Affiliate marketing is a popular way to monetise your WordPress website by promoting products or services and earning commissions on sales. ThirstyAffiliates is a WordPress plugin that simplifies the process of managing and inserting affiliate links into your content. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to add affiliate links in WordPress with ThirstyAffiliates.
Install and Activate ThirstyAffiliates
Log in to your WordPress dashboard. Navigate to the “Plugins” section and click “Add New.”
- In the search bar, type ThirstyAffiliates.
- Find “ThirstyAffiliates” in the search results and click “Install Now.”
- After installation, click “Activate.”
Add New Affiliate Link
In your WordPress dashboard, you’ll now see a new menu item called “ThirstyAffiliates.” Click on it.
- In the ThirstyAffiliates menu, select “Add New.”
- Provide a name for your affiliate link. This name is for your reference and doesn’t appear on your website.
- In the “Destination URL” field, enter the affiliate link you want to promote. This is the URL where users will be redirected when they click the affiliate link on your site.
- Optionally, you can add a “Link Category” to help organise and group your affiliate links for easier management.
- Click “Save.”
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Insert Affiliate Links into Content
After adding affiliate links, you can easily insert them into your content. Here’s how:
- Open the post or page where you want to insert an affiliate link.
- In the content editor, highlight the text or image that you want to turn into an affiliate link.
- In the editor’s toolbar, you’ll notice a new ThirstyAffiliates button (it looks like a chain link). Click this button.
- A pop-up window will appear, displaying a list of your added affiliate links. Select the one you want to insert and click “Insert Link.”
- The selected text or image will now be a clickable affiliate link.
Cloak Affiliate Links (Optional)
ThirstyAffiliates offers link cloaking, which hides the affiliate link’s long and complex URL with a shorter, more user-friendly version. To cloak your affiliate links:
- In the ThirstyAffiliates menu, click on “Link Cloaking.”
- Enable the link cloaking feature.
- You can customise the prefix for your cloaked links.
- Click “Save Changes.”
Manage Affiliate Links
To manage and edit your affiliate links:
- Go to the ThirstyAffiliates menu and click “All Affiliate Links.”
- Here, you can see a list of all your affiliate links. You can edit, delete, or view statistics for each link.
Track Affiliate Link Performance
ThirstyAffiliates provides statistics to help you track how your affiliate links are performing. To access this information, in the “All Affiliate Links” section, click the “Stats” link next to each affiliate link to view click and conversion data.
Backup and Import/Export
ThirstyAffiliates allows you to back up your link data and easily import/export links. In the ThirstyAffiliates menu, you’ll find options for these tasks.
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Use NoFollow and Open in New Window (Optional)
When inserting affiliate links, you can choose to add a nofollow attribute and open links in a new window. These options are available in the ThirstyAffiliates pop-up when you insert links.
Ensure Compliance
If you’re using affiliate marketing on your website, it’s essential to follow disclosure and compliance guidelines to inform your audience about your affiliate relationships. Include a clear disclosure statement on your site to maintain transparency.
To Conclude
ThirstyAffiliates simplifies the management of affiliate links in WordPress, making it easier to monetise your website and track performance. Just remember to use affiliate marketing ethically and provide value to your audience through relevant, helpful affiliate products and services.