Learn how to make money online!

If you running a WordPress blog and using different affiliate programs to make money then I is a good idea to Cloak all the outgoing links. Cloaking is simply hiding the affiliate links so that they cannot be tampered with and your sale is not compromised.

This simplest way to do is use the awesome Link Cloaking Plugin, move your mouse over the link and look at the status bar, you will see how the cloaked links looks like.

The plugin is very simple to Install, the instructions are right there on the blog. The one very useful feature is that when you cloak the link, it automatically adds the nofollow tag so that you keep your link juice intact.

Important Note: If you are using SEO urls, i.e. mod rewrite on your blog, then you will have to go to Settings > Permlink Settings and simply press “Save Changes”. This will update your .htaccess with the Cloaking code. This has to be done everytime you upgrade WordPress.

Favicon (short for favorites icon) as defined by Wikipedia as a website icon, shortcut icon, url icon, or bookmark icon is an icon associated with a particular website or webpage.

You can see the url bar where next to http://thecashcow.in a favicon is displayed.

Favicon helps a blog in many ways, first off it helps in branding the blog. Secondly it separates your blog from other bookmarked websites as your logo is displayed next to your bookmark.

Follow these steps.

Step 1.
Make a 16×16 px logo on Photoshop. Save it in gif, jpg, png or bmp.

Step 2.
Need to convert it to .ico format. For this you can go to DynamicDrive

Step 3.
Upload your favicon.ico to the root directory of your blog. i.e. public_html
Verify it’s there by typing http://mysite.com/favicon.ico in the browser

Step 4.
Login to WordPress admin and go to your theme admin, click Edit theme and add this code to header.php file.

That’s it! You are done.

Note: In IE it may take time for favicon to appear but in FF it will display immediately.

Like many webmasters, even I have been looking around for the best affiliate script but never got around to finding one which suited my requirements. To be honest, I was always looking for something which was free… but good things in life are never free!

Then i happened to stumble upon iDevAffiliate.com as most of the forums / ebook sellers / SEO companies are using them to manage their affiliates.

In their own words “Since 1999, iDevAffiliate is the original in self managed affiliate software! iDevAffiliate was hand coded from scratch by the same team that provides your technical support! iDevAffiliate is not a product we’re reselling and it isn’t something we’ve pieced together from several other lesser quality products.”

Why would an Affiliate script be useful to you?

Why ever not! Anyone and everyone who is selling something on the internet need to have a superb affiliate management software, this will not only get you more and more sales but also increase the brand value of your product / company. Besides this is one investment which will directly reap you monetary benefits.

Pricing for the Affiliate program:

1. Standard Edition: $99

2. Gold Edition: $199
(Includes: CommissionAlert, Comission Stats, Custom Filename, QuickBooks)

3. Platinum / SEO Edition: $299
(includes: CommissionAlert, Comission Stats, Custom Filename, QuickBooks, Language Packs & SEO / SEF Links)

The above pricing is for their stand along software, which will be installed to your server. If you do not have your own hosting account, nothing to worry… you can you their Hosted Plan.

If you are using Joomla CMS (Content Management System), they have a Addon Module which is designed to take user information from your Joomla signup forms and auto-create affiliate accounts. If you do not have this module, users simply use the provided signup form that comes with iDevAffiliate.

Enough said, go to iDevAffiliate.com and check out their Demo and see if it fits your needs.