Are you looking for new ways to grow your affiliate marketing revenue?
There’s a lot of money to be made! In 2023, affiliate marketing made over $17 billion globally.
But while the average salary for an affiliate marketer is over $60,000, many people earn much less while a few earn much more. What makes the difference?
Here are 7 tips that will help you grow your affiliate marketing revenue.
Note: This is a guest post by Blair Williams, the founder of Pretty Links, a popular all-in-one affiliate link management plugin. We publish an expert column on WPBeginner every other Thursday. This is an invite-only column, meaning we don’t accept unsolicited guest post offers.
I will cover quite a few topics in this post. Here’s a handy list so you can jump to the section you are most interested in:
The first step in generating revenue from affiliate sales is to make sure you attract an audience that actually wants to try out the product or service you recommend.
Since over 70% of affiliate marketers get most of their traffic from search engines like Google, that makes SEO really important.
But SEO takes time, especially if you’re competing against other affiliate marketing sites for keywords with high search volume and high competition.
To earn the most commissions, I highly recommend targeting investigational keywords. Let me explain why.
Generally speaking, Google searches are performed with 4 different types of intent, and the best match for affiliate websites is investigational intent. Here’s a quick breakdown of the different kinds of search intent:
Users with navigational intent are trying to get to a particular website. Example: search on Google with the phrase www.wpbeginner.com
Users with informational intent are simply trying to find an answer to a question. Example: search on Google with the phrase who is the current US President.
Users with transactional intent have already made a decision and are ready to purchase or download the product they chose. Example: buy Apple iPhone 15 Pro
Finally, users with investigational intent are looking for information that may eventually lead to a purchase or transaction. Example: best student laptops, compare hp vs dell laptops, etc.
Users with investigational intent will want to read product reviews, showcases, and comparisons like yours before making a final purchasing decision. This means as an affiliate marketer, it’s your job to help your users find the right product and get them purchase it through your affiliate link.
They use investigational keywords in their search queries that include words like ‘best’, ‘review’, ‘compare’, and ‘alternative’.
Here are some examples of investigational intent keywords:
By targeting investigational keywords, you will drive the right audience to your site. I’ve found that means you won’t have to get as much traffic to make a decent affiliate income.
2. Publish High-Quality Content
Now that you know the investigational keywords that will bring potential customers to your site, your next job is to create high-quality content that ranks for those keywords.
That means writing in-depth product reviews, comparisons with pros and cons, video reviews, and more. Only 28% of affiliate marketers use blogs to promote their affiliate links, and I think that number should be much higher.
Not only will high-quality content bring in traffic to your WordPress website, but you will also benefit from long-term traffic that comes from your blog’s rankings.
Some of the most successful affiliates have become experts at using the product or service they are reviewing. In fact, demonstrating real-life experience in your reviews is more important now than ever.
In December 2022, Google added ‘experience’ to their E-E-A-T ranking criteria. Now, unless you show first-hand experience with the products you write about, Google may penalize you in the long run by giving your site a lower search ranking.
Darren Rowse’s Digital Photography School blog is a great example of what you should be doing. He shows excellent photos taken on Canon and Nikon SLR cameras and then mentions those cameras in posts and tutorials.
Not only does this improve his ‘experience’ score with Google, but when his visitors are inspired by the spectacular photos taken by the cameras he reviews, they will be more likely to purchase them using his affiliate links.
You can do the same by producing more content, such as detailed blog posts or YouTube videos, displaying your skills using the actual product or service. Just make sure you don’t just talk about a product’s features. You also need to show your audience how they can use those features to get great results.
3. Use a Centralized Affiliate Link Management System
The best way to add affiliate links to your website or blog is by using a plugin like Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates. Creating a centralized affiliate link management system in your WordPress dashboard can save you a lot of time.
For example, when one of your affiliate partners changes your link, you would normally need to find every post where the link appears and update the link manually.
But with an affiliate link plugin, you simply need to update it once, and it will update across your entire website.
These plugins will also let you cloak the affiliate links you promote on your website. Typically, affiliate links are long and ugly like this:
A cloaked affiliate link looks better and is easier to understand:
http://www.yoursite.com/refer/productname
Besides these benefits, an affiliate link manager lets you categorize your links, add notes, check for links that have stopped working, and much more. This means you can spend less time managing your affiliate links and more time creating high-quality content.
4. Enable Affiliate Link Tracking
Now that you’ve added affiliate links to your website, it’s essential to track how many times each one is being clicked.
This will help you see which affiliate products are performing well, and which of your blog posts are generating the most clicks.
This information will let you make improvements to your website that result in more revenue, and you can also use the metrics to negotiate with your partner companies for higher payouts. I’ll talk about this more later on.
Google Analytics can show how much traffic your links are sending to each affiliate product, but beginners can find it tricky to use.
Instead, I recommend using an analytics plugin like MonsterInsights because it makes your analytics easy to understand and supports affiliate link tracking out of the box.
Now that you know how much traffic you are sending to each affiliate link, you should compare it with the revenue you made. This will help you discover your highest-performing products, and focusing on them will boost your affiliate income.
5. Convert Up to 60% of Abandoning Visitors With an Affiliate Popup
We spoke earlier about how to increase your affiliate income by bringing more visitors to your website. It’s also important to think about the visitors leaving your site, or you will miss out on sales.
You need to grab the attention of abandoning visitors before they leave your site because 70% of them will never come back.
Nadi Lopez, a marketing specialist at Top 6 Digital, combats this using an exit-intent popup. It detects the user’s mouse movement and shows them an affiliate promotion when they’re about to leave.
He uses OptinMonster to display a popup that is customized for the content the reader is viewing at the time, like this:
The plan worked, and 17.31% of visitors who saw the popup above clicked the link.
As a result, Top 6 Digital’s affiliate revenue increased by 30%, and on some web pages, as many as 62% of abandoning visitors were converted.
Your visitors won’t click a link they don’t notice. You’ll get more clicks and revenue by highlighting the affiliate mentions in your articles.
You can try doing this in lots of different ways. Just make sure you track affiliate clicks to measure which methods are most effective on your blog and individual posts.
For example, you can highlight a link by simply bolding it or using colored text.
Or you can make a link more obvious by placing it in an affiliate product box or button. Some websites also use discreet icons like arrows or shopping carts next to the links to show they are affiliate links.
You could also create a call to action (CTA) where you mention the affiliate product or service. For best results, use persuasive language that encourages readers to learn more or click through.
7. Negotiate With Brands for a Higher Commission Tier
Finally, you can make more affiliate income by simply asking your partners for a higher commission percentage. This can potentially help you make the biggest gains in revenue.
Because you’ve already enabled link tracking, you will be able to gather the information you need to demonstrate the value you bring your affiliate partner.
Make sure you do your research first. Some affiliate plans may already offer a tiered structure that pays higher commission rates for higher sales volumes. Otherwise, you can speak to the affiliate manager about increasing the rates for your website.
Don’t become aggressive or demanding or you may damage your relationship with the company. Make sure you remain courteous and flexible and aim for a win-win outcome.
Are you wondering how to add affiliate links to your WordPress site?
Adding affiliate links for third-party products/services on your website is a great way to generate passive income. Every time someone buys something through one of your links, you will make a small commission.
In this article, we will show you how to easily add affiliate links in WordPress with ThirstyAffiliates. We will also share some tips to improve your affiliate marketing strategy.
Why Use ThirstyAffiliates for Affiliate Links in WordPress?
An affiliate link is a special type of link that you add to your online content. You can earn a commission if a visitor clicks on the link and then makes a purchase on the affiliated website.
If you have a WordPress blog, then affiliate marketing can add a steady income stream and improve your monetization strategy.
To add affiliate links in WordPress, you will need to use an affiliate link management plugin. This makes it easy to design custom affiliate links, track their performance, and more.
It even helps you create branded URLs, comes with a search form, and allows you to automatically replace keywords with affiliate links, making it a complete solution.
Note: We use ThirstyAffiliates on WPBeginner for affiliate link management.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily add affiliate links in WordPress with ThirstyAffiliates. You can use the quick links below to jump to different parts of our tutorial:
How to Install and Set Up the ThirstyAffiliates Plugin
First, you will need to visit the ThirstyAffiliates website and click on the ‘Pricing’ tab in the top right corner of the screen.
This will take you to the ‘Pricing’ page, where you have to select a subscription plan that suits your needs.
Once you have done that, you need to visit your WordPress website to install and activate the ThirstyAffiliates plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Note: ThirstyAffiliates also has a free version that you can use. However, we will be using the premium plugin to unlock more features.
Upon activation, visit the ThirstyAffiliates » Settings page from the WordPress admin sidebar and switch to the ‘License’ tab in the left column.
Here, simply paste your license key for the plugin and click the ‘Activate License Key’ button.
You can find this information in your account on the ThirstyAffiliates website.
Next, switch to the ‘Link Appearance’ tab from the sidebar on the left to configure some settings.
Once you are there, you can start by choosing a link prefix from the dropdown menu. This prefix will be used in your cloaked link before the link slug.
For example, if you choose the ‘Recommends’ option as the link prefix, then your affiliate links will look like this:
http://www.your-site.com/recommends/link-name
You can also create a custom link prefix by selecting the ‘Custom’ option from the ‘Link Prefix’ dropdown menu.
Once you’ve done that, simply type the link prefix of your choice into the ‘Custom Link Prefix’ field. In our example, we are using ‘refer’.
After that, you can also check the box next to the ‘Link Category in URL?’ option if you want to show the selected affiliate link category in the URL.
This will add a link category to the URL after the link prefix and before the link slug like this:
http://www.your-site.com/refer/category/link-name
Next, scroll down to the ‘Use nofollow on links?’ section and select the ‘Yes’ option from the dropdown menu.
This means that the nofollow attribute will now be added to all your affiliate links, which will tell the search engines not to pass a small portion of your authority to the other website.
We recommend using this option because it’s a general SEO best practice. For more details, you may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to add nofollow links in WordPress.
Once you’ve done that, you can also open all your affiliate links in new tabs by choosing ‘Yes’ next to the ‘Open links in a new window?’ option.
After that, you can leave the other settings as default or configure them as you like.
Finally, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom to store your settings.
How to Add Affiliate Links in WordPress Using ThirstyAffiliates
Now that you have set up the plugin, you need to head over to the ThirstyAffiliates » New Affiliate Link page from the WordPress dashboard.
Once you are there, you can start by typing a name for your affiliate link in the ‘Add Title’ field.
As this name will be used in the cloaked URL created by ThirstyAffiliates, we recommend using the product or service name as the link title.
Next, you have to add the full affiliate link with your affiliate ID in the ‘Destination URL’ field.
You can also attach an image to your affiliate link by clicking on the ‘Upload/Insert’ button under the ‘Attach Images’ section.
This will launch the media library on the screen, where you can upload an image of your choice.
We recommend using this setting if you want to display affiliate links in sidebars or have templates where links can be shown with images.
Now, scroll down to the ‘Autolink Keywords’ section and type the keywords that you want to automatically link to this particular affiliate link.
This will save you a lot of time when writing a blog post on your website, as the affiliate links will be automatically added once you type in a specific keyword.
Next, you can also set a limit for auto-linking in the ‘Limit (per keyword):’ option.
For example, if you type the number 3 in this field, then ThirstyAffiliates will automatically stop auto-linking the affiliate link with the specific keyword after the first three times.
After that, you can also sort your links into categories. To do this, simply click the ‘+ Add New Category’ link in the ‘Link Categories’ section on the right.
From here, type the category name that suits your affiliate link and click the ‘Add New Category’ button.
After that, scroll down to the ‘Link Options’ section in the right column and select if you want to add the nofollow attribute, open the link in a new tab, pass the query string to the destination URL, and even change the redirect type of your link.
You can also leave these settings as they are because they will already be configured according to the options that you picked when setting up the plugin.
Finally, click the ‘Save Link’ button at the top to store your settings and create your first affiliate link.
Adding Affiliate Links in WordPress Posts and Pages
Aside from using the auto-linker, sometimes you may want to manually add affiliate links to your WordPress posts and pages.
To do this, open a post/page in the block editor from the WordPress admin sidebar.
Once you are there, you will notice that ThirstyAffiliates has added an ‘Affiliate Link’ button in the toolbar at the top of your blocks.
Now, to manually add an affiliate link to your WordPress post or page, simply select the anchor text for the link (the words you want to put the link on) and click the ‘TA’ icon in the block toolbar at the top.
This will open a search form on the screen where you have to type the name of the affiliate link that you created.
Once the link appears in the search results, simply click on it to add it to the anchor text.
After that, don’t forget to click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top to store your settings.
You have now successfully added an affiliate link to your WordPress page/post.
Managing Affiliate Links in ThirstyAffiliates
ThirstyAffiliates uses built-in WordPress functionality to manage links. Links added via the ThirstyAffiliates plugin are added into a custom post type, which makes it really simple to add, edit, or delete them.
To manage your affiliate links, simply visit the ThirstyAffiliates » Affiliate Links page from the admin area.
Here, you can click on the ‘Edit’ link under the affiliate link of your choice to make some changes or click on the ‘Trash’ link to delete it.
You can also use the ‘Filters’ option at the top to filter all your affiliate links according to categories.
If you have the statistics add-on activated, then it will also show you the number of clicks for each link broken down into daily, weekly, and monthly clicks.
To view the full statistics report, just visit the ThirstyAffiliates » Reports page from the WordPress admin sidebar.
From here, you can easily get a statistics report for your affiliate link performance over the last year, month, or week. You can even set a custom date for your report.
This can help you show which link categories are performing better, which links are getting more clicks and fewer sign-ups, and which ones are getting fewer clicks and more signups.
You can then improve your content strategy to maximize your earning potential.
Bonus Tips for Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a super easy way to earn money online. If you are new to affiliate marketing, then the first step is to find a product or company that you are passionate about and would like to promote.
Once you’ve done that, you can partner with that company by asking to join their affiliate program and then using the affiliate ID provided by them to sell their products on your website.
You can typically find an affiliate program by searching for an ‘Affiliates’ page on a company’s website.
When choosing an affiliate program, it is important to pick a reputable company and recommend a product that you personally use and trust.
In addition, try to find affiliate programs that are relevant to your audience and sell products/services that your visitors may need.
For example, if you run a food blog, then you might want to endorse kitchen appliances, cookbooks, or food-related merchandise that your users may already be interested in.
Moreover, don’t try to overstuff your content with irrelevant affiliate links, as the key to driving traffic to your website and affiliate products is to create quality content.
Are you looking for a way to shorten your WordPress website links so you can track clicks when they’re shared?
If you have long and unreadable URLs on your website, then a URL shortener can reduce them to a few characters. This makes it easier to share them on any platform. You can also track how many times they’re clicked and more.
In this article, we will show you the best URL shorteners for WordPress to track links.
What is a URL Shortener and Why Use It on Your Site?
A URL shortener is a tool that helps convert long WordPress website links into short and shareable links. It simplifies complex URLs that are hard to read by reducing a few characters and turning them into small links.
When a user clicks the shortened URL, they’re redirected to the correct page. They use 301 redirects, which tell search engines that the link is permanent and not going anywhere. Using a 301 doesn’t affect your WordPress SEO.
Short URLs are really useful for sharing content on social media. Some social media platforms like Twitter offer a limited number of characters that you can use. If you have a lengthy link, then it can take up a lot of space.
Using a shortened URL helps save valuable character space that you can use to write compelling copy, get more clicks, and boost engagement. For example, on WPBeginner we use a custom short URL to share content on Twitter.
Besides that, you can use URL shorteners to convert affiliate links into more readable links.
Affiliate links are usually lengthy, hard to remember, and contain your affiliate ID or username. This makes them complex, and it looks something like this:
You can convert them into shareable and branded links using a URL shortener. Some tools even let you cloak affiliate links and make them look more professional, like:
https://wpbeginner.com/refer/productname
The best part about using URL shortener tools is that they also track the number of clicks. This way, you can see which link gets the most clicks.
That said, let’s look at some of the best URL shorteners for your WordPress website.
1. Pretty Links
Pretty Links is the best WordPress URL shortener plugin and the most popular affiliate link management tool. It helps shrink long and complex links into shortened URLs with your brand name.
You can use the plugin for links outside your website. For instance, you’ll be able to cloak affiliate links and turn them into readable URLs. This makes it a great tool for creating shareable links for different platforms, like social media.
When shortening a URL, Pretty Links gives multiple options for redirection. You can select 302 and 307 temporary redirects, 301 permanent redirects, and more.
Using Pretty Links, you can manage all your shortened URLs from the WordPress dashboard. In the premium version, there are options to group links into categories and tags.
The plugin offers other features as well, like an auto-linking feature. You can add affiliate links for certain keywords and the plugin will automatically insert them in the content.
Pretty Links also helps track the number of clicks for each shortened URL. It shows a report inside the WordPress dashboard, displaying the browser, operating system, timestamp, host, URI, and other data for each link.
Recommended For: Pretty Links is the best tool for anyone looking for a complete link management solution for their WordPress site. You can easily manage affiliate links, cloak and brand them, shorten any URL on your site, and track link clicks.
Pros:
Beginner-friendly plugin for creating custom links
Easily manage and organize your URLs from the WordPress dashboard
Cloaks complex affiliates links
Use the auto-linking feature to automatically add links to specific keywords
Offers social sharing buttons to easily share short links
Seamless integration with other plugins like MonsterInsights
Cons:
It doesn’t offer an automatic link uncloaking feature for Amazon
You cannot check if a link is broken before publishing it
Pricing: Pretty Links premium version prices start from $99.50 per year. However, there is also a free version of Pretty Links you can use to get started.
Bitly is one of the most popular URL shorteners in the market. It helps you create short links, QR codes, and link-in-bio pages. The tool is very easy to use, and you get started for free.
To shorten a URL, simply enter the link, and Bitly will create a short link for you. In the free version, you will get a URL with a ‘bit.ly’ domain name, and it will look like this: https://bit.ly/3YqTCEH.
If you upgrade to the premium version, then you add a custom domain and remove Bitly branding from the links. At WPBeginner, we also use Bitly to create custom short URLs for our site.
Bitly makes it very easy to track individual links and get analytics inside your account dashboard. For instance, the tool will show the link clicks, the technology used by your users to click on the short URL, and the location from where you get the most clicks.
There is also offers Bitly’s WordPress plugin. It is a free plugin that lets you shorten a link for selected post types. You can also view the number of clicks from your dashboard for each shortened URL.
Recommended For: Bitly is perfect for free users who want to give link-shortening a try, as well as enterprises that want a robust link-shortening and tracking tool. You can easily create short links and QR codes for your business. Plus, it offers detailed analytics and reports for link clicks, QR code scans, country-level data, and more.
Pros:
Create short and custom links in a few clicks
View link click reports from your Bitly account dashboard
Offers a free WordPress plugin
Lets you create QR codes for links
Offers 1 link-in bio page feature
You can connect a custom domain with Bitly
Cons:
The free version has limited features
It uses Bitly branding in short links in the free plan
You cannot schedule or auto-link URLs to keywords
Pricing: Bitly offers a free version that lets you create 10 short links and QR codes per month. However, there are paid plans that start from $8 per month.
ThirstyAffiliates is the best link management plugin for WordPress that lets you cloak your affiliate links. You can turn long, unshareable affiliate links into beautiful short URLs that are easy to read.
We’ve been using ThirstyAffiliates on our websites, including WPBeginner for over 5 years.
The plugin lets you manage all your links from your WordPress dashboard. You can easily create branded links, add them to your content, and arrange and organize links into categories.
The plugin even tracks your links and shows reports inside the WordPress admin panel. You get to see full statistics of how your shortened links are performing and see top-performing affiliates.
ThirstyAffiliates also integrates with MonsterInsights, so you can track them in Google Analytics. It also tracks geolocation and shows which region you get the most clicks from.
ThirstyAffiliates is more than just a URL shortener. You can use it to auto-insert affiliate links in the content, import links, check links with 404 errors, schedule affiliate links, and more.
Recommended For: If you’re an affiliate marketer or a blogger using WordPress, then ThirstyAffiliates is for you. It’s very easy to use, and you can shorten any URL in just a few clicks. ThirstyAffiliates is also a great alternative to Pretty Links. You can see our comparison on Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates for more details.
Pros:
Very easy to use and shorten URLs
It lets you choose a prefix for your links
Easily manage all your links from a single place
Allows automatic keyword linking
Offers smart uncloaking feature for Amazon Associates links
It automatically checks links for 404 errors
Cons:
Dashboard reports are not that detailed
It doesn’t integrate with eCommerce plugins like WooCommerce
The free version is great but offers limited features
Pricing: ThristyAffiliates premium plans start from $79.50 per year. There is also a ThristyAffiliates free version you can use to get started.
URL Shortener by MyThemeShop is a free WordPress plugin that helps create short links for your website. It is a beginner-friendly plugin that’s lightweight and won’t slow down your website.
You can easily create a short version of your URLs and share them on social media. The plugin also helps trim long links of external sources. This makes your links more readable and shareable.
URL Shortener by MyThemeShop offers multiple redirection types to choose from. It lets you select between 301, 302, and 307 reductions. You can manage all your short links from your WordPress admin panel and also organize them into different categories.
The best part is that it also tracks all your URLs and shows the number of clicks. This is really useful if you have affiliate links and want to see which affiliate is getting the most clicks and generating revenue.
Recommended For: If you’re just starting a new website and looking for a free WordPress plugin to shorten URLs and track them, then URL Shortener by MyThemeShop is the best choice. It lets you customize your short link, pick a redirection type, and offers multiple features for free.
Pros:
User-friendly and lightweight plugin
Offers auto-linking feature in the free plan
Organize your links into categories
Open short links in a new tab or window
Add nofollow tags to your affiliate links
Cons:
Click tracking report shows limited information
Doesn’t integrate with analytics plugins like MonsterInsights
You don’t get a link scheduler or broken link checker
Pricing: URL Shortener by MyThemeShop is available for free.
URL Shortify is another free WordPress URL shortener plugin and is a great alternative to URL Shortener by MyThemeShop and Bitly’s WordPress plugin.
You can easily create short links from your WordPress dashboard, select redirection type and even group links into categories. The plugin also lets you enable the option to automatically add nofollow and sponsored tags to your links.
During our testing, what made URL Shortify stand out was its dashboard reports. It shows more details compared to other free options on your list.
For instance, you’ll see click history, top locations, referrers, devices, browsers, platforms, and more. The report also shows details of each click, so you know how your short URLs are performing.
Recommended For: URL Shortify is a good free solution for affiliate marketers, bloggers, podcasters, and anyone looking to manage links on their WordPress site. The biggest draw is for people who want detailed reports inside the WordPress admin area.
Pros:
Easily customize your short links using your brand
Automatically create short URLs for your posts and pages
Manage and organize links from the WordPress dashboard
Track link clicks and get details analytical reports
Integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads
Cons:
There is no broken link checker in the free version
WP.me Shortlinks is a URL shortener by Jetpack. It lets you create short URLs from the WordPress content editor, so you can easily share them on different platforms.
Jetpack is a plugin suite that offers different features. However, its core focus is on performance, security, and marketing.
You’ll need to manually activate the WP.me Shortlinks tools from Jetpack settings. Once that’s done, you can access it from the content editor by clicking the Jetpack icon and heading to the Shortlink option. The tool creates short links using the wp.me domain.
While the tool is straightforward to use, it doesn’t offer a lot of features that you’ll find in other plugins on our list.
For instance, you don’t get a dashboard to manage your short links, select redirection type, add your custom domain to short links, remove wp.me branding from links, and auto-link URLs to specific search terms.
You also don’t get built-in dashboard reports to see link click stats. You’ll need to manually set up link click tracking in Google Analytics.
Recommended For: WP.me is a great tool if you’re already using Jetpack on your WordPress site. This way, you can quickly shorten URLs from the content editor.
Pros:
It comes prebuilt in the Jetpack plugin
With Jetpack, you get a whole suite of plugins along with a URL shortener
Easy to use and can be accessed from the content editor
You can use it for free
Cons:
It doesn’t offer a custom branding option for short links
No option to select the redirection type
You cannot set up auto-link to keywords
There is no dashboard to manage and organize short URLs
You don’t get built-in reports to track shortened URLs
Pricing: WP.me Shortlinks is available in the free version of Jetpack. However, there are also premium plans that start from $4.95 per month.
TinyURL is a URL shortener software you can use to create short links and QR codes. It is a great alternative if you don’t want to use a WordPress plugin or Bitly and just want to quickly condense long URLs.
The best part about the tool during our testing is that you can create unlimited short URLs in the free version. This makes a budget-friendly option for new websites and beginners. However, your links with TinyURL branding in the URL.
To add your own brand name in the links and access analytics, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version. This will unlock reports where you can see URL click history, dashboard report, time chart of clicks over time, map of where people click your links, and more.
Recommended For: TinyURL is a budget-friendly option for businesses looking for a premium URL shortener. You can customize links using your domain or subdomain while tracking link clicks.
Pros:
Very easy to use and create short URLs
Short links don’t have an expiration date
Easily manage your links from the TinyURL dashboard
Affordable pricing plans
Cons:
The free version has limited features and functionality
No integration with WordPress plugins or analytical tools
You cannot auto-link, auto-cloak, or schedule short links
Analytical reports show basic information
Pricing: The base software is free to use. However, you’ll need a paid plan to remove TinyURL branding and view reports. The premium plans start from $9.99 per month (billed annually).
Which is the Best URL Shortener for WordPress?
After reviewing multiple plugins and tools, we recommend Pretty Links as the best URL shortener for WordPress.
It is packed with features and helps convert long and complex URLs into readable and shareable links. The plugin is super easy to set up and use.
You also get a handful of redirection types to choose from, use the auto-linking feature to automatically add links to your content, and manage all the short URLs from your WordPress dashboard.
Besides that, Pretty Links helps track link clicks. You can integrate it with MonsterInsights to track clicks in Google Analytics as well.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for an external tool that shortens links and also offers a WordPress plugin, then you can use Bitly.
FAQs about Best URL Shorteners
Here are some of the most common questions people have about URL shortener tools:
1. Which is the best free URL shortener?
From our testing, we recommend Pretty Links and Bitly as the best free URL shorteners. Pretty Links is great for WordPress sites looking to manage their affiliate links and track them. Bitly is great if you just want to shorten a few URLs.
2. Are URL shorteners good for SEO?
URL shorteners won’t impact your WordPress SEO and website visibility if they’re used wisely. Short links don’t pass the link juice entirely, so you shouldn’t use them as the main form of creating links for your website.
3. Do short URLs expire?
Some short URLs expire while others don’t. It usually depends on the URL shortener you’re using. For instance, custom links created using TinyURL don’t expire.
Are you looking for a way to cloak affiliate links on your WordPress site?
Cloaking your affiliate links in WordPress provides clean and easy-to-read links, which can increase the likelihood of clicks and conversions. It can also increase user trust.
In this article, we will show you how to easily cloak affiliate links in WordPress.
What Is Affiliate Link Cloaking, and Why Do You Need It?
With link cloaking, you can shorten your ugly affiliate links into branded URLs like this:
http://www.yoursite.com/refer/productname
This can make your links look more trustworthy and professional to your audience, encouraging more clicks.
If you use affiliate links to make money from your WordPress blog, then you should cloak links, as doing this can increase your click-through rate and conversions.
Many link-cloaking plugins will also help you measure the performance of your affiliate marketing strategies and optimize them for better results.
Cloaking affiliate links also adds an additional layer of security by masking the actual affiliate URL. This can protect your affiliate accounts and earnings from fraud or theft.
This can also help prevent your links from being blocked by social media sites or search engines, increasing the search visibility of your affiliate content.
Having said that, let’s see how you can easily cloak affiliate links on your WordPress website, step by step.
How to Cloak Affiliate Links in WordPress
There are many link-cloaking plugins that you can use in WordPress, including Pretty Links and Thirsty Affiliates. Both plugins are great, but we will use Pretty Links for this tutorial since it’s a little more beginner-friendly for this use case.
You can easily cloak affiliate links in WordPress using Pretty Links. It is one of the best affiliate marketing tools for WordPress that lets you add, manage, and cloak affiliate links.
Note: Pretty Links also has a free version that can cloak links. However, we will be using the Pro version in the tutorial to unlock more features.
Create Your Cloaked Link
Upon activation, you need to head over to the Pretty Links » Add New page from the WordPress admin sidebar to create an affiliate link.
Once you are there, you can start by typing a name for your link into the ‘Add Title’ option.
After that, you must select a link type from the ‘Redirection’ dropdown menu to create short and branded links for your affiliate program.
If you choose ‘Cloaked’, then the target URL will be hidden in your user’s browser, and they will only see your cloaked link. Some affiliate programs don’t allow this, so you will need to check first.
Another option is ‘307 Temporary’. It will replace the original URL with your new affiliate link and tell search engines that this link may change in the future.
Next, simply copy and paste your affiliate link into the ‘Target URL’ field.
Once you have done that, type the slug you want to use for your cloaked link into the ‘Pretty Link’ field.
For example, if you want your cloaked link to be like the example below, then you will need to type the ‘/refer/bluetooth-speakers’ text into the ‘Pretty Link’ field. You will then get a link like this:
www.example.com/refer/bluetooth-speakers
Choose Attributes for Your Cloaked Link
After that, simply switch to the ‘Advanced’ tab from the sidebar on the left.
From here, you can add different attributes to your affiliate link by checking the box next to these options.
For instance, if you want to add a nofollow attribute to the external link, then simply check the box next to ‘No Follow’. This means that search engines won’t pass on any link authority to the site you are linking to.
You can also check the ‘Sponsored’ box to tell search engines that your link is a paid advertisement.
Plus, checking the ‘Parameter Forwarding’ box can be handy if you want to pass a coupon code or customer ID to your cloaked link.
It’s also a good idea to check the box next to ‘Tracking’ so that you can view your affiliate link performance in the Pretty Links reports.
Configure Pro Settings for Your Cloaked Link
Once you have done that, you need to switch to the ‘Pro’ tab from the sidebar on the left. Now, you can set an expiry date for the affiliate link by checking the ‘Expire’ option.
This will expand a tab on your screen where you can set an expiry date for the link after a specific date or number of link clicks.
For example, if you choose the ‘Clicks’ option from the ‘Expire After’ dropdown menu and type 5 into the ‘Clicks’ field, then your affiliate link will immediately expire once 5 visitors have clicked on the link.
You can also type a URL for the expired redirect into the ‘URL’ field. This will be the link that users will be redirected to if they click on the expired affiliate link.
After that, you can type the keywords that you would like to be replaced with your affiliate link into the ‘Keywords’ field.
This means that whenever the keyword you choose is written in your WordPress post or page, the plugin will automatically add its affiliate link to the keyword.
You can also easily replace another URL with your affiliate link by typing it into the ‘URL Replacements’ field.
Now, whenever Pretty Links finds this URL on your website, it will replace it with the cloaked link.
Once you are done, simply click the ‘Update’ button in the Publish section to store your changes.
After that, you need to click the ‘Publish’ button in the same section to publish your cloaked affiliate link.
Add Your Cloaked Link to a WordPress Post or Page
Now, you can visit a WordPress post or page where you want to add the cloaked affiliate link.
Once you are there, simply select the text that you want to link on top of and then click the ‘Pretty Links’ icon in the block toolbar at the top.
This will open up a link prompt on your screen, where you can search for the cloaked affiliate link using its title or the link itself.
Upon adding the link, just click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button at the top to store your settings.
Now, you can visit your website and click on the affiliate link. You will now see the cloaked URL redirecting you to the affiliate product page.
Are you looking for the best affiliate link management plugin for your website?
The right affiliate URL management plugin will help you add relevant links to your site, so you never miss a chance to make money. They’ll also make it easier to monitor, update, and fine-tune your links to get as many sales as possible.
In this article, we will compare Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates, to help you decide which affiliate plugin is right for your website.
Why Use an Affiliate Link Management Plugin?
Affiliate marketing is where you earn a commission every time someone buys a product using your unique referral link. It’s a great way to make money online without having to create and sell your own digital downloads or physical products.
However, it’s not enough to simply add affiliate links to your site. To get sales, you need to place those links in the right place and show them to the right people.
It’s also important to monitor the number of click-throughs and conversions, identify any broken links, update outdated URLs, and much more.
This can take a lot of time and effort, which is why so many marketers use an affiliate link management plugin. The right plugin can help you better manage your affiliate links, and even help automate certain processes like contextual linking.
In this Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates guide, we’re comparing two of the most popular affiliate plugins to see which is right for your website. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the feature you want to compare.
An effective link management plugin is a must-have for any affiliate marketer. With that being said, let’s start with an overview of these two popular link management plugins.
ThirstyAffiliates – Overview
ThirstyAffiliates is an affiliate management plugin that allows you to replace ugly affiliate URLs with branded links.
It has everything you need to make money online blogging with WordPress including link scheduling, Google Analytics integration, automatic keyword linking, geolocation specific links, and an automatic 404 checker.
You can also organize your links into categories, so it’s easier to work with lots of different affiliate partners.
Note: We have been using ThirstyAffiliates on our own websites including WPBeginner for over 5 years.
Pretty Links – Overview
Pretty Links is also a popular affiliate link management plugin for WordPress that’s trusted by over 200,000 websites.
You can use Pretty Links to replace long and complicated affiliate URLs with cleaner, more memorable alternatives. These links are easier to post on social media, podcasts, forums, and many other platforms.
You can even create links that originate from your domain name, so they seem more trustworthy to security-conscious shoppers.
In addition to link cloaking, Pretty Links is a complete affiliate link management tool that has tons of advanced features including automatically adding links to your site and detailed conversion reports.
Affiliate Link Management
Affiliate links are a great way to monetize your WordPress blog or website. However, maintaining those links can take a lot of time and effort, especially if you’re a small team. If you don’t manage your links effectively, then you may miss opportunities to make money.
Here’s a look at how these plugins can help you manage your affiliate URLs.
ThirstyAffiliates – Affiliate Link Management
ThirstyAffiliates allows you to manage your links from a single location in your WordPress dashboard. This can save you a ton of time if you ever need to update those URLs.
For example, if an affiliate partner changes a link, then you can simply edit the URL once in the WordPress dashboard, and ThirstyAffiliates will automatically redirect to the new URL across your entire WordPress website.
ThirstyAffiliates’ also support categories, which work in a similar way to post and page categories in WordPress.
This helps to keep your links organized, no matter how many affiliate partners you work with.
However, there’s no way to add tags to your links.
Pretty Links – Affiliate Link Management
Just like ThirstyAffiliates, Pretty Links provides a single location where you can manage all your affiliate links.
Again, this means you can edit an affiliate link once, and Pretty Links will apply the change across your entire WordPress website.
Although Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates handle link management in a very similar way, Pretty Links does have some extra features. To start, you can add both categories and tags to your affiliate links.
It even has a separate section where you can manage all your affiliate tags.
This can be particularly useful if you have lots of different affiliate partners or a ton of links that you need to keep organized.
Pretty Links also has a ‘Notes’ section for each link where you can leave reminders for yourself, or even notes for other people.
In this way, you can communicate with clients, guest bloggers, partners, and anyone else who shares the WordPress dashboard with you.
Winner – Pretty Links
If you’re looking for a tool to help you perform essential link management, then both plugins are a great choice.
Both Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates will save you a ton of time with link management, no matter how many URLs you add to your online store, blog, or website. However, Pretty Links has a few extra features that can help you organize your links, so it has a slight edge over ThirstyAffiliates in this area.
Link Checker
Broken links are bad news for any website, but 404 errors cost affiliate marketers money.
When a visitor clicks on an affiliate link, it typically means they’re thinking about buying the product. If they get a 404 error, then you’ve missed out on a potential sale.
As an affiliate marketer, you need a link management plugin that helps you fix broken links before they start costing you money. Here’s what both plugins have to offer.
ThirstyAffiliates – Link Checker
ThirstyAffiliates has an Automatic 404 Checker that scans your site and then reports any problems. It will show information about each link in the ‘404 checker’ area of the WordPress dashboard.
You can check for broken links by visiting this tab, but ThirstyAffiliates will also notify your site admin about any broken URLs it discovers. However, there’s no option to send these email notifications to a different email address, which may be a problem if you share the WordPress dashboard with other people.
The Automatic 404 Checker also isn’t enabled by default, so you’ll need to go into the plugin’s settings to activate it.
ThirstyAffiliates also allows you to check the health of specific links as you’re adding them to your online marketplace or website.
This allows you to verify that a link works before publishing it.
Pretty Links – Link Checker
Pretty Links has a Link Health feature that scans your site and creates weekly reports about any broken links it discovers.
However, just like ThirstyAffiliates, you will need to go into the plugins’s settings to enable this feature, as it doesn’t run by default.
Unlike ThirstyAffiliates, Pretty Links prioritizes the links that get you the most conversions, by scanning your best-performing links first. This feature is particularly useful for large sites that have hundreds or even thousands of affiliate URLs.
You can see the Link Health report in the WordPress dashboard, but Pretty Links can also notify you about broken links via email. By default, Pretty Links will email your site admin but you can change this to any other address in the plugin’s settings.
Winner – ThirstyAffiliates
Both of these plugins allow you to identify and fix broken links without having to manually track 404 pages in WordPress.
However, ThirstyAffiliates lets you check that a link is working before publishing it, simply by clicking a button. This is a quick way to avoid 404 errors happening in the first place, which gives this plugin a slight advantage over Pretty Links.
Link Scheduling
Scheduling helps you create automated workflows for your affiliate website. This is important for busy website owners who don’t have time to enable and disable affiliate URLs manually.
It’s also useful if your affiliate partners run sales and other time-sensitive promotions, as you can organize your campaigns in advance.
Let’s see how these plugins compare when it comes to link scheduling.
ThirstyAffiliates – Link Scheduling
With ThirstyAffiliates, you can set the date and time when your affiliate URLs will go live.
You can also create redirects for any visitors who click your affiliate URLs before they’re active, or after they’ve expired.
For example, you might show a custom landing page explaining the promotion has ended, and suggesting some alternatives affiliate products visitors may want to buy instead.
In this way, you can improve the user experience and possibly even turn 404 errors into sales.
Pretty Links – Link Scheduling
Unlike ThirstyAffiliates, Pretty Links doesn’t allow you to schedule when your links will go live. However, you can set links to expire automatically on a specific date or after a certain number of clicks. This is perfect if you want to use FOMO to increase conversions.
Similar to ThirstyAffiliates, you can automatically redirect visitors after a link has expired. For example, you might use a page builder plugin to design a custom Sorry page, or you can forward them to an alternative affiliate product.
Winner – Tie
If you like to plan your affiliate campaigns in advance, then this is a good reason to choose ThirstyAffiliates over Pretty Links. However, if you want your links to expire automatically after a certain number of clicks, then this is very easy to set up using Pretty Links.
URL Cloaking
Link cloaking is where you replace complicated affiliate URLs with user-friendly links that have your own branding. This makes the links look more trustworthy, which encourages shoppers to click on them.
Cloaked links are often shorter, so they’re also easier to share on social media. In addition, link cloaking hides your affiliate ID, so it’s more difficult for malicious third parties to hijack your links and steal your commissions.
Since it’s such an important feature, let’s compare how ThirstyAffiliates and Pretty Links handle affiliate URL cloaking.
Pretty Links – URL Cloaking
Every time you add a link to Pretty Links, you have the option to set up link cloaking. Simply type in the original link and the cloaked URL that you want to use instead.
You can then choose between various redirection types, including 301 redirects, 307, and JavaScript redirection.
You can then mark the links as no-follow or sponsored, so you’re in complete control of your WordPress SEO.
‘Sponsored’ tells search engines that the URL is a paid placement or advertisement. Although no-follow and sponsored links are similar, ‘sponsored’ helps search engines understand this is an affiliate URL, so it’s a great example of Pretty Links paying attention to the finer details.
Sometimes you may need to pass a parameter to the target URL, such as a coupon code or customer ID. With Pretty Links, this is as simple as checking a box.
ThirstyAffiliates – URL Cloaking
Similar to Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates makes it easy to cloak your affiliate URLs. In fact, the process is practically identical as you simply type in the original link and the URL you want to use instead.
You can also easily change whether the cloaked link opens in a new tab, mark URLs as nofollow, and pass query strings to the destination URL.
However, ThirstyAffiliates only allows you to set up 301, 302, and 307 redirects, so you have fewer options compared to Pretty Links.
If you want to mark affiliate links as sponsored, then you’ll need to add this as an additional rel attribute tag in the plugin’s settings.
This is much more difficult than how Pretty Links handles sponsored links.
On the plus side, ThirstyAffiliates has a unique smart uncloaking feature that helps you follow Amazon’s terms and conditions. The Amazon Associates Program forbids using any kind of redirection including link cloaking. If you ignore this rule, then you may get banned from their affiliate program.
Even better, if you add all your Amazon links to the same category, then you can enable automatic clink uncloaking for that entire category.
Now, any Amazon links you add to your website will be uncloaked by default. This is something that Pretty Links doesn’t offer, and it’s a very attractive feature for anyone who uses Amazon affiliate links.
Winner – ThirstyAffiliates
No matter whether you choose Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates, you’ll get advanced link cloaking features.
For the typical affiliate marketer, ThirstyAffiliates and Pretty Links have everything you need to create more shareable, user-friendly, and safe links. However, if you plan to use lots of Amazon links, then ThirstyAffiliates’ automatic link uncloaking is a must-have feature.
Automatic Keyword Linking
It’s easy to overlook an opportunity to add affiliate links to your blog posts. This becomes a bigger problem if you run a multi-author WordPress blog or have guest bloggers.
Both Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates can scan your site for specific keywords and phrases and then convert them into affiliate links automatically. Let’s take a closer look at how both plugins handle automatic keyword linking.
Pretty Links –Automatic Keyword Linking
When you add a new URL, you can type in an unlimited number of keywords and phrases. Every time you use these words in your posts and pages, Pretty Links will insert the affiliate link automatically.
Even better, Pretty Links will scan your older content for these keywords and phrases. If you’ve already published some content, then you can start earning money from your back catalog without having to manually update any posts.
Pretty Links also has a settings tab where you can control exactly how this auto-linking works on your site.
This includes setting a limit for the number of affiliate URLs that Pretty Links can add to a single page, so the links don’t distract from your content or annoy your visitors.
Pretty Links can also add a disclosure to every page where it auto-inserts an affiliate URL.
Undisclosed links can create a legal nightmare, so Pretty Links can earn you extra income without risking any fines or damaging your reputation.
ThirstyAffiliates – Automatic Keyword Linking
ThirstyAffiliates works in a very similar way, as you can add keywords every time you create a link. ThirstyAffiliates will then automatically add the link to every page or post that features that word.
Just like Pretty Links, ThirstyAffiliates lets you limit how many affiliate links it will add to a single page or post.
However, unlike Pretty Links it allows you to set a global limit in the plugin’s settings and a limit for a specific affiliate link.
In the plugin’s general settings, you can also disable auto-linking on your homepage and archive pages. You can also disable auto-linking for your pages or posts.
Often, sales pages and landing pages have their own clear call to action. Affiliate URLs can distract from that CTA, so this is an easy way to disable them across all your pages.
These extra settings give you much more control over how auto-linking is used on your WordPress website.
Once you’ve set up auto-linking, it can be difficult to keep track of all the affiliate URLs across your website. With that in mind, you may want to look at the Link Inserted Scanner, as it lists every page and post that uses a particular affiliate link.
This is a simple but effective way to keep track of your URLs, even when using the auto-linking feature.
Winner – Tie
Auto-linking can help you earn extra commission so it’s a must-have feature for all affiliate marketers. Although ThirstyAffiliates has some extra settings, both Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates have everything you need to automatically add affiliate URLs to your content, while still keeping control over your links.
Affiliate Marketing Reports
It’s important to monitor how your affiliate links are performing. In this way, you can see what’s working and not working, and then adjust your affiliate marketing activities to get the best results.
Let’s see how ThirstyAffiliates vs Pretty Links stack up in terms of affiliate marketing reports.
ThirstyAffiliates – Affiliate Marketing Reports
ThirstyAffiliates has a reporting dashboard that spans multiple tabs. Here, you can see the total clicks on your different affiliate links and identify your top-performing URLs.
Some links may get more engagement from certain geographical locations. To help you spot these trends, ThirstyAffiliates has a Geolocation Report that tracks link clicks based on the visitor’s location.
Depending on the data, you might decide to show different content to users, based on their geographical location.
For more detailed information, we recommend pairing ThirstyAffiliates and Google Analytics. After making this connection, ThirstyAffiliates will send all its data to your Google Analytics profile.
You can even cross-match the information against your Google Analytics data. In this way, you can get a detailed insight into the people who convert, including the devices and operating systems they’re using, and how they arrived at your site.
This is how we use ThirstyAffiliates on WPBeginner to get maximum insights.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool, but it can be difficult to set up. For that reason, we recommend using MonsterInsights. It is the best analytics solution for WordPress users and can show all your ThirstyAffiliates and Google Analytics data inside the WordPress dashboard.
Pretty Links – Affiliate Marketing Reports
Unlike ThirstyAffiliates, Pretty Links doesn’t show you data automatically in a reporting dashboard. Instead, you’ll need to generate custom reports by selecting the links you want to analyze. You can start by generating standard reports, which show the total clicks and unique clicks on each affiliate link.
This is useful to know, but clicks don’t necessarily mean sales and affiliate revenue. With that in mind, you can also create conversion reports, which show the total conversions and the conversion rate for each link.
Unlike ThirstyAffiliates, there’s no way to explore your data based on geographical location by default. However, Pretty Links does integrate with MonsterInsights and Google Analytics.
This allows you to take the built-in Pretty Links reports to the next level and access more detailed information, including where visitors are located.
MonsterInsights will even send real-time data to Google Analytics, so you can track clicks as they’re happening.
Pretty Links also has a unique auto-trim clicks feature that automatically filters known robots and unidentifiable browser clients from your click data, stats, and reports. This can greatly improve the accuracy and quality of your reports.
Winner – Pretty Links
Both of these plugins provide easy access to all the information you need to make decisions based on real data, especially if you’re using a plugin such as MonsterInsights. However, Pretty Links’ auto-trimming feature can significantly improve the accuracy of this information, so it’s our top pick when it comes to affiliate reports.
Professional and Community Support
Both Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates are easy to use. However, even experienced affiliate marketers need help from time to time, so let’s compare their support options.
Pretty Links – Professional and Community Support
If you prefer to find answers yourself, then Pretty Links has detailed online documentation and a blog where you’ll find step-by-step guides covering everything from how to use specific Pretty Links features, to general advice on running a successful affiliate site.
If you want one-on-one support, then you can submit a ticket to their Premium Support Request page.
According to Pretty Links, you can typically expect a response within 1-2 business days.
If you don’t have a support license, then Pretty Links encourages you to reach out using their contact form or post to their support forum on the official WordPress repository.
The Pretty Links team members are very active on the free forum and respond quickly to user questions. If you plan to join the conversion, then we recommend reading our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it.
ThirstyAffiliates – Community and Professional Support
If you choose ThirstyAffiliates, then you’ll have access to a huge knowledge base covering both the free and premium versions of the plugin. There’s also a blog where they regularly post affiliate marketing tips, along with step-by-step guides on how to use ThirstyAffiliates.
Similar to Pretty Links, this may be all the information and resources you need to answer your questions and solve any problems you have.
When it comes to one-to-one support, premium customers can submit a ticket and get a response within 24-48 hours. Again, this is very similar to the level of support we see from Pretty Links.
If you have the free plugin then you can use the ThirstyAffiliates contact form, or post to the ThirstyAffiliates support forum. The ThirstyAffiliates team actively monitors this forum and responds to questions quickly, so this is a great resource for anyone using the free plugin.
Winner – Tie
When it comes to support, both plugins offer plenty of options. After comparing and contrasting all of the free and premium support, we’re confident you’ll have no problems getting the help you need, no matter whether you choose Pretty Links or ThirstyAffiliates.
Price Comparison
To help you build a successful affiliate marketing business, it’s important to find a plugin that fits your budget. Let’s see which plugin offers the best value for money.
Pretty Links – Price Comparison
Pretty Links has three pricing plans, which seem to target beginners, affiliate marketers with multiple websites, and established marketers who have up to 5 websites.
If you’re a new marketer with a single WordPress website, then the Beginner plan ($99.50 per year) has everything you need to get started. In fact, the only difference between Beginner and the more expensive plans is the number of websites you can use Pretty Links on.
If you have multiple websites, then you’ll need to upgrade to Marketer, which allows you to use Pretty Links on two websites for $149.50 a year.
If you own more than two websites, then Super Affiliate is the most expensive plan ($199.50 per year) and allows you to use Pretty Links on up to 5 websites.
ThirstyAffiliates – Price Comparison
Just like Pretty Links, the only difference between the different ThirstyAffiliates plans is how many sites you can use the plugin on.
If you’re a new affiliate marketer with a single website, then the Basic plan should have everything you need, for $79.50 per year.
If you have multiple websites, then ThirstyAffiliates does represent better value for money. Their Plus plan allows you to use ThirstyAffiliates on up to 5 websites, for $129.50 per year.
If you have more than 5 websites, then the most expensive ThirstyAffiliates plan is priced at $199.50 per year, but you can use it on up to 10 websites.
By comparison, Pretty Links’ most expensive plan is also priced at $199.50 per year, and you can only install the plugin on 5 websites.
Winner – ThirstyAffiliates
If you own a single website, then both Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates offer similar features, for a similar amount of money. However, if you own more than 2 websites, then ThirstyAffiliates seems to offer the best value for money.
In fact, if you have more than 5 websites, then you’ll almost certainly need to use the ThirstyAffiliates plugin.
Pretty Links vs ThirstyAffiliates – Which is Right for Your Site?
If you’re looking for an affiliate link management plugin with advanced auto-linking features, then both Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates are great choices.
Both plugins can help you unlock extra revenue while saving you a ton of time. By allowing you to auto-link keywords and manage your links from a single location, Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates make affiliate marketing easy, no matter whether you’re a hobby blogger or an experienced business owner.
The affiliate marketing plugin that’s right for you will vary depending on your website, your affiliate partners, and the specific features you need.
With that being said, each plugin has its own strengths and drawbacks. If you want to schedule links in advance, then we recommend using ThirstyAffiliates. If Amazon is your main affiliate partner, then ThirstyAffiliates’ smart link uncloaking is a must-have feature that can help you comply with Amazon’s terms and conditions.
If you’re worried about bots or malicious third parties affecting the accuracy of your data, then the auto-trimming feature in Pretty Links is perfect. We’ve seen this feature significantly improve the accuracy of affiliate reports, so it’s a must-have if you want precise data.
Vlogging is a powerful way to connect with people and build a personal brand. However, if you simply upload vlogs to third-party platforms like YouTube, then you may struggle to grow your audience, make money, and become a successful vlogger.
In this article, we will show you how you can start a vlog and make money.
Which Is the Best Website Builder for Your Video Blog?
There are many website builders that can help you create a vlog site, but we recommend using WordPress and a separate video hosting platform.
To learn more about why WordPress is such a good choice, please see our complete WordPress review with pros and cons.
There are two types of WordPress software: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. We recommend using WordPress.org, also called ‘self-hosted WordPress.’ This will give you full ownership and control of your site.
Using WordPress.org allows you to install third-party plugins and themes, including plenty that are designed specifically for vloggers.
Also, while you can upload videos to WordPress, it’s far better to use a separate video hosting platform such as YouTube or Vimeo.
Videos take up a lot of your hosting resources, which will slow down your website. Instead, we recommend uploading your vlogs to a separate hosting platform such as YouTube or Vimeo, which has all the server resources you need.
After uploading your vlogs to one of these sites, you can then embed your vlog in a WordPress page or post by simply copying and pasting a link. WordPress has built-in support for most major video hosting platforms.
If you really want to save time and impress your viewers, then you can use a plugin like Smash Balloon to create a video feed that will update automatically every time you post a new vlog.
If you don’t already have a video hosting platform in mind, then don’t worry. Later in this guide, we’ll help you find the perfect platform for your vlogs.
Step 1. Setting Up Your Video Blog Website
To create a video vlog, you’ll need a domain name and web hosting.
Although the WordPress software is free, hosting and domain names are where the costs can really start to add up.
A domain name typically costs $14.99/year and hosting costs start from $7.99/month. This is a lot for hobby vloggers, new creators, or anyone who is working with a tighter budget.
Thankfully, Bluehost has agreed to offer our users over 60% off on web hosting and a free SSL certificate as part of this deal. This is absolutely essential if you plan to sell premium videos and make money from your vlogs. You will also get a free domain name when you sign up!
Simply click the link below to create a vlogging website for as little as $2.75 per month.
Because you get a free domain when you sign up with Bluehost, you’ll need to be sure it’s the right fit for your video blog. For expert tips, check out our guide on how to choose the best domain name.
Once you’ve completed the purchase, you’ll get an email with instructions on how to log in to your web hosting control panel. This is your hosting account dashboard where you can manage your vlog, including setting up email notifications and asking for WordPress support if you need it.
It’s also where you’ll install the WordPress software, so let’s do that now.
Step 2. Install WordPress on Your Video Blog
When you sign up with Bluehost using our link, you’ll get access to a one-click WordPress installer. Simply log into your Bluehost account and click on ‘One Click Install.’
You can now follow the onscreen instructions to set up WordPress.
Once WordPress is set up, you’re ready to start customizing your vlog site.
Step 3. Select a Video Theme
WordPress themes are professionally designed templates that change how your vlog looks and acts.
There are lots of different premium and free WordPress business themes to choose from. You can generally categorize these as multipurpose WordPress themes, or niche industry themes. However, most WordPress themes are designed to show text.
Since we’re starting a vlog, we need a theme that’s designed specifically for videos.
Even if you’re using a separate video hosting platform, embedded videos still take time to load. With that in mind, it’s important to find a lightweight theme that won’t slow down your website. Wherever possible, we also recommend using a theme that has built-in lazy loading.
On top of that, vlogs often need special features such as parallax scrolling, lightbox popups, and fullscreen video backgrounds.
That’s a lot to keep in mind, so you may want to look at our expert pick of the best WordPress video themes.
After installing a theme, you may want to customize it by going to Appearance » Customize in the WordPress dashboard. This will launch the theme customizer where you can fine-tune the theme settings and see your changes in the live preview.
If you’re using one of the newer full-site editing themes, then you’ll need to go to Appearance » Editor instead.
Here, you can fine-tune the theme using blocks.
Just remember that you can customize your theme at any point. You can even completely change your WordPress theme, if you realize it doesn’t quite meet your needs.
This means you don’t need to finalize your site design now. In fact, it may be easier to fine-tune your vlog once you’ve added some content.
Step 4. Create a Custom Homepage
WordPress comes with two content types called posts and pages.
You’ll typically use posts to create articles and blogs, while pages are static “one-off” types of content. For example, you might publish an about page, a privacy policy, or a custom archive page.
There are a few different ways to show videos in WordPress. However, since we’re creating a video vlog you’ll typically embed one or more videos in a blog post.
By default, the WordPress homepage shows your posts in reverse chronological order, so your latest vlog appears at the top of the homepage.
However, you may want to move this blog list to another page, and use a custom homepage instead. This custom homepage can introduce your vlog to visitors and let them know what you have to offer.
You might even create a YouTube gallery of all your best videos, which is a great way to catch a visitor’s attention and make them want to watch more of your content.
Smash Balloon allows you to create all kinds of galleries, including showing a specific YouTube playlist or favorites feed, a single video, or even your latest live stream.
Once you’re happy with the design, it’s time to set it as your homepage. To do this, go to Settings » Reading in the WordPress dashboard.
Here, scroll to ‘Your homepage settings’ and select ‘A static page.’
Next, open the ‘Homepage’ dropdown and choose the page that you want to use.
After that, simply scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on ‘Save Changes.’ Now, if you visit your website you’ll see the new homepage in action.
With that done, make sure you create a separate blog page to display your vlogs.
Step 5. Set Up Your Video Hosting Platform
Before you can start adding videos to your WordPress website, you’ll need to upload them to a separate video hosting platform. In this way, you can show countless high-resolution videos on your website without affecting its performance.
There are lots of different video hosting platforms that you can use, but we recommend YouTube as it’s the most popular choice.
It’s free to create a YouTube account and you can upload as many videos as you want.
YouTube even has a Partners Program that you can join to make money from your videos. This program also offers more benefits like analytics, longer videos, and editing tools.
If you don’t want to use YouTube, then there are many other popular platforms including Vidyard, Wistia, and SproutVideo. For a closer look at all the top video sites, please see our expert pick of the best video hosting sites for bloggers.
After choosing a platform, you’ll need to create an account and upload all the vlogs that you want to show on your WordPress website.
For instructions on how to do this, check out the online documentation for your chosen video hosting platform.
Step 6. Create Your First Vlog
To create your first vlog, simply go to Posts » Add New in your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress has a block-based editor that allows you to create beautiful content layouts for your vlogs. Here, you can add text, images, audio clips, and more.
The easiest way to add vlogs to WordPress is by using the built-in auto-embed feature. If you’re using one of the big video hosting platforms, then you can simply paste the video’s URL into the WordPress content editor, and WordPress will handle the rest.
Just head over to your chosen video hosting platform and find the vlog that you want to show on your WordPress blog. You can then simply copy the video’s URL.
After that, switch back to the WordPress dashboard and paste the URL in the content area. If you paste it into a standard Paragraph block, WordPress will automatically try to place it in the correct block, such as the YouTube block.
Even if you don’t see the platform-specific block, it will use the Embed block and display the video inside the content editor.
As you’re working on the vlog, you can see how it’ll look to visitors by clicking on ‘Preview.’
This will open the page in a new tab.
The WordPress post editor also has sections for Categories and Tags. You can use these to organize your vlogs so it’s easier for visitors to find interesting content. To learn more, please see our guide on how to add categories and tags in WordPress.
When you’re happy with how the vlog looks, go ahead and click on the ‘Publish’ button in the top-right corner of the screen.
To add more vlogs to your website, simply follow the same process described above.
Step 7. Add a Contact Form to Your Vlog
Some viewers might want to contact you directly. This may include affiliate marketers, sponsors, advertisers, and other brands who are looking to build relationships with creators, or other vloggers who want to collaborate.
These people could ring your phone number or send a message to your business email address, but we always recommend adding a contact form to your website.
This makes it easier for potential partners to contact you, so you don’t miss out on any opportunities to grow your brand and make money from your vlogs.
The easiest way to add a contact form to your WordPress website is by using the free WPForms plugin. WPForms comes with a built-in Simple Contact Form template that you can customize using the drag-and-drop editor.
You can then add the form to any page, post, or widget-ready area using the ready-made WPForms block.
Once you’ve added some content to your vlog, it’s a good idea to add a navigation menu so visitors can find their way around the different videos.
The exact location of your menu will depend on your WordPress theme. Most themes have several options, so you can create multiple menus and then show them on different areas of your vlog.
Whether you create a single menu or multiple menus, it’s easy to add navigation to your vlog. For a complete guide, please see our post on how to add a navigation menu.
Menus encourage people to explore your site, but sometimes visitors may want to search for a specific vlog. WordPress comes with a built-in search feature, but it’s quite basic and not very good at finding relevant content.
It is very easy to use and gives much more accurate search results. It allows visitors to search for a keyword in the post or page title, content, URL slug, categories, tags, taxonomies, WordPress excerpts, and even comments.
All of this can help visitors find interesting vlogs, fast.
If you want to get more viewers, then you’ll need to optimize your vlog for SEO. This will help search engines understand your content and show it to people who are looking for videos just like yours.
AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market and has everything you need to get your vlogs onto the first page of Google, without having to learn any complicated SEO jargon.
AIOSEO comes with the easiest setup wizard that helps you choose the best SEO settings for your business. AIOSEO will even scan your vlogs and show an actionable checklist on how you can optimize that specific vlog.
Additionally, AIOSEO has a video sitemap feature that you can use to show search engines what’s the most important content to index.
Did you know that 70% of people who leave your site will never come back? Thankfully there are lots of ways to turn abandoning visitors into loyal viewers.
To start, it’s smart to create an email newsletter so people who enjoy your vlogs can subscribe. After that, you can email these subscribers every time you post a new vlog.
You can also keep them engaged with your brand by sending them fun surveys and polls, notifying them about any giveaways and contests you’re running, or even simply asking them for feedback on your latest vlog.
All of this can help you create a sense of community and build a stronger relationship with your viewers.
If you do build an email list, then you’ll want to make sure your messages arrive safely in the subscriber’s inbox and not in their spam folder. With that in mind, we recommend using an SMTP service provider to improve your email deliverability rates.
Another option is to use push notifications with software like PushEngage to send targeted, personalized messages to viewers after they leave your vlog.
Push notifications are short, clickable notifications that appear as a popup on the user’s desktop or mobile devices. Some of the biggest websites in the world use push notifications to keep users engaged, including Facebook.
These notifications go directly to the user’s web browser or mobile device so they have a high chance of getting the person’s attention, which makes them perfect for notifying viewers when you post a new vlog.
Creating lots of quality, engaging vlogs takes a lot of time and effort, so you may want to make money from your videos.
If you’ve created a contact form, then potential sponsors and partners already have a way to contact you, which is a great start. However, there are lots more ways to make money online with WordPress.
Here are some of the best ways to make money from your vlog.
Google AdSense
There are many reasons why it’s smart to embed videos on your own website, rather than simply uploading them to platforms like YouTube.
One major benefit is that you can show Google AdSense ads next to your videos.
When you sign up for Google AdSense, Google acts as a middleman between you and the advertiser. Instead of you having to find the right partners for your vlog, Google allows advertisers to bid for keywords matching your content. This allows you to get the best possible rates for the ads on your vlogging website.
Many vloggers make money by recommending products and services to their viewers. For example, many lifestyle vloggers film daily routine videos showing off their favorite skincare or fitness products.
By using affiliate links, you can earn money every time a viewer buys a product or service based on your recommendation.
For the best results, it’s a good idea to only recommend quality items that you already use and trust. If you encourage viewers to buy poor-quality or scammy products, then you’ll damage your band and almost certainly lose viewers.
If you build a strong, positive relationship with your viewers then they may want to support your work as a vlogger. This is particularly true if you’re a hobby vlogger or someone who is just starting out.
Although they’re mostly used by non-profits, some vloggers use donation forms so that viewers can support their work. These forms are often presented as ‘buy me a coffee’ or ‘buy me a beer.’
Most of the time, you’ll want your vlogs to be publicly available so you can get as many views as possible and build your audience.
However, some vloggers may want to create a video membership site in WordPress. This allows people to pay for different perks, such as early access to the latest vlogs, exclusive live streams, or premium members-only videos.
You can also offer perks that don’t involve videos, such as a members-only forum, blog posts, or the ability to chat with you directly on channels like Discord.
The easiest way to create a membership site is by using MemberPress. It is the best WordPress membership plugin on the market and allows you to accept payments, create unlimited subscription levels, restrict access to video pages based on levels, and more.
Sell Your Videos as Digital Downloads
Depending on the kind of vlogs you create, you may decide to sell some of your premium videos as digital downloads. For example, if you’re a health and fitness vlogger then you might create videos teaching your followers different exercise routines.
For some niches, this can be a way to monetize the audience you’ve built from your vlogs.
With Easy Digital Downloads, you have complete control over how you distribute your videos. You can allow customers to download files as many times as they want or restrict file downloads by time or attempt.
Are you looking for the best affiliate marketing tools and plugins for WordPress?
You can find hundreds of affiliate marketing tools on the market, and it can be difficult to choose the right one.
To help you, we have tested some of the most popular affiliate marketing software on real websites. While doing that, we examined different factors including ease of use, features, customization, and pricing.
In this article, we will share our handpicked list of the best WordPress affiliate marketing tools and plugins.
If you are in a hurry, then you can take a quick look at our top picks to choose an affiliate marketing tool for your website.
However, since there are so many WordPress plugins available, beginners often get confused about which tools they should use.
That’s why we researched for you and paid special attention to the following criteria when picking the best affiliate marketing tools:
Ease of Use: When testing different plugins, a user-friendly interface, technical documentation, and easy onboarding processes were our top priorities. We tried to include tools that are beginner-friendly.
Different Use Cases: Affiliate marketing tools can offer a lot of different features. We have included plugins for all kinds of use cases, including adding affiliate links to articles, saving links in the WordPress database, creating shareable affiliate links, tracking link performance, affiliate product promotion, and more.
Reliability: We have only recommended tools and plugins that we tested ourselves. Additionally, we kept positive customer reviews and customer support in mind.
That being said, let’s take a look at the best affiliate marketing tools and plugins that help you grow your business.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
At WPBeginner, we are a team of experts with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, SEO, web hosting, eCommerce, and online marketing.
We review each plugin or tool that is featured here and thoroughly test it on real websites. When doing that, we look at several factors like ease of use, features, customization, and pricing. To learn more, see our complete editorial process.
Video Tutorial
If you’d prefer written instructions, just keep reading.
Pretty Links is the best affiliate link management plugin for WordPress, and it is trusted by over 300,000 websites.
It allows you to easily add links to your WordPress posts, create short and memorable affiliate URLs for podcasts / social media, cloak affiliate links, and more.
You can also enable the auto-linking feature to automatically add affiliate links for certain keywords. The plugin allows you to set up redirects, which are useful if an affiliate link returns a 404 error.
Plus, it also comes with a powerful broken link checker to identify and fix broken affiliate links on your WordPress site.
Pros
Pretty Links lets you redirect multiple links to the same destination, schedule redirects to launch at a specific time, and group and organize links together.
It can password-protect your links, comes with custom redirects for different regions, performs A/B testing, and can integrate with popular marketing tools.
Pretty Links shows detailed link reports in your WordPress admin dashboard. This allows you to see which affiliate links are doing better on your website.
Cons
Pretty Links has a free plan, but most of the features can only be unlocked by upgrading to the pro version.
Why we recommend Pretty Links: We recommend this plugin because it is the best WordPress affiliate marketing tool on the market. Pretty Links allows you to create and cloak affiliate links easily, comes with a broken link checker, shows analytics and reports, and lets you create an affiliate product box, making it a great choice.
ThirstyAffiliates is another powerful affiliate link management tool for WordPress. It allows you to manage your affiliate links within the WordPress dashboard easily, and we actually use it on WPBeginner for our own link management.
With ThirstyAffiliates, you can quickly insert links into posts, cloak links, auto-insert affiliate links, export analytics data, and even see how each link performs on your site. Plus, you can sort your links into categories, which makes it easier to organize your affiliate partners.
ThirstyAffiliates can integrate with powerful tools like Zapier and Google Analytics.
It can schedule link redirection to launch at a specific time.
The plugin can optimize links for social sharing and SEO.
It also comes with custom redirects, a broken link checker, and geolocation redirects.
ThirstyAffiliates lets you manage affiliate URLs for custom post types separately.
Cons
It has a free plan, but some of the features can be unlocked in the pro version.
While testing ThirstyAffiliates, we realized that it doesn’t have a built-in split testing feature for comparing affiliate landing pages.
Why we recommend ThirstyAffiliates: Overall, it is a great link management plugin that lets you create and organize affiliate URLs easily. If you have a WordPress blog and want to manage affiliate links for free, then you can opt for the free version of the plugin.
As a smart affiliate marketer, you need to know which articles are getting more traffic, where users are coming from, and what they are doing while viewing your website.
This is where MonsterInsights comes in. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress (trusted by 3 million websites). It shows you actionable insights and web analytics reports within your WordPress dashboard.
MonsterInsights makes it super easy to automatically track your affiliate links. It comes with a link-tracking feature that helps you monitor URL clicks, banner ads, and other outbound links.
You can combine this information with page insights and other reports to get a more comprehensive analysis.
Pros
If you have an online store, then the plugin can also track your eCommerce affiliate sales.
MonsterInsights can track conversions from optin forms that are related to your affiliate links or offers. It also connects form submissions to specific affiliate URLs.
It can also track additional data points and integrate with email marketing services and Customer Relationship Management tools (CRMs).
Cons
MonsterInsights has a free plan that only offers basic affiliate tracking.
You cannot use it to create and cloak affiliate URLs.
Why we recommend MonsterInsights: If you want to track affiliate links and their performance on your website, then MonsterInsights is the best solution for you.
RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. It allows you to create viral giveaways and contests on your website, which helps you quickly get a lot of traffic.
It comes with a drag-and-drop giveaway builder that helps you run campaigns promoting specific affiliate products and grow your email list.
In fact, we have plenty of firsthand experience with using RafflePress to get more email subscribers. For more details, you can see our guide on how to run a viral giveaway like WPBeginner.
You can use the plugin to create a giveaway to motivate users to purchase different products using your affiliate link in the future. For more details, see our tutorial on how to run a giveaway/contest in WordPress.
Pros
RafflePress is mobile-friendly and comes with giveaway templates.
It comes with social media integration and viral sharing.
The plugin can also track your giveaway contests for affiliate products.
RafflePress does not allow you to manage or create any affiliate links.
Why we recommend RafflePress: If you want to host viral giveaways or contests to promote your affiliate products and services, then this is the perfect plugin for you.
You can easily create an email newsletter, run email campaigns, and grow your subscribers with their platform. You can then promote your affiliate partners via these emails, which will open up another site to grow your affiliate earnings.
During testing, we also liked that Constant Contact provides detailed stats on how your campaigns are doing, and you can run A/B tests to see what format your users find more engaging.
Pros
You can track clicks on your affiliate links within Constant Contact reports.
Constant Contact lets you create beautiful email campaigns in seconds by using its drag-and-drop email builder with tons of templates.
You can connect the tool with social media platforms and promote your affiliate products there.
You cannot use the tool to manage affiliate links that you add to your email newsletters.
It can be a bit difficult to use for beginners.
Why we recommend Constant Contact: If you want to add affiliate links to your email newsletters, then Constant Contact is the best choice for you. It easily integrates with WordPress and lets you build a powerful email campaign for your affiliate products.
Pricing: The Lite plan costs $12 per month for a single user, and it has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization tool on the market for affiliate marketers and website owners. It comes with powerful Exit-Intent® technology to convert your abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers.
You can use OptinMonster to add affiliate links to lightbox popups, slide-in signup forms, sidebar forms, floating bars, and more.
Each optin allows you to create new opportunities to maximize your affiliate commissions, keep users engaged, and spend more time on your site.
It comes with a conditional logic feature to show different affiliate product popups on different posts or pages.
The plugins allow you to display targeted optin forms based on visitor behavior, location, or device to promote relevant affiliate links.
OptinMonster’s detailed reports can also track clicks, leads, and sales generated through your affiliate links.
Cons
OptinMonster does not offer a free plan. However, its connecting plugin is free.
It does not offer affiliate link management features.
Why we recommend OptinMonster: It is a great choice if you want to promote affiliate products using popups that will be displayed on specific pages or posts.
WP RSS Aggregator is the best WordPress RSS plugin on the market that is ideal for fetching content from affiliate networks to share on your WordPress site. You can use it as a content aggregator or news curator and combine it with your original content to increase your affiliate earnings.
During our testing, we discovered that you can set up auto blogs with your affiliate networks. The plugin will automatically fetch products as posts, and you can edit them to add your original content.
Pros
WP RSS Aggregator can extract affiliate links from your chosen RSS feeds and automatically insert them into your aggregated content.
It shows different formats to display affiliate products attractively on your website.
It can categorize and manage aggregated content based on product categories, brand partnerships, or specific affiliate programs.
Cons
It has limited features related to affiliate marketing.
The quality of your affiliate product content can depend on the content quality of your chosen RSS feeds.
Aggregating content from different sources can lead to copyright issues.
Why we recommend WP RSS Aggregator: If you want to fetch content for your affiliate products from other sources, then WP RSS Aggregator is a great choice.
Pricing: The basic plan costs $79 per year for a single site.
Semrush is one of the best SEO tools on the market. It is a complete SEO and marketing toolkit for content creators and is highly effective for affiliate marketers.
It comes with an incredibly powerful keyword research tool, which allows you to track keywords, find new ideas, see your keyword rankings, and more.
We also like that you can use the keyword research and competition analysis tools to see which affiliate products are popular among your competitors, find new affiliate partners, or find new niche products to promote.
Pros
You can use it to run competitor analysis and see which keywords your competitors are ranking for. Semrush then provides actionable tips to beat them in search rankings with its SEO writing assistant tool.
You can use the tool to generate content ideas that are relevant to your affiliate products.
It can improve SEO rankings for your content and track brand mentions and conversations related to your affiliate products on social media.
It can also help find websites that could be potential sources of backlinks for your affiliate content.
Cons
Semrush’s free plan has limited features, and its paid plan is a bit expensive for small businesses. In this case, you can use the WPBeginner Keyword Generator to instantly get 300+ new keyword ideas. You can also use the free Keyword Density Checker to find out what keywords your competitors are optimizing for.
It is more focused on your site’s SEO than affiliate content.
Semrush has a steep learning curve.
Why we recommend Semrush: If you want to research keywords related to affiliate products and analyze your competitors, then Semrush is the perfect solution for you.
Pricing: The Pro plan costs $129.95 per month for up to 5 projects.
WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin. You can use WPForms to create an affiliate signup form and allow potential partners to send affiliate requests on your website.
It comes with a drag-and-drop form builder to create any type of form on your website easily.
It also offers multiple pre-built templates for a user registration form, a signup form, a poll/survey form, and more.
Pros
It integrates with popular services like Constant Contact to automatically send replies to your users.
The plugin can use data for user behavior, location, and device to show different forms to users.
All the form entries for affiliate request forms will be stored in the WordPress database.
Cons
Some of the plugin’s features are not available in the free plan.
WPForms does not offer any specific affiliate management features.
Why we recommend WPForms: If you want to build a specific form to accept affiliate requests from small businesses, then WPForms is the best choice for you.
The plugin allows you to add affiliate links to your ads and get more clicks. With the publishing options, you can also set the start and end date for ads so you can promote exclusive deals from your affiliate partners.
It also shows complete graphical stats for individual ads, so you’ll know which ad placement is performing well on your website. You can also select a date range to view custom reports for specific ads.
Pros
It allows you to cloak affiliate links.
AdSanity lets you organize your affiliate links into groups and categories.
It allows you to show specific ads based on user location, device, or behavior.
Cons
AdSanity can be expensive for some users.
It has a learning curve.
Why we recommend AdSanity: It is the perfect tool for website owners who also use Google AdSense and other ad programs to supplement their revenue. You can easily place ad code on your website and dynamically display ads without editing WordPress theme files.
Pricing: The Basic plan costs $59 per year for the AdSanity core plugin and updates.
You can use it to set up your affiliate program in a few minutes. With AffiliateWP, you can easily monitor affiliate clicks, sales, and payments.
It also allows you to have an unlimited amount of affiliates actively promoting your product or service. This means you can grow your business as quickly as you want.
Other features that we liked during testing include a built-in affiliate dashboard, automatic affiliate creation, and a referral link generator.
It lets you set up tiered commissions, recurring commissions, and custom commissions for programs.
AffiliateWP also creates and manages specific coupon codes for targeted promotions.
Cons
It does not have a free plan.
Why we recommend AffiliateWP: If you want to start your own affiliate program to promote your products on other websites, then AffiliateWP is the best choice.
WP Tasty Links is the perfect affiliate marketing plugin if you have a food blog or online restaurant website.
This plugin easily integrates with WP Tasty Recipes and lets you add affiliate links inside recipe cards, replace keywords with specific affiliate URLs, and cloak links to make them look pretty.
Plus, the plugin sets appropriate link attributes for SEO and analyzes the click-through rates of the affiliate links added to your site.
Pros
It can automatically insert relevant Amazon images next to your affiliate links.
WP Tasty Links offers seamless integration with Gutenberg to make link insertion easier.
It can link relevant keywords to internal pages or products within your website.
Cons
WP Tasty Links does not have a free plan.
It’s not a good choice for affiliate link management if you don’t have a restaurant or food-related site.
Why we recommend WP Tasty Links: It is the ideal plugin if you have a food blog because it easily integrates with WP Tasty Recipes, which is the best recipe plugin on the market. It makes it super easy to add affiliate links directly to your recipe cards.
Pricing: Each of the plugins costs $49 per year separately. You can get all the plugins for $149 per year for a single site license.
Which Is the Best Affiliate Marketing Tool for WordPress?
In our expert opinion, Pretty Links is the best WordPress affiliate marketing tool on the market. It is an all-in-one affiliate link management tool that lets you cloak links, add them to specific keywords, and create affiliate product boxes easily.
It even has a free plan, making Pretty Links a great choice.
On the other hand, ThirstyAffiliates is also a great link management tool for your website. Similarly, if you want to track affiliate links, then we recommend MonsterInsights.
If you want to add affiliate links to your email campaigns, then Constant Contact is a great tool as well.
Additionally, you can use OptinMonster to promote your affiliate products in popups, sliders, or floating bars.
Frequently Asked Questions About Affiliate Marketing
Here are some questions that are frequently asked by our readers about affiliate marketing in WordPress.
What is the best free affiliate plugin for WordPress?
If you are on a budget and need to create affiliate links, then we recommend the free version of ThirstyAffiliates because it offers most of the features required to build and manage simple affiliate URLs.
Which WordPress theme is best for affiliate marketing?
In our expert opinion, Astra is the best theme for affiliate marketing because it has multiple layout choices for affiliate marketing websites and also supports third-party plugins to add more features.
