Using WordPress Plugins such as Pretty Links, you can easily shrink, beautify, track, manage and even share any URL directly from your website. In this article, I’ll elaborate in detail on this tool and how it works. As well as other best affiliate marketing tools and plugins for WordPress that you can consider.
As you know, affiliate marketing is a smart way to make money online by promoting products and services that you like and use. When your users make a purchase with your tracking link, then you earn a commission. And as such, we can simply say that it’s a win-win! But, getting the right tool is never that easy. So, follow my leads for the best tools.
Technically, WordPress is the most popular website builder among affiliate marketers and bloggers. Mainly because it gives you access to the best plugins and tools to promote your partners. As you also bring more traffic to your website too. And that’s where Pretty Links Plugin comes in handy. To help you manage your website-based backlinks.
What Is Pretty Links Plugin?
The Pretty Links Plugin is a WordPress tool that allows you to easily implement URL shortening inside of a WordPress-powered website. Whereby, you can quickly deploy short URLs for your social or marketing campaigns. Or even use Pretty Links to make external affiliate links prettier.
Out of experience, Pretty Links is a very powerful all-in-one WordPress links management plugin. For one thing, it lets you create clean, simple URLs on your WordPress site. From which you can easily redirect to any other URL. With this plugin, you can create redirects for your existing website content.
Or even for external links like affiliate links, group them, and easily share them on multiple platforms as well. It allows you to turn your long, ugly affiliate links into pretty links. Let’s consider how exactly it works using a few illustrations.
Some Link Examples:
- http://blairwilliams.com/pl: This is a link setup using Pretty Links that redirects to the Pretty Links Homepage where you can find more info about this Plugin.
- http://blairwilliams.com/aweber: Another one named pretty link (using the slug ‘aweber’) that does a 307 redirect to the affiliate link for aweber.com.
- http://blairwilliams.com/w7a: Another link that Pretty Links generated a random slug for (similar to what bit.ly or tinyurl would do).
If you’re a blogger or an affiliate marketer, this plugin has a bunch of features to enable you to add and organize affiliate links in WordPress. Not to mention, with this tool, it’s also very easy to understand your site link reports too. It also provides a reporting interface where you can see a configurable chart of clicks per day.
After all, this report can be filtered by the specific link clicked, date range, and/or unique clicks. You can even pass custom parameters to your scripts through the pretty link and still have full tracking ability. So, with that in mind, let’s look at a few other more features that make Pretty Links your go site links manager.
Its Key Features Include:
- Create clean, simple URLs on your website (allows for 301, 302, and 307 redirects only)
- Random-generator (3-4 character slugs) for your URL or even name custom URL slugs
- Track the number of clicks per link as well as unique clicks per link
- View click details including IP address, remote host, browser, operating system, and referring site
- Pass custom parameters to your scripts through the pretty link and still have full tracking ability
- Exclude IP Addresses from Stats and download hit details in CSV format
- Cookie-based system for tracking visitor activity across clicks
- Create nofollow/noindex links or even turn the tracking of each link on or off
- Pretty Link Bookmarklet enables you to send your pretty links via Email directly from your site
- Easily update redirected links to new URLs (great for changing links site-wide!)
In addition, it’s also a link shortener tool that allows you to shorten your posts and webpage URLs. After which you can share on social media platforms and in your email marketing campaigns alike. It’s more unlike other URL-shrinking services like TinyURL, Budurl, and Bit.ly.
Simply, because this plugin allows you to create shortlinks originating from your own domain. It also allows for an Intuitive Javascript / AJAX Admin User Interface. Whereby, you can easily select Temporary (302 or 307) or Permanent (301) redirection for your pretty links.
With that in mind, we can now have a look at why this tool is so beneficial. And, as such, below are a few mentions as to why you need to consider this tool in your site links management.
Why Use The Pretty Links Plugin?
In the first place, the WordPress Plugin helps you get timely updates — with even a super support team. These guys are very serious about keeping Pretty Links running like a sewing machine.
That’s why they make sure it always works with the latest release of WordPress versions and that any bugs are fixed right away. Secondly, they keep it secure and optimized for performance, and they even add new features all the time.
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Eventually, they roll out regular updates and make sure you get your money’s worth. Also, because they offer premium support for Pretty Links, you’re never left in the lurch if you run into problems. They also provide lots of training resources to help you get the most out of it too.
Not forgetting, they have a dedicated support team that’s ready to help whenever you need it. So, with that in mind, you can get started right away or learn more benefits and how to use it below first. Here are more benefits to consider;
1. Create Prettier Links Easy
Whether you’re a blogger, social maven, or affiliate marketer, managing your links is challenging. In the past, the choices for Backlink Management have been to give up all control over links to a third-party link shrinking service.
Sometimes, you were forced to roll out your own PHP script, or use Apache directives to hack together URL redirects. Using a third-party service and rolling out your own URL redirection software both have serious drawbacks. Using a third party can hurt your credibility.
There’s also no guarantee you’ll always have access to your links. Moreover, rolling out your own solution requires technical know-how. It’s also time-consuming and tough to manage and is difficult to track too. Fortunately, managing your social links, URL redirects, affiliate links, and QR Codes is made easier.
Pretty Links is both a link shortener, manager, and QR code generator WordPress plugin. So, all you have to do is upload and activate it. And then, you’ll be able to create links using your website instantly. It combines the ease of use of a third-party solution with the power of a custom solution
2. It’s An Affiliate Link Tracker
In terms of affiliate link tracking, there’s is even more:– Pretty Links makes it simple for you to shorten, cloak, track, and share your links. Its advanced affiliate link tracking feature allows you to forward key information about your visitors to your affiliate network’s backend.
Mask and make pretty affiliate links that automatically append UTM tags and referral information as a sub id. Of course, you can use many analytics tools to see who visits your website, where they come from, and which links they click on your website.
But, in your affiliate network’s backend, you can only see which affiliate link they clicked – not how they got to your website. Forward the key information to your affiliate network with the advanced affiliate link tracker WordPress plugin!
The plugin works by creating a cookie containing the incoming URL parameters (UTM tags) and HTTP referrer for each user. And then, it appends this information to your outbound affiliate links. Particularly, via a tracking tag supplied by the specific affiliate network (ex: sub ID, source, ref, epi).
3. More Control Over Your Links
Successful bloggers and affiliate marketers share their links all over the place – in blogs and email campaigns, on Twitter and Facebook, and any other place you can imagine. So, doesn’t it make sense that there should be some central place to manage all these links?
Pretty Links is that place. It gives you easy access to your URL redirects, social media links, and affiliate links, and any other kind of link you want – right from your WordPress website’s admin interface. And it uses your domain name, so you have complete control over how your links look and redirect.
You can also group, sort, search, and track clicks for your links. With Pretty Links, you always have a finger on the pulse of your marketing efforts… you know how all your links are doing in real-time.
4. The URL Redirection Multi-Tool
There’s a ton of ways to redirect links depending on what you want to do. And Pretty Links gives you all kinds of options in this department. Of course, Pretty Links allows you to do all traditional, server-side URL redirects.
Including 301 redirects (permanent) and 302/307 redirects (temporary). But, in some cases you may need to use more advanced forms of redirection – things like JavaScript-based, Meta-Refresh, and Framed Cloak Redirection.
Pretty Links makes it super simple to use any of these redirection techniques. In addition, it also offers two additional, powerful ways to use your links. You can add a brandable bar called the “PrettyBar” to the top of any link.
More so, in order to remind people of your brand name even when they’re visiting external links. You can also use your links as tracking pixels to track conversions, email opens, or anything else you want.
5. Put Your Marketing On Auto-pilot
It’s true that blogging, affiliate marketing, and staying active on social media can be very time-consuming. Presumably, you have to write blog posts, tweet almost non-stop, curate information, write email campaigns… ugh!
And in the midst of all this writing, you have to remember to include your links using the right keywords and density. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could automate some of this work? With Pretty Links, you can!
It’s one of the best affiliate marketing tools out there, with time-saving features that automate much of your content strategy… so you can focus on writing content. For one thing, it creates short links for all your pages and posts automatically.
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In addition, the plugin can also automatically tweet a customized message to as many Twitter accounts as you want when a post is published. Not only that, it equally adds relevant links to your blog posts automatically.
When you create links, you can specify any number of keywords (or keyphrases) you’d like the link to appear with. And then, Pretty Links analyzes all the content on your website and replaces these keywords with links.
This keyword replacement feature works on new and existing pages and posts. You have complete control over what links show up for what keywords, how many can be replaced per post, how these links appear, and where they’re replaced.
Pretty Links also has many other creative tools to help your business – features like auto-rotating links. Meaning, one pretty link can redirect to up to five different target URLs, split testing, and link importing and exporting.
6. Create Totally Shareable Links
Surprisingly, with this plugin, you can even create shareable, branded affiliate links too. May it be for Email, Podcasts, YouTube & Much More. In reality, it’s quite tough to promote affiliate offers from podcasts, videos, or print.
That’s because affiliate links are usually giant, ugly, hard to read, and even harder to remember. And then there’s email, where affiliate links notoriously break. Luckily there’s a better way with Pretty Links Plugin. For sure, it transforms those ugly, long affiliate links into clean, memorable, speakable, totally shareable links.
And as a Link Cloaker, QR Code Generator, and Branded Link Creator, it easily turns your website into a powerful URL shortener. Thus, it’s a very great money-making machine for all web business owners and even webmasters alike.
7. A Great Tool To Monetize Your Content
Another great advantage of using this WordPress Plugin is that it offers webmasters the easiest and most efficient way to monetize their content. Wouldn’t it be great if you could add your affiliate links to WordPress one time? And then, have your links placed intelligently through all your content automatically?
That’s exactly what Pretty Links does for you. Combing through every page on your site to find places to add affiliate links is tedious and time-consuming. And even using a basic affiliate link Cloaker, it’s impossible to place optimal affiliate links on every page, post, and widget of your website by hand.
In other words, managing affiliate links manually is like leaving money on the table. Pretty Links puts that money in your pocket. To stay in the loop, you can go ahead and learn more about how it works in detail. You can also see more benefits of using link management, branding, tracking & sharing plugin (here) in detail.
How Pretty Links WordPress Plugin Works
Basically, Pretty Links is more than a link management tool; it also has a link tracking feature. Whilst, allowing you to track each hit on your pretty URL. Additionally, it also provides a full report on the traffic source, browser, operating system, host, etc.
It’s important to realize, Pretty Links is a simple and easy-to-use WordPress plugin with a clean interface. There’s both the free version (for beginners) and the pro version (for experts). Unfortunately, to be equally afflicted here, I’ll consider the pro version mostly to guide you. You can learn how to use the free version in this video or just follow my leads.
The good news is that; whether you are just getting started or even a pro, the plugin works almost the same. Only that with the pro version, you’ll get more added benefits.
So, if you want to get the most out of this tool, I recommend you upgrade to the pro version later on. Below is a simple illustration screenshot of what you’ll see while installing this plugin. Or rather, Pretty Links – Link Management, Branding, Tracking & Sharing Plugin version 3.2.3.
To get started with the free version, you can download the plugin files directly and then install them on your WordPress directory. Or even use the ‘WordPress search bar‘ under the ‘plugins dashboard panel‘ to locate and install too. Then, thereafter, you can click on the ‘activate‘ button to start using its tangible features right away.
Quick Installation Guide:
- First, ‘Upload‘ the ‘pretty-link-zipped files’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
- Secondly, ‘Activate‘ the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
Lastly, make sure you have changed your Permalink Common Settings in your settings dashboard. Consider -> Permalinks away from “Default” to something else.
Personally, I prefer using our custom “/%postname%/” permalink settings. More so, for the simplest possible URL slugs with the best performance. Below is a simple illustration screenshot of what you’ll see after installing this plugin.
On the other hand, the Pretty Links Pro Plugin is a significant upgrade that adds many tools and redirection types. More so, allowing you to create pretty links automatically, or even cloak links.
As well as replace keywords throughout your blog with pretty links, categorize & tag your pretty links and much more. Learn more about how to Get Started with Pretty Links Pro Version as well as how to Create your first Links in detail.
How to Choose the Best Links Management Tools
Since there are so many WordPress links management tools and plugins available, often beginners get confused about which plugins and tools they should use? That’s why I did this research for you in the first place.
More so, because we also monetize our website partially through affiliate marketing. In my experience, you’ll need tools that help you do just that. Turn your website into a great affiliate marketing powerhouse. As you also turn your target online leads into quality customers or even content readers.
Consider the following:
- Easily add affiliate links to your articles
- Manage and save affiliate links inside WordPress
- Create shareable affiliate links for social media and podcasts
- Grow your audience and build a loyal following
- Track the performance of your best affiliate campaigns
By testing the best out of many tools, it allows you to sit on the one that best suits your needs. That’s if you want to manage your website links without any glitches. So, to get ahead, you’ll need to know the benefits of the best tool.
Other Pretty Links Alternatives:
- ThirstyAffiliates
- MonsterInsights
- RafflePress
- Constant Contact
- OptinMonster
- WP RSS Aggregator
- SEMRush
- WPForms
- AdSanity
- Clink – WordPress Link Manager
- Affiliate Links Lite
- Easy Affiliate Links
- BetterLinks
- Simple Link Directory
- ClickerVolt
Above all, Pretty Links is a killer plugin for people who want to clean up their affiliate links. As well as track clicks from emails, their links on Twitter to come from their own domain, etc. So, before you consider any other tool from the list above, make sure you try the best WordPress links management plugin first.
Final Thoughts,
As you’ve learned, Pretty Links enables you to shorten links using your own domain name. As opposed to using other related tools like Tinyurl.com, Bit.ly, or any other link shrinking service. In addition to creating clean links, Pretty Links tracks each hit on your URL.
Equally important, it also provides a full, detailed report of where the hit came from, the browser, OS, and even host. Generally, it’s a great plugin for people who want to increase the reach of their website. Specifically, by spreading these links on forums or comments on other blog sites.
The Pretty Links plugin is a powerful plugin for link management, automation, affiliate management, and shortlinks. It has a complete set of features to allow you to add affiliate links, organize, and manage other links. You can easily shorten your links and make them pretty links. Equally important, using Pretty Links is fairly easy.
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Anyone who’s familiar with the WordPress interface can use this plugin. You don’t need any coding skills to use this plugin to manage your links like a pro. Likewise, when you join their affiliate program, you become part of a team promoting the best and simplest URL shortener and link Cloaker on the market!
Personally, I believe that Pretty Links is an all-in-one link management plugin. It’s very perfect for affiliate marketers, bloggers, social media marketers, and anyone else who wants to make WordPress links attractive and memorable. But, if you have different thoughts, you can share them below or even Contact Us for more support.
Heya! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any issues with hackers?
My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing months of hard work due to no
data backup. Do you have any methods to stop hackers?
Sorry for your loss and thanks for sharing this info with us.
Of course, yes. Hackers are everywhere! As long as websites are concerned. Fortunately, there are numerous ways to safeguard yourself. To begin with, you can read our full guide on Website Security to have an idea of what is required.
But, if you’ll need more support, you can always Get In Touch and our team will be glad to offer you more help.
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Yes, we can!
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For sharing this guide on Pretty Links in detail.