Many content publishers rely on affiliate marketing to generate online revenue. However, it's easy to overlook adding affiliate links in articles, leaving potential earnings untapped. The good news? There's a straightforward fix. In this guide, we'll walk you through automatically linking keywords to affiliate links in WordPress—a method we've used successfully on WPBeginner since 2009.
Automatic affiliate link plugins scan your content for specific keywords or brand names and convert them into clickable affiliate links. This maximizes revenue from existing blog posts without manual effort.
Even on single-author sites, you might forget links, but it's worse on multi-author blogs. Auto-linking plugins solve this, boosting your earnings across all content.
They also retroactively add links to older articles mentioning target keywords, monetizing your full archive. At WPBeginner, we've relied on this since 2009 to turn brand mentions into affiliate revenue seamlessly.
Let's dive into proven methods to set it up on your WordPress site.
ThirstyAffiliates is the leading affiliate link management plugin—we use it on WPBeginner and our other sites.
First, install and activate ThirstyAffiliates. See our step-by-step WordPress plugin installation guide for details.
After activation, head to ThirstyAffiliates » Plugins and scroll to the Autolinker section. Click 'Go to Plugins Page'.
This links to the ThirstyAffiliates site, where Autolinker (a $49 add-on) is available. You'll likely recover the cost in your first month with proper setup.
Download, install, and activate Autolinker like any plugin. Then, visit Affiliate Links » Settings and scroll to Autolinker.
Enter your license key (from your ThirstyAffiliates account) and purchase email. Toggle autolinking for pages like home, archives, headers, custom post types, or bbPress.
On WPBeginner, we disable it on headers, archives, and homepage to avoid clutter.
Enable 'Random Auto Link Placement' for natural-looking links—crucial if linking more than once per keyword.
Also activate RSS feed linking to monetize RSS readers and deter scrapers (we've earned thousands this way since 2009).
Save changes, then add links via Affiliate Links » Add New.
Add link name, destination URL, then keywords (comma-separated) in the Autolink section. Set a link limit per article (we recommend 1 to avoid overcrowding).
Save, and keywords will auto-link sitewide. Full details in our ThirstyAffiliates guide.
Pretty Links Pro excels at affiliate management and URL shortening with robust autolinking.
Install and activate it—plugin guide here.
Visit Pretty Links » Activate Pro for your license key.
Add links at Pretty Links » Add New Link.
Choose 301 redirect, add destination URL, cloaked URL, title, and notes. In 'Pro Options', add comma-separated keywords.
Create the link. Fine-tune at Pretty Links » Options » Replacements: set thresholds, nofollow, new window opens.
Explore its shortening and redirection features. Update to save.
We hope this helps you automate affiliate links in WordPress. Check our top affiliate tools list.
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