Linking 101 for Bloggers

Hi everyone! Today’s post is another one designed to help you guys out, providing some advice and information on a key component of the blogging world: linking. We all follow bloggers for a few reasons, and trusted recommendations are one of them. Linking products allows followers to access bloggers’ favorites at the click of a button, increasing access while allowing bloggers to grow their business by making money at the same time. Whether you’re a blogger, interested in becoming one or are just curious about this side of the industry, keeping reading for details on why to link, affiliate linking, Instagram linking, LikeToKnowIt vs. Shop My Instagram pages + more!

WHY LINK?

Whether you want to financially profit off your blog, turn it into a business or simply grow your interaction and trust with followers, linking helps with all of that. Affiliate linking allows you to make money (I’ll talk more about that in a sec), and linking in general allows you to share things you love and recommend with your followers, helping you to further connect and build relationships. Though linking things often takes an extra step, it’s worth it and a huge reason why people like following bloggers… so do it!

AFFILIATE LINKING

Like I mentioned, this is one of the avenues bloggers use to make money. This essentially means that when you link items through your affiliate network, you make a small percentage off of every sale and — not a lot, but it adds up over time. You have to be accepted into affiliate programs, and that is often based on how long you’ve been utilizing your platform, how frequently you post, and/or sometimes follower count. 

A couple of the common affiliate programs are rewardStyle and Shopstyle Collective. If you’re interested in joining one, look into the requirements and learn what they’re all about before making your choice. Also, you can always apply for multiple and see which ones you get accepted into!

LINKING ON INSTAGRAM

Now, this gets tricky if you’re like me and have less than 10,000 followers, therefore don’t have access to Instagram’s swipe up feature. I dream of the day I finally have access to that, but that’s a conversation for another day. 😂 Alternatively, you’re pretty much restricted to the single link you can put in the bio of your profile.

There have been apps created to help further utilize this feature, like LinkTree, which creates a landing page where your followers can then access additional links all on one screen. Here you can link things like specific products you’ve talked about, blog posts, your other social media accounts, etc. However, I highly suggest not letting this get too cluttered. I’ve seen so many bloggers put 15+ links on their LinkTree, and at that point, it’s no longer very helpful since they’ll have to sift for the information they’re looking for. Keep it short, concise and well-labeled.

LIKETOKNOWIT VS. SHOP MY INSTAGRAM

These outlets essentially do the same thing, they’re just located in different places and are approached a little bit differently. You can choose the platform you prefer using, or I suggest asking your followers which they like best. To my surprise, my followers picked Shop My Instagram by a landslide! You can also implement both, which I see a majority of bloggers do. Do know that this will take time out of your day/week to update, especially if you’re sharing products frequently, but it’s certainly worth it. Affiliate programs like rewardStyle (where LikeToKnowIt lives) and Shopstyle Collective offer shop widgets that can be placed on your blog for easy shopping. I use Snapppt with Shopstyle links and it’s worked well for me. Put it on its own page and give it a separate menu item so it’s easy to locate and utilize!

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I hope this rundown was insightful and if you have any questions or thoughts to share on linking, please leave them in a comment below — I’d love to chat with you! Thanks for visiting my blog & see you in Friday’s post!