One of the many great new features in Thesis 1.7 is the ability to easily use 301 redirects throughout your website. Redirects allow you to make a specific link on your site point somewhere else. There are several benefits to using redirects but the two we’re going to be talking about in this tutorial are:
- Cleaner and Masked Affiliate Links
- More Efficient Link Management
Cleaner and Masked Affiliate Links
If you promote products on your site through Affiliate Marketing, you’ve probably noticed that the affiliate links can be pretty ugly. For example, if you’re promoting Thesis on your site, your affiliate link looks something like this:
http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=210935&u=402954&m=24570&urllink=&afftrack=
Using a 301 Redirect, the result can be a much cleaner looking link for your visitors and as an added bonus, your link is masked, so it is not a dead giveaway that the link is an affiliate link. It’s also muh easier to remember so you won’t have to copy paste the long cryptic link every time your want to use it. For example, your new Thesis affiliate link using the 301 Redirect feature, could be something like this:
http://www.yoursite.com/thesis
More Efficient Link Management
The other nice thing about using 301 Redirects for your affiliate links is that is gives you better management over your affiliate links. Every time you place a link to a product using your new redirect link, the page that creates the 301 redirect is the only page you’ll ever need to mange if you ever need to change that affiliate link. This comes in especially handy if the product you are promoting ever changes their affiliate program like DIYThemes recently did when they switched from an in-house program to the Share A Sale platform.
If you’re not using redirects, you’ll have to go through and manually change the old affiliate links to the new ones. If you’ve posted your affiliate links in multiple posts and pages or in your sidebars or footer, it can be a tedious process. However, if you’re using redirects, you’ll only need to edit the page where you setup your 301 Redirect with the new link.
All in all, the new 301 Redirect is a great new feature for anyone who uses affiliate marketing to monetize their site. DIYThemes has even put together a great video tutorial illustrating how to setup a 301 redirect on your Thesis site. Check it out below and I think you’ll see what all the excitements about!
Remember you can view the video in full screen mode using the toggle switch in video controls.
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I think the 301 with Thesis is a killer idea, but, I have been wondering if there is a downside to all the great ease afforded by my favorite theme. I have actually implemented this tactic on a few of my websites, and it just seems too easy. Do you know of any penalty from using this method? I am an affiliate marketer and in the past it was a major pain to build a page, to pre-sell products that I was marketing, containing links to the product. Isn’t this exactly the same thing, except incredibly easier? Why should I spend hours designing a page with effective copy, when I can just send my visitors straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak, from my Thesis nav menu?? I love it, don’t get me wrong, just that it is so easy, it is spooky.
Useful post, Just subscribed to your feed.
Great post, I have recently bought the thesis after hearing so many good reviews about it but after installing it, I found that it is very difficult to customise it. Thanks for this tutorial, it will going to be very helpful
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