Are you passionate about affiliate marketing and looking for ways to optimize your affiliate links?
In the past, I mentioned freeGocodes WordPress pluginI use it to manage all my affiliate links. Not sure why, but todayGocodes pluginIt has been withdrawn from the WordPress plugin repository, and now there are only a few such free affiliate link manager plugins left in the WordPress plugin repository.
One of them is Thirstyaffiliate , the lite version of Pretty link is free , and there is a pro version with advanced features . Pretty link is indeed a good plugin for serious affiliate marketers, but most new affiliate marketers who want to stick with the free option have limited options.
- Buy the eBook: The Beginner's Affiliate Marketing Strategy Handbook
To ease your pain, I ended up finding all the free alternatives to Pretty links and tried many plugins and finally found the best Pretty links alternative which is free and has all the features an affiliate link manager WordPress plugin should have.
If you’re a regular reader of SidelinePlay, you’ll know that I evaluate all plugins based on long-term usage and SEO effectiveness .
Finally, I found a plugin called Easy Affiliate Links which seems to be the best free alternative to Pretty links or any other WordPress affiliate link plugin.
The plugin doesn’t offer geo-location link cloaking capabilities that are essential to the Amazon Affiliate Program , but it does offer a general solution that any entry-level affiliate marketer needs.
In this tutorial, I will share a review and usage guide of the Easy Affiliate links (EAL) plugin to help you get started.
Easy Affiliate Links: Free Affiliate Link Manager Plugin
EAL is a free WordPress plugin that is a must-have for any affiliate marketer. It turns your ugly affiliate links into beautiful ones and also provides basic statistics like the number of monthly clicks and lifetime clicks on your links. This plugin utilizes the post types feature of WordPress and is easy to use.
One of the features of this plugin is categorization, which makes link management easy. One thing I like about this plugin is that it allows you to add affiliate links directly from the post editor section.
Without going into the theory, let me tell you how to use this plugin. The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. You can check out the official page of the plugin here .
Once the plugin is activated, click on Affiliate links > Settings to configure the plugin's default settings. The most important part is the slug, which defines what your clock URL looks like. It is recommended to use the default value, and you should change it to something like go or visit to make it more meaningful. Let me explain the slug part for you, because it is very important and it will play a big role in the days to come.
This is a long URL (affiliate link): https://www.instamojo.com/denharsh/sidelineplay-affiliate-marketing-guide/
If you don’t change the slug, by default all your affiliate links will look like this:
https://sidelineplay/recommended/affiliate
If I change the slug to go, my link will look like this
https://sidelineplay.com/go/affiliate
Remember that you need to configure it right after installation. So without getting too into the technical details of it, just change the suggestions into the settings page. The settings page should look like this:
Once you’ve done that, the next step is to start adding affiliate links. Click on Affiliate Links > Add New Link and make your ugly affiliate links look prettier.
This part is easy for anyone who has used Pretty Links plugin or another plugin to manage their affiliate links. Don’t worry if this is your first time as the images below are self-explanatory.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments section below. This is how you add all your affiliate links and this is where things get interesting. You can either copy the shortened link directly by clicking on the affiliate link or you can add the link using the button in the post editor section.
Let me show you how to use this button functionality in the post editor section. When you are writing a new post, click on the Affiliate Links button in the post section:
This will bring up a window where you can insert the affiliate link you have already created or you can create a new hidden affiliate link. (See the screenshot below for better understanding)
This plugin does have an import and export feature which is very useful for users who want to migrate from the Pretty links plugin to this plugin. I have not tested this feature yet but will try it in the coming days as this free affiliate plugin looks more impressive than the Pretty links plugin.
in conclusion:
I am so glad to have discovered the Easy Affiliate links plugin which seems to be the best free Affiliate link cloak WordPress plugin out there.
This plugin is the best solution even for existing users or first-time users. Come and try it, you won’t be disappointed.
Now, I’d also like to know how you manage affiliate links on your blog?
Please share this article with your affiliate marketing enthusiast friends, they will thank you later. 🙂
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click through to visit us, at no extra cost to you. See how SidelinePlay is funded, why it’s important, and how you can support us.
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