Skins from your existing copy of Affiliate Theme 2.0 You can modify this collection of files for your own Niche Skin.

Step 1: Choose a niche for your skin.

You can create a Niche Skin around any vertical, however, it would be smart to do some research about what the hottest affiliate niches are these days. You can join any affiliate network and get a good idea of what are the hottest performing verticals. This would be a good place to start if you are looking to sell your Niche Skin in our marketplace.

Step 2: Create a header graphic.

We recommend using Adobe Photoshop to design a header graphic 940px (width) by 200px (height). You can download our sample header graphic here.

Step 3: Modify the style.css file.

The most important part of modifying the style.css file is renaming this information:

/*
Theme Name: Credit Cards
Description: Credit Cards Review Skin by UBD
Template: AffiliateTheme2
Author: Affiliate Theme
Author URI: http://www.affiliatetheme.net/
Version: 1.0.0
*/

Once you have completed that step, you can begin to customize any element of the style.css file from the original file.

Step 4: Modify the functions.php file.

You will have to rename a few lines of the functions.php file. Make sure your theme folder begins with “AT2_” for easier categorization. This file will allow your Niche Skin to be recognized by Affiliate Theme and automatically upload the customizations when a new user activates your skin.

Step 5: Add a theme screenshot.

The theme screenshot is simply a PNG file named “screenshot.png” in your Niche Skin folder. The file must be 300px (width) by 225px (height). Once you have designed this file, drop into your theme folder.

Step 6: (OPTIONAL) Add an additional header graphic(s).

To give your theme some extra flare, you can add up to two additional header graphics. In the CSS file, these are known as .graphic1 and .graphic2. In the style.css file, you must specificy the height and width of these graphics. See below for an example.

The left and right server graphics are the additional graphics of this theme. These graphics must be PNG files and named graphic1.png and/or graphic2.png.

Step 7: Save your completed theme and ZIP it.

Once you have completed the modification of your theme, export it as a ZIP file and add it to our Affiliate Marketplace.

While downloading and activating Niche Skins is easy, creating them from scratch can be more difficult. We generally only recommend that people who are familiar who have CSS, HTML, and graphic design experience attempt to create their own skins for commercial distribution. However, if you still want to develop a Niche Skin for your personal use, please read on.

For the average user with little-to-no programming experience, Niche Skin Generation can be accomplished when starting with the Affiliate Theme Default Skin. Again, we must mention that for the casual user, it is much better to simply activate a preexisting Niche Skin and customize from there.

How to Generate a Niche Skin

Generating a Niche Skin is very simple and can be completed at any step in the theme modification process. If you’re a knowledgeable web developer (proficient in HTML/CSS/PHP), we recommend you read our Advanced Guide to Niche Skin Development.

Step 1: Activate the Default Skin.

Activate the Affiliate Theme Default Skin in the Niche Skins panel of the Affiliate Theme admin panel. You can generate a new skin only from the Affiliate Theme Default Skin – existing Niche Skins cannot be regenerated.

Step 2: Click the Generate button.

A Niche Skin can be generated at any point in the theme modification process. Simply click the ‘Generate Skin’ button.

Step 3: Enter your Niche Skin details.

Enter your skin name, description, and provide a link to a .PNG file which will be used for your theme screenshot. The theme screenshot should be a 300×225 px file. The screenshot can be added later, as well.

Step 4: Download or activate your Niche Skin.

Once you have finished, you will be taken back to the Niche Skin panel where your new theme will be available for download or activation.

You must first register before you can post to the Affiliate Marketplace

Step 2: Register with the Affiliate Marketplace

Simply enter your desired username and email.

Step 3: Check your email for and password and login information.

Copy your password and click the link in the email.

Step 4: Click on ‘Post a Marketplace Listing’.

After you have returned to the Affiliate Marketplace, click o n’Post a Marketplace Listing’.

Step 5: Select a listing category.

Please make sure you select the appropriate category.

Step 6: Post your listing (HTML is allowed).

Enter the title and description of your listing. HTML is allowed in the description field. If you are selling a product, you must provide the the direct payment link in the description field. If you would like your payment link to resemble a button, add ‘class=button‘ to the <a href> link.

Step 7: Review your listing and finish.

After you have finished filling out your listing, you may review it and proceed to the final step.

Step 8: Your listing has been received.

Your listing will be approved or disapproved within 24 hours. We reserve the right to disapprove any listing that we do not deem to be of high quality.

Click ‘Import Skin from Your Computer’ and upload the .ZIP file.

Step 2: Choose a file from your computer.

The file must be a .zip file. Also note that most AT skins begin with “AT2_”.

Step 3: Return to the Affiliate Theme admin panel and active the uploaded skin.

You may also preview the theme before activating it.

Header Tracking Code – insert any code required for the header of your site

Footer Tracking Code – insert any code to the footer of your site (e.g., Google Analytics)

Site Disclaimer – add a custom site disclaimer which will appear below all of your posts and pages. You should include disclosure that you are being compensated for links on your site, which is now required by the FTC.

Footer Copyright Text – add custom text that will display any copyright information about your site.

Footer Text Color – set the color of your footer text.

Footer Navigation Display – turn on/off displaying your page navigation in the footer.

Exclude Pages from Footer Navigation – exclude certain pages from appearing in your footer navigation.

Remove UBD Credit – turn on/off the credit link back to UBD.

Call to Action Button Links to – set the call to action buttons to link to either the conversion URL (affiliate links) or to your individual posts.

Button Font, Color & Background Color – set the font, color and background color of your call to action button default state.

Rollover Font, Color, and Background Color – set the font, color and background color of your call to action button hover state.

Publish RSS feed – turn on/off the RSS feed syndication for your site.

Remove post headlines – turn on/off the post headlines for your site.

Display post date – turn on/off the post date for your posts.

Display post author – turn on/off the display of the post author for your posts.

Display post categories – turn on/off the display of the post categories for your posts.

Display number of comments – turn on/off the display of the post comments number for your posts.

Conversion URL in new window – turn on/off the conversion URL (affiliate link) opening in a new window

Add “rel=nofollow” to Conversion URLs – turn on/off adding a no-follow attribute to your affiliate links. This is recommended in order to encourage Google to not see your site as “spammy” (too many affiliate links).

Twitter username – set your Twitter username in order to display your Tweet stream in the sidebar of your site

Facebook username – set your Facebook profile/page URL in order to display a link to your Facebook profile/page within your site