Instructions for using the Beginner theme to create a professional affiliate blog

Previously, I shared with you a few articles on the topic of affiliate marketing . 

You probably already have a pretty solid plan to jump into this potential affiliate marketing space. Now you need to take action. And the first job is definitely to buy hostingg and build a website.

If you are still hesitant about hosting, I suggest you refer to Hawk Host . You can read my series of articles about Hawk Host to better understand why I recommend choosing a hosting service here.

In today’s post, I will focus on building a website. We will be using WordPress as the foundation to build an affiliate blog. If you don’t know anything about WordPress, you can check out our series of basic WordPress articles .

Specifically, in the article, I will guide you step by step to use the Beginner  theme of Theme Junkie to build a professional affiliate blog.

Read more : Learn how to make money blogging from Neil Patel

About the Beginner theme

Beginner is the latest theme of Theme Junkie specialized for blogs. Theme Junkie is one of the favorite themes among Vietnamese webmasters. The reason is simple, cheap (if you want to buy directly), easy to use (without too many complicated configuration options).

Simple theme design and optimized SEO, speed. Although my personal assessment is not as good as MyThemeShop . Anyway, MyThemeShop also has a much higher price.

You can see the demo here . ​My is built on this theme. 

Some outstanding features of Beginner:

By the way, I also give away a copy of this theme that I bought directly from Theme Junkie. 

Download and follow the instructions below. ​

Instructions for installing and customizing the Beginner theme

1. Upload the theme and proceed with the installation

You install the theme using the WordPress theme upload function. Details you can refer to the article installing WordPress theme .

After installation, remember to activate the theme to use.

Next, remember to create a child theme. I also have an article about creating a child theme here . Creating a child theme prevents you from losing your theme customization when you update your theme.

Theme Junkie has made available for a child theme. If you join my mailing list, I will also send you this child theme in a zip file. You install and activate the child theme like above.

2. Install recommended plugin

Beginner suggests you install a few plugins so that you can take full advantage of the powerful features of the theme

However, you should only install the plugins that you really need. If you don’t know which plugin you really need, let’s take a closer look at these plugins,

a. Jetpack by WordPress.com

This plugin is so popular because it was developed by Automattic himself. This is the company responsible for WordPress development and management. Code quality in accordance with WordPress standards. If you want to install this plugin, you should only enable the modules you really need to avoid impacting the performance of your website. I don’t like installing this plugin myself.

b. Ninja Form

Plugin to create forms for the website. This plugin is very easy to use and indispensable for any website.

c. Polylang

Multilingual site creation plugin. Do not install if your site does not need this function.

d. Simple Page Sidebars

The plugin creates custom Sidebars for the website. You can see more instructions on how to use this plugin below. 

e. TJ ShortCodes

Use shortcodes to create buttons columns or tabs. With this function, I recommend you to use the ultimate shortcode because it has more functions.

f. TJ Deal

The plugin helps you to create and manage your theme’s coupon functionality. Of course this plugin is the most important.

g. TJ Custom CSS

The plugin makes it easy to theme custom CSS instead of having to edit the styles.css file manually. Currently WordPress 4.7 allows you to add custom CSS in Theme -> Customize . Therefore, you do not need to install this plugin.

H. Yoast SEO Plugin

Another essential plugin that makes it easy for you to do on-page seo. Plus, it also generates xml sitemap for you. Then you just need to upload the site map to Google Webmaster Tool . See instructions for using this plugin here .  

To install the above plugins, click the Begin installing plugins link to go to a page that allows you to select the plugin to install. As soon as you select the plugin, select Install from the drop-down box and click the Apply button.

When the installation is complete, click the Return to Required Plugins Installer link.

You return to the plugins page again. Activate the plugin you just installed

3. Beginner Theme’s demo data import

If you want the site to look like a demo of the Beginner theme, you can import the demo data in the form of an xml file.

Go to Tools -> Import . Click Install Now to install WordPress Importer . If you already have it installed, skip this step.

As soon as you install it, click on the Run Importer button . 

On the next screen you select the xml file containing the demo data. After selecting, click the Upload File and import button :

Next, you keep the Import author section , and select the Download and Import File attachments option to import the files and videos included in the demo data.

The demo import process will take a few minutes. You need to be patient not to close the browser tab. As soon as the process is completed, you can see the message All done. In the screen below, I don’t have the TJ Team plugin installed, so I can’t import the team data. Such error messages you can ignore.

4. Setting Menus

By default, your blog does not have Menus. We go to Appearance -> Menus and select the Manage Locations tab.

The Beginner theme has 2 menu locations. The first is the Primary located at the top of the web page. The second position is Secondary located below the logo and page title.

You choose the menu location as below:

5. Use Widgets

The Beginner theme provides you with 12 widgets to use. Simply drag the widget to the sidebar you want to display. Do a few configuration operations and that’s it.

1. Advertisement

You can place your ad code here. Usually we insert ads with a width of 300 px.

2. Advertisement 125×125

You can insert 4 125×125 ads here

3. Facebook Like Box

Use this widget if you want to display Facebook Like Box. In the configuration section of the widget, you just need to enter the title and URL of the fanpage. Click the Save button to save the settings

Widget will display like this homepage

4. Feedburner

Currently Feedburner is rarely used. You should use a free email list building service like Mail Chimp combined with an email form creation plugin like Bloom ( is using) or WP Subscriber Pro of MyThemeShop. These plugins are all included in ‘s WordPress website creation package ..

5. Most View Post Thumnail

Display the most viewed Post with the corresponding thumbnail. In the configuration section of the widget you can choose to display the date and number of views of the post. In addition, you can also choose the number of posts you want to display. Remember to click the Save button after making changes.

6. Popular Post Thumbnail

Displays popular posts with corresponding thumbnails. In the configuration screen you can choose the number of posts you want to display. If you want to display the date, select the option ‘ Display post date ‘. Remember to click the Save button after making changes.

7. Random Posts Thumbnail

Display random post with corresponding thumbnail. The configuration section is the same as the Popular Thumbnail widget

8. Recent Posts Thumbnail

Displays recent posts with corresponding thumbnails. The configuration section is like the Popular Thumbnail widget.

9. Social Icons

Show social network button. The Beginner theme allows you to display popular social networking buttons today including: Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr. In the widget’s configuration, you just need to enter the URL to your respective social networking site.

10. Tabs

Displays popular posts, recent posts, recent comments and tags in tabs. In the configuration section you can choose the number of posts you want to display. The widget tab title alone does not allow you to change it here. 

11. Twitter Timeline

Embed Twitter Timeline in your blog. Currently Twitter has some updates so the configuration of the Widget is not suitable anymore. It is best not to use this widget.

12. Videos

Widgets help you display videos in the sidebar. In the configuration section, paste the video’s URL into the Video URL field.

6.Customize the Beginner theme

You should perform a few custom steps to optimize the theme as below.

a. Change default font

Beginner’s default theme doesn’t display Vietnamese very well;

To change the font, go to Appearance -> Customize -> Typography -> Global , and select the Sans Serif font. This font displays Vietnamese very well. Remember to click the Save & Publish button to save the settings.

b. Turn off Newsletter section

The Beginner Theme provides you with a Newsletter section for you to collect mail. But I recommend you turn it off and choose the solution as I mentioned above. That means you choose a free email marketing service like Mail Chimp and a beautiful email form plugin like Bloom or WP Subscriber Pro .

To turn off Newsletter, go to Appearance -> Customize-> General -> Newsletter . Drag the slider to the Off state. Remember to click the Save & Publish button to save the settings

c. Vietnameseize the theme

Theme Beginner has provided a POT file to help you easily Vietnameseize the theme. To Vietnameseize, you can refer to this article of mine.

Learn how to use the Coupon generator

As soon as you install the above TJ Deal plugin, you will see a new item named Deals in the WordPress Admin menu

Here, Deal Categories are like Categories to help you categorize deals/coupons. Demo data has already created a few deal categories like Domains, or Hosting. You can create and edit Deal Category just like normal Category.

Deal is the same as a normal post, but on the creation and editing screen you will see a Deal Settings section as follows:

Here you will enter the coupon code and the URL to the landing page and the label for the button.

In the front end, it will display like this:

Note : The text ‘ Click to Copy & Open Site’ you change through Vietnameseization.

Besides, Theme Beginner provides a few setup options for the Deals section in Theme -> Customize. For example, you can change some of the text labels for the Deals display. 

Go to Theme -> Customize->Deals to make customizations.

Use custom sidebars

Above if you install Simple Page Sidebars, you can create a custom sidebar. I find the customizable sidbar can be useful in case you want to show your ads to the right audience. For example, if a reader reads an article about your wordpress theme, you will display a WordPress Theme ad next to it. In case they read about hosting, you show an advertisement about hosting.

To create a custom sidbar, you first choose a default sidebar. Go to Settings -> Reading . Scroll down and select a sidebar you want to set as default. Click the Save changes button to save the settings.

Now in the post editor screen, you will see the sidebar. Click  Enter new to create a new sidbar. 

Enter the sidebar name. Click the Update button.

Next click on the Update widgets Now link . You will be taken to the widget screen. Here you will see a new sidebar you just created. Now you just need to drag the widget you want to display separately on the sidebar. It’s done.

Place advertising banners

The Beginner theme supports 4 placements including 3 using 728×90 ads (header, before and after post) and one sidebar ad position (optimized for 300×250 or 125×125 sizes). 

Read more : How to insert ads in WordPress using WP In Post Ads plugin

To place ads in the header and position before or after the article, go to Appearance -> Customizer -> Advertisement​. 

Because the way to place the ad is the same, here I will give an example of how to place the ad in the header. Click on the header. The screen that allows you to place ads will look like this:

You have 2 ways to insert ads. The first. You click on Select File to upload or choose an advertising banner with a size of 728×90. Next, you enter the URL ie the destination address when the user clicks on the ad. Remember to click the Save&Publish button .

I don’t like the above method because the generated URL is not standard. The a tag is missing two basic attributes. First you should have the rel=”nofollow” attribute. In terms of SEO you should not leave dofollow links for affiliate marketing. The second attribute is target=”_blank”.

When the user clicks on the ad link you should open a new tab. That way they can still return to the tab containing your site. They can then continue reading your post. This also contributes to reducing the bounce rate for the site which is very beneficial in terms of SEO. 

To control the link of the banner, you should insert the banner’s code in the OR section. Finally click on the Save&Publish button . 

To insert ads in the sidebar, go to Appearance -> Widgets . You have 2 widgets to insert ads

You drag the widgets to the sidebar position where you want to place the ad. Then enter the ad code in the Ad Code section. The Title section should be left blank. Once done, click Save to save the settings:​

Epilogue

Theme Beginner is a theme that owns the simple design typical of Theme Junkie. With a built-in coupon system and multiple ad placements, this theme is perfect for affiliate blogs. 

My article has provided quite enough how to use and customize the Beginner theme. Besides, you can also refer to Theme Junkie’s English documentation  here. 

If you have any problems with the Beginner theme, leave a comment below.

And don’t forget to share the article if you find it useful.