Blog Post Engineering KISS Kit

(Reading time: 3 – 5 minutes)

Blog Post Engineering Widget Plugin

You have probably noticed the Blog Post Engineering badge in the upper right corner of the Website In A Weekend home page, at the top of the sidebar. While it looks like every other sidebar badge, it’s not.

Blog Post Engineering Widget plugin

Blog Post Engineering Widget plugin, drag and drop ease-of-use.

It’s way cooler.

It’s actually a plugin that provides a widget. The image and sales text are already written for you. All you have to do is add the title for the widget, the flyover text, and your affiliate URL.

And check it out: you add this stuff just like every other widget, fill out the form in the widget interface and you’re done:

  • No more messy HTML.
  • No more fiddling with stubborn CSS.
  • Just drag and drop, paste in your link, you’re good to go.

Installing the BPE KISS Kit plugin

Get the Blog Post Engineering sidebar widget plugin. Installing is easy:

  • Download the bpe.zip file to your computer.
  • Upload the bpe.zip file using the WordPress built-in plugin zip file uploader.
  • Activate “BPE Widget” plugin.
  • Go to Widgets admin page, drag the Blog Post Engineering widget to your sidebar.
  • Fill in the blanks, everything should be self-explanatory. (The title attribute is for rollovers as usual.)
  • Save and close, you’re in business.

Updating to a new version

The BPE KISS Kit is under active development. Since it’s a private plugin, it’s not appropriate to host the plugin on WordPress.org.

Instead, as the plugin gets extended, new versions will get uploaded here.

Here’s the script for updating. Takes about 5 minutes:

  1. Download the bpe.zip file: BPE Affiliate KISS Kit.
  2. Log in to your website, and open up the Plugins page and the Widgets page.
  3. Save your information from the current plugin (just in case): title, rollover text, affiliate link.
  4. Deactivate the existing BPE plugin.
  5. Delete the existing plugin.
  6. Upload the bpe.zip file.
  7. Activate the new plugin.
  8. Configure as usual using your saved information, if necessary.

    Note: this may not be necessary, WordPress is pretty cool like that.

Here’s some video for you:

Leave a comment if you have any questions.

Using built-in graphics shortcodes

The KISS Kit gives you some really handy shortcodes for embedding graphic affiliate links into your blog posts and pages. Each shortcode is keyed by the type and size of graphic image available.

For example, badges are square, banners are long and flat, and towers are tall and skinny.

Let’s put a 125px by 125px badge into this section. 

Here's the shortcode: [bpe-square125]


Super easy, right?

At the moment, the alignment for the smaller badges and banners is controlled using the KISS Kit CSS file. Feel free to modify the CSS for your own use, perhaps consider saving a copy so it won’t be over-written when you update the plugin.

Let’s put a 250px by 125px banner into this section. 

Here's the shortcode: [bpe-banner250x125]