If you have a blog built on WordPress and you want to add affiliate links to it, I’m going to show you how to do it quickly and easily using a handy plugin called “Thirsty Affiliates”.
This will work for any affiliate program that you have links for.
It will work for Clickbank, Amazon, Warrior+, JVzoo and any other affiliate network.
In the example below, I’m going to be using Clickbank.
I use lot’s of different plugins on my blog to make it more powerful and user friendly, but Thirsty Affiliates is one of my favorite ones.
Thirsty Affiliates is a wordpress plugin designed for affiliate marketers who have WordPress blogs and want to monetize it with affiliate links.
What is an affiliate link?
An affiliate link is a special affiliate tracking link that’s unique to you and whenever it get’s clicked on and the clicker makes a purchase, you, as the referring affiliate, get credit for the sale.
How To Add Affiliate Links To Your Blog Using Thirsty Affiliates Plugin
- Head over to WordPress.org/plugins and search for the “Thirsty Affiliates” plugin. Here’s a direct link to it.
- Download and install the plugin in your wordpress site.
- Activate the plugin
- Go to the the Thirsty Affiliates manager and open it.
- Paste your affiliate link directly into the form that is in front of you.
- Click save
- Copy and paste the resulting link to where you want it in your blog post.
Here’s a video showing how to add affiliate links to your blog without coding:
Sidenote: You can paste the affiliate link directly into your blog post without using a plugin if you want to, however I don’t recommend it for a few reasons:
- Plain affiliate links are usually very ugly, and ugly links get less clicks (here’s some more ways to make your links look better).
- As your blog grows and you promote more and more products, you’ll need some way to manage them.
The Thirsty Affiliates plugin handles all of this for you.
The free version works fine, but if you’re intending to grow a serious blog, I recommend you pick up the feature packed pro version for less than $50 bucks.
How to add affiliate links to your wordpress sidebar:
To add affiliate links to your wordpress sidebar, you have 2 options, you can use a button or a normal hyperlink.
Both are slightly different ways that require slightly different approaches.
I’ll show you both methods in the video below:
Is it better to use buttons or Hyperlinks?
I prefer to use Hyperlinks more than buttons.
I do use buttons, but I try to keep them to a minimum.
People don’t like buttons pushed in their faces too much and if you use too many of them, your blog posts start to look cluttered.
Hyperlinks make your affiliate links look a lot more natural and less intrusive and as a general rule, the more natural you can make things for your readers, the more clicks you’re going to get.
How many Affiliate links should you use in one blog post?
Now you know how to add affiliate links to your blog, you should only use affiliate links where it makes sense to use them.
Again, the name of the game when it comes to affiliate blogging, is keeping it natural.
A lot of beginner bloggers think the more links you have, the more clicks they’ll get.
That’s not the case, in fact the opposite is usually more likely.
The more links you have, the less clicks you’ll actually get.
Common sense applies, use them where it makes sense to do so, but don’t try to stuff affiliate links into your posts at every opportunity, you’ll put your readers off and they definitely won’t click.
As a general rule, I might include one link every 500 words or so.
But it depends entirely on the type of blog post I’m writing.
But stuffing your links at every opportunity is a definite no-no.
I’ve heard Google doesn’t like Affiliate links, is this true?
This is a myth and completely false.
Google have no problem with affiliate links, but what they do have a problem with is unethical affiliate marketers.
Affiliates who do affiliate marketing using questionable tactics, like cookie stuffing and using spoof url’s.
Like everything online and in life, there is always a right way of doing things and a wrong way.
I like to do things the right way and staying on the right side of google has always brought me better results.
This is how I make up my living online as an affiliate blogger.
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