AdSense Alternative: aLinks

aLinks is a Free ‘plug-in’ for self hosted WordPress blog sites. Plug-ins are simply small tools, tiny snippets of code that you can add to your WordPress blog to increase functionality.

Now, if you are unfamiliar with WordPress (WP), it is quite simply the most popular blog platform on the web today.

Yet, when looking at using a plug-in like aLinks, it can be confusing in that there are two versions of WP available.

One allows you to use plug-ins and the other does not.

If you have you own domain name and hosting account, then there you are most likely using a cpanel to control your site.

In that case, you can install a WP blog on your domain (using Fantastico, if it is available in your cpanel) and on this blog account you can add as many plug-ins as you like. This type of WP comes from wordpress.org.

If, however, you do not have your own domain name, you can still have a WP blog, but then it will actually be hosted at wordpress.com, and, in that case, you are not able to use plug- ins.

Incidentally, the in-text example of ‘niche marketing’ that was shown a couple of pages ago was an aLink generated link, so you even know what they look like!

So you simply install your WP blog on your own domain, upload the aLinks plug-in to your site, and then activate it as instructed here.

You then decide what products you want to promote from your aLinks settings panel, where you will find that you have a choice of Clickbank, Amazon or ‘general’ settings.

General settings allows you to choose any product that you want, so aLinks is an extremely flexible tool as well as being a very simple one

All you then have to do is decide is what specific keywords or phrases you would like associating with each particular product that you are promoting, and that is basically it.

When the chosen word of phrase appears in your blog, it is automatically linked to the product that you chose.

All in all, aLinks is simple, effective and very easy to use in your WP blog.

If you haven’t used ‘in-text’ ad links before, aLinks is a great place to start I believe that you can use them on the same page as AdSense ads too.