By default, your theme will display your sponsored post using the same fonts, colors, and style as the rest of your site. This is because your theme has not been coded to display sponsored posts. To change the look of a sponsored post, you have two options. You can choose to change the sponsored post template in the WP Sponsored Post settings, or you can update your theme stylesheet to include the "sponsor" CSS class.

To edit your sponsored post template directly, login to the Wordpress admin area, then browse to the WP Sponsored Posts settings page. Here you can edit the theme with additional formatting or CSS.

For instance, to add a red border to your sponosed post with a yellow background, you could update the sponsor div style so that the sponsor template looks like this:

<div id="post-[PostID]" class="sponsor" style="border: 1px solid #FF0000; background-color:#FFFBCC;">
<h2><a href="[PostLink]">[PostTitle]</a></h2>
<small>Sponsored Post</small>
<div class="entry">
[PostBody]
</div>
</div>

To update your theme stylesheet, edit your theme CSS and add style to the "sponsor" class. So in the above example of showing a red border on a yellow background, you would add this to your stylesheet:

.sponsor {
border: 1px solid #FF0000;
background-color: #FFFBCC;
}

You can manually create sponsored posts in the Wordpress admin area very easily. With the WP Sponsored Posts plugin enabled, a box will be added to the Post Edit page that has options for displaying sponsored posts. First, set the post category to the categories you want the post to show up for as sponsored. Next, check the Sponsored category to designate the post as sponsored.

In the WP Sponsored Posts box below the post edit box, there are options for setting the sponsor URL and optional expiration date. You can also specify that the post appears on the main blog posts page by checking Featured on Homepage.

By default, when WP Sponsored Posts is installed, a new page is created titled Order Sponsored Post. This page contains the shortcode for the sponsored order form seen below. The shortcode to display this form in a post or page is: [ SponsoredOrderForm ]

This form will allow the visitor to enter their sponsored post details, which will be stored as a pending post in the Wordpress admin area. The blog owner will be notified of the post and can then review, edit, and approve the sponsorship. The screenshots page has a video of the ordering process.

If the setting “Require Registration” is set on the WP Sponsored Posts settings page, only registered users will be able to submit sponsored posts.

If you set a Sponsored Post Price and a PayPal address in the WP Sponsored Posts settings, this form will take the user to Paypal checkout where payment will be handled prior to saving their post. Paid posts will still be set as pending and must be approved by the admin before they are displayed.

After purchasing WP Sponsored Posts, you will receive a link to download the plugin. After downloading the zipped plugin files, extract and upload the /wpsponsored/ folder to your Wordpress plugins folder. Next, login to the Wordpress admin area and browse to the plugins page. Enable the WP Sponsored Posts plugin.

Now that the plugin is enabled, you will need to install the code in your theme where you want to display sponsored posts. Sponsored posts can be displayed on the following Wordpress template pages:

• Main Index Template (Blog Posts Listing)
• Archives (Category Posts Listing)
• Single Post (Single Blog Post)

To display sponsored posts on any of these pages, open the page in the theme editor or your code editor. Find the line in the file that contains or looks similar to:
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

Where you find that line, insert the following line directly above it to display sponsored posts right above your other post listings:
<?php ListSponsoredPosts(); ?>

The WP Sponsored Posts plugin for Wordpress has been released. WP Sponsored Posts display sponsored ad posts by category on your Wordpress powered site. The plugin is full featured and integrates with PayPal to handle seamless checkout of sponsored posts. Other plugin features include post impression and click tracking, as well as custom templates and formatting.