More than 50% of WordPress websites on the internet are information blogs. The main purpose of running information or tutorial blogs is to earn money through advertising or affiliate marketing. Since advertising programs like Google AdSense needs long time to make decent money, many bloggers opt for affiliate marketing. This will help to promote the products they use and like to fellow bloggers and readers. Though there are multiple affiliate promotional methods available, having a coupons and deals page in WordPress site is an essential part of affiliate marketing.
Creating Coupons and Deals Page
There are multiple options available based on the needs and your WordPress setup.
1. Using Gutenberg Block
Gutenberg block editor offers different blocks to make beautiful content. You can use paragraph and button blocks inside columns block to make a clean and attractive call to action deal section. For example, below is a deals block created with Gutenberg blocks without any plugin.
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Semrush is one of the most popular SEO tools available for bloggers, agencies and marketers. You can analyze brand visibility and competitor’s traffic analytics to prepare your own strategy to develop your sites.
However, the problem is that you will have an automatic archive page for all your coupons. Though you can create a reusable pattern, you still need to handle individual block level.
2. Coupon and Deals Themes for WordPress
You can fine many coupon themes in themeforest marketplace for building full-fledged deals website. However, this is not much useful for single affiliate bloggers who want to promote hosting and other deals on their blog. Therefore, using a simple plugin on an existing site’s theme is a good idea for managing affiliate coupons and deals page in WordPress blogs.
3. Using WP Coupons and Deals Plugin
After searching for a good plugin, we found this WP Coupons and Deals plugin. Go to your WordPress admin panel and navigate to “Plugins > Add New” section. Search for “wp coupon” to filter “WordPress Coupon Plugin – WP Coupons and Deals” plugin. Click on “Install” and then “Activate” buttons to add the plugin to your site.
Features of WP Coupons and Deals for WordPress Plugin
The plugin allows you to create coupons, deals and printable images as offers. It has the following features in the free version:
- Click to copy button so that users can copy the coupon codes to clipboard.
- Add expiry date to publish deals with expiration date. You can hide the expired deals after the expiration date.
- Responsive on all devices.
- You can add social sharing, voting and sidebar widget.
Creating Coupons and Deals
After installing, you will be prompted to share the diagnostics information for tracking purposes. You can click on “Skip” to ignore this step.
You will see a welcome screen like below.
Go to “Coupons > Add New Coupons” section.
Here you can provide all required details for your coupon or deal like code, offer link, expiry date and brief description.
It is possible to show or hide the expiry date for each coupon or deal. This is a useful option to publish deals that are relevant only for particular period like Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.
After filling up the details, you can choose the template for the coupon. However, the free version has a default template and all other templates are only available in premium version.
You can preview the coupon live and make changes to adjust the view.
Publish to get two shortcodes for the full coupon and only for the code.
Inserting Coupons in Your Post
The plugin offers a button to insert coupons in Classic Editor interface. However, there are no blocks available for Gutenberg block editor. therefore, you have to copy the full coupon or only coupon code shortcode and paste on your post wherever you want. It will look something like below on your published post.
Customizing Settings
Go to “Coupons > Settings” to view all available options to customize the coupons and deals. For example, you can setup the number of words to show in the description before it shows “More / Less” option. Similarly, you can enable or disable voting under “Voting Settings” tab.
Premium Version Features
The free version contains a single template while the premium version offers multiple templates with featured image. It will cost you $29.99 with one year priority support. In addition, you can add categories and vendors to create archive pages for each category using shortcode. The latest version also allows users to submit coupon codes from the frontend on your site. There is a 14 days free trial offer for you to check the premium features free on your site.
Final Words
As mentioned, if you want to create only few coupons then Gutenberg block is sufficient. You can make the block as reusable and insert anywhere on your site. Coupons themes need a complete WordPress setup to use all the features which is not a feasible option for an existing blog. Therefore, using plugin is a good option to create coupons and deals in WordPress blog. You can use the above explained or any other plugin that suits your need.
