Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin to Monetize Your Blog: 123LinkIt.com

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There is such a thing as easy extra money online, and the new free WordPress affiliate plugin from 123LinkIt.com proves it.

Building and establishing a popular high traffic blog certainly isn’t easy, but if you have done so already, you can install the 123LinkIt.com free WordPress affiliate plugin to monetize your blog instantly.

I spent part of last week evaluating this new WordPress affiliate plugin after a reader emailed me asking about it. I didn’t know it existed, however I was quite pleased with my test experience.

It took me exactly 2 minutes to download and install the plugin as it is no different from any other plugin you have installed in the past. You can get it from the 123LinkIt website, or from the plugin search box within WordPress. Either way, the set up is painless.

What is the 123LinkIt Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin?

Simply speaking it’s magic. No really, this plugin works by converting certain keywords words in your blog post to affiliate links to relevant products and services.

Instead of you having to 1) find relevant affiliate partners whose products and services you can market 2) sign up with their affiliate program 3) manually install each affiliate’s code in each page of your blog and 4) keep track of sales made and payments received, this free WordPress affiliate plugin does it all for you.

Here is an example of how it looks like:

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of 123LinkIt! I am awarded a small commission each time anyone is successfully able to use their program.

I recently spoke to the 123LinkIt marketing team and learned that their network is growing quite rapidly. On their website, the mention that they have over 1,000 Commission Junction advertisers in their network and that this number is growing daily.

Commission Junction is one of my favorite affiliate networks. You can check out some of the commission checks they have sent me here.

How Does the Plugin Work?

The technology behind the plugin is logical. Once installed, the plugin scours your blog’s content (past, present and future) and automatically converts relevant words and phrases to links to relevant products and services.

The conversion of keywords to affiliate links happened quickly when I tested this program. What I liked about it also is that the technology doesn’t involve pop ups, which I find annoying, as do many readers. I also like the fact that the affiliate links are “cloaked”, or “masked” in that readers cannot tell they are affiliate links.

Why You Should Use This Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin

In addition to the reasons already mentioned above, the 123LinkIt free WordPress affiliate plugin offers an intuitive stats and reporting dashboard that even an eleven year old can figure out.

As a blogger, you can see exactly which ones of your blog posts are generating the most affiliate sales. Given this intelligence, you can modify previous posts and cater future posts to optimize your affiliate sale experience.

As discussed above, in addition to creating clean looking affiliate links, I also like the fact that the plugin automatically inserts a “nofollow” tag in all your affiliate links. This ensures that your Page Rank is protected.

More than anything else, I love the fact that using this plugin saves gobs of time, which allows you to focus on what you enjoy doing best – creating content and strategizing.

Benefit from Free Internet Marketing

Here is what blew me away about this service. Not only do they pay you each time someone clicks on your affiliate link and makes a purchase, but they also spend 5% of THEIR revenues (not yours) in marketing YOUR blog.

Why would they do that? Because the more affiliate sales your blog generates, the more 123LinkIt earns from affiliate vendors. As you can tell, they have all the incentive to market your blog. More on how they make money below.

A very unique approach and a great marketing message I thought.

Why You Shouldn’t Use the 123LinkIt Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin

There is no doubt in my mind that this Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin was created with the best intent in mind. Its features and functionality are superb. However, it is not for everyone.

Depending on your business model and personal philosophy, this plugin may or may not be the right fit for you. Personally, I like to try and test all the products and services I recommend to my readership.

While I am familiar with some of the vendors that are in the 123LinkIt network, I am not familiar with many others. With that said, I plan on keeping up to date with the plugin’s evolution.

I am hoping that it would soon allow users to block out certain vendors or types of vendors, or only allow links to be formed to pre approved vendors. Now that would be a neat feature!

Another thing to consider is the way the affiliate commissions are split between 123LinkIt and you the blogger. The business model works as follows.

When an affiliate link on your blog generates a sale, 123LinkIt gets paid by the original vendor. 123LinkIt then pays you 85% of the commission amount. They spend 5% marketing your blog for your, therefore a total of 90% of the commission is benefiting you. Because no one works for free, they keep the remaining 10%.

Something to think about here. Would you rather have the 10% and establish and implement affiliate relationships manually? Or is the automation feature that frees up your time worth 10% of the affiliate earnings you generate.

Because the reporting tools are so robust, you are able to track your highest earners. If in the future you decide that you are leaking out way too much money to 123LinkIt, you can always withdraw from the relationship and establish your own relationship with the vendors who are paying you the most.

By doing this, you will capitalize on the entire commission (100%) instead of just 90%. I’m not advocating back stabbing – just some common business sense. 10% of a large sum can add up over a few sales. Again, just some food for thought.

Conclusion

Generally, I am impressed by the features and flexibility offered by this free WordPress affiliate plugin to monetize your blog. But like anything else, there are pros and cons to using this program. The cons lie not in the plugin’s functionality, but rather in my own blogging philosophy.

Personally, I like to have full control over what I recommend on my blog. I like to use, study and observe a product or service before recommending it to my readers.

While I have tried the 123LinkIt plugin and am impressed by what I experienced, I have not tried and tested every product that is part of their affiliate network. Again, this is just a personal preference.

But for someone looking to monetize an established blog, this plugin is an excellent one stop turnkey solution that can get you going within minutes with excellent payouts.

The best part is that this free WordPress affiliate plugin doesn’t cost money. You can try it out and stop using it anytime you want with just one click of a button.

Do you have any experience using an affiliate plugin or a similar program that automatically converts keywords within your site to affiliate links? How has your experience been?

You can get the 123LinkIt free WordPress affiliate plugin here.

8 Responses to “Free WordPress Affiliate Plugin to Monetize Your Blog: 123LinkIt.com”

1. Cristina Cortes says:

   September 23, 2011 at 6:01 am

   Hi Sunil,

   I have a question. Can you control or limit the number of affiliate links that the plugin creates in a post?

   It wouldn’t be nice to have dozens of links in the same post.

   Cristina

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     September 27, 2011 at 3:09 am

     Cristina – unfortunately I did not see that option when I was running it. I agree with you that a limiting option would be ideal, as well as the number of times you want the same word to be converted in an affiliate link. It just wouldn’t look “normal” otherwise.

     Reply
2. Financial Samurai says:

   September 24, 2011 at 9:58 pm

   Man you write great affiliate posts! 🙂

   This plug in sounds perfect man! I’ll check it out. My most valuable resource is time, so this is very attractive.

   Thanks,

   Sam

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     September 27, 2011 at 3:10 am

     Thanks Sam. Yes for someone with limited time, this plugin certainly does wonders. I love the fact that they have access to most Commission Junction programs, which in my opinion is the oldest, most credible and leading affiliate network out there.

     Reply
3. Evan says:

   October 4, 2011 at 10:45 am

   I wonder if they updated the plugin…because I looked at it in the beginning of the year and robust was certainly not the word I would use for it. I’ll have to give it another look.

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     October 4, 2011 at 10:52 am

     It’s certainly made some progress but it’s not 100% there yet in my opinion. Let me know what you think after reevaluating

     Reply
4. Sunganani says:

   January 25, 2012 at 12:05 am

   I think this is so far the best blog monetization plugin that I have come across. It’s a win win for blogger, 123linkit and advertisers.

   I am yet to see how much I will make with my blog. The only hitch I have is that it seems to be US user friendly because the W9 form does has me wondering how to fill it in. I am in southern africa

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     January 25, 2012 at 4:34 am

     welcome. I believe from a W9 perspective, US vendors will have to maintain those. not sure if it impacts you in South Africa. I know it doesn’t impact you in the US. make sense?

     Reply