Top Resources for Affiliate Marketers

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When creating an affiliate site, you’ll need certain tools.  Just like any project, you need to choose the right tool for the job.

That’s why we’re sharing our favorites here.  We don’t list anything here that we don’t use ourselves, or that our professional affiliate marketing friends don’t use.

Search Engine Optimization

WordTracker
WordTracker is an industry standard when it comes to Keyword Research and Link Building.  Their system is top notch and has been around for years.  The professionals at WordTracker are constantly upgrading their software to include new, powerful features and they continually provide helpful tutorials and instructions on how to best utilize their services for your benefit.  This is a service that every professional SEO firm and super Affiliate has — and comes highly recommended.

RavenTools
Sometimes when a software or tool tries to solve many problems, the product lacks a lot of functionality or features when you compare rivals that solve only one problem and solve it well.  That’s not the case with RavenTools.  This is, hands-down, the best full-features SEO Tool that has been created to date.

SpyFu
Although the name may sound a little silly, this software is powerful.  SpyFu is well known for its intelligence gathering and ability to identify opportunities for affiliate marketers.  Better still, SpyFu is an amazing tool that lets you spy on your competition.  The general idea is that if you can see what is working for your competition, you can copy their strategies without wasting a lot of effort on your own trial and error!

Knowem
Knowem will register your username across hundreds of social media sites — so it was designed for social media and protecting your brand.  However, a killer side-effect of this service, is that you can build huge backlinks from authority websites when you create profiles on these social media properties.  So, enjoy the benefit of having your username consistent across hundreds of social media sites, enjoy the convenience of creating these profiles with ease — and love the great backlinks that will boost your natural search rankings!

ScribeSEO
When you’re writing articles or blog posts, you write for your audience — humans.  That’s the first and most important thing to do when writing.  However, you need to be sure that you’re feeding the Search Engines what they need to be sure that your content is properly indexed and found in search results!  With ScribeSEO, a plugin for WordPress, you’ll know exactly how well you’re writing for search engines – in real time!

AutoResponder Software

Aweber
Everyone in this space uses Aweber.  It’s that simple.  Why?  Because the software gets the job done.  The software is easy to setup, implement and use.  And, at the end of the day, when it comes to autoresponder software, your email messages MUST make it to the inbox of your subscribers.  With aweber’s long-standing reputation as a white-hat operator, your messages stay out of the junk mail folder.

Pop Up Software

Pop Up Domination
Okay, many of us hate intrusive pop ups — I know I do.  But, let’s be honest — they work.  However, that doesn’t mean your popups have to be obnoxious to work.  In fact, they should be gorgeous.  Well, we’ve found that Popup Domination excels at creating beautiful hover-type pop up forms, that are easy to create, and simple to implement.  It is a wordpress plugin, so if you’re running your affiliate site without wordpress, then skip this software.

Action Popup
This is my new favorite pop up software for wordpress.  It’s super simple to implement, and the popup ads are equally gorgeous as those found in Popup Domination.  My favorite features of this software is that it includes two additional plugins, “Action Opt In” and “Action Comments”.  With these two additional plugins, you can complete your email capture needs with multiple opt-in sources.  1) Action Popup creates the gorgeous popups with simplicity.  2) Action Opt In integrates a sidebar widget so non-subscribers see an opt in form, while current subscribers see “thanks for subscribing”.  3)  Action Comments integrates with wordpress commenting system, so anyone who comments on your blog gets subscribed to your email list, too!  Highly Recommended.

Membership Software

Wishlist Member
If you have a wordpress site, and want to implement a membership strategy, then WishList Member is your answer.  It’s a wordpress plugin, and it can easily protect content for unlimited membership levels, and has a very intuitive and easy-to-understand interface.  I bought the unlimited license, but you can start with a single domain license if you just want to test it out.

WordPress Themes

Smart affiliates use WordPress to power their websites.  To make these websites look, feel, and perform as desired – smart affiliates buy premium themes.  These are my favorite WP Themes for Affiliate Marketers!

Thesis Theme
It’s widely known that thesis theme for wordpress has taken on this space by storm.  Affiliates love it, and search engines love how easy it is to find and spider content.  After you buy thesis, if you want any support, you can use their support or do what I do:  Simply search google for “WordPress thesis (enter your question here)” — chances are, someone has already written a tutorial.

Optimize Press
I used OptimizePress to redesign AffPlan.com!  I’ve also used it to create my membership site called Content Buffet.  This theme is amazing!

I am no designer.  I can’t even open photoshop.  But I do know the importance of quality design and a gorgeous website.  OptimizePress makes this easy.  Highly, Highly Recommended!  Buy OptimizePress.

WP Review Engine
Want to make a great Review Site?  Look no further.  WP Review Engine makes it easy to create a review site that allows you (and your users) rate products and services.  It is designed for Affiliate Marketers, so all the products and services that you review on your site is linking through your affiliate links.

Premium WP Theme Galleries

When selecting premium WordPress Themes, you can choose a solid platform like Thesis Theme, or an amazing theme like OptimizePress to make your site look gorgeous with ease — or, you may need something that’s a bit more designed for your specific needs.

That’s where Premium WP Theme Galleries come in.

You can either buy one-off Premium Themes from their huge library of Premium WP Themes, or you can join their sites and pay a membership fee to get access to all of them.  These are my favorites!

Theme Forest
ThemeForest is a marketplace for themes and designs.  You simply find the design or theme you like, and buy it.  You can see how many others have purchased the theme before you.

Woo Themes
Woo Themes has hundreds of themes to choose from, and they add at least 2 new themes each month.  You can buy one theme at a time, or simply pay a low monthly subscription fee to access everything!

Rocket Theme
RocketTheme has templates for many different CMS platforms, like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.  With all of the platforms they service, it may feel a little confusing.  However, their themes are really impressive!

Premium WordPress Themes, Plugins, Support and Resources

WPMU
This is crazy awesome.  I really love WPMU and have been a member for 2 years straight, and have no intention of cancelling.  Just check it out, and you’ll see what I mean.  With a membership, you get unlimited access to their premium themes, plugins and support forums.  They specialize in working with WP Multi User (hence the name “WPMU”).  Further, their plugins and themes work seamlessly with BuddyPress, so you can create a website that has full Social Network Functionality!

I can’t say enough about WPMU.  Their themes, plugins and support help you build and manage lucrative blog networks, directories, user-generated content and so much more!  I simply highly recommend it.

Social Media – Twitter Promotions

Tweet Adder
If you want to get targeted Twitter Followers, you can do it manually.  But if you want to ramp up your twitter follower numbers, and automate a lot of the busy work associated with identifying, following, vetting and engaging with these followers, then you need a tool that is designed to to just that.  Tweet Adder is the premiere Twitter Marketing Tool and has been successfully used by thousands of marketers (and a lot of my good friends!).

Social Media – FaceBook Promotions

WP FacePages
When you create a business Page on FaceBook, you need more than a simple presence.  You need your FB Pages to “work” for you.  To do so, you can either buy services that charge you monthly, or you can power it all yourself.  I use WP FacePages.  It’s a wordpress plugin that seamlessly connects to unlimited FB Pages and powers your “locked” content management, your optin boxes and so much more.

Web Hosting Companies

I have used many web hosting companies over the years.  They all offer the same general services.  However, I prefer A2Hosting and BlueHost for their excellent support and their extremely competitive hosting fees.  (By “Extremely Competitive”, I mean “downright cheap!”)

I recommend both of these hosting companies equally.  They are cheap and provide great quality services!

A2Hosting
A2Hosting is located near my hometown, in Ann Arbor Michigan.  Oddly, I didn’t know of them until I was recommended to try them when I wanted to diversify my hosting providers.  I love them!  When I have any support issues, I get to a quality support technician without any delay — 24 hours a day.

BlueHost
BlueHost was my first hosting provider and has never let me down.  They offer crazy-cheap hosting services and excellent support.

Domain Registrars

GoDaddy
I’ve used Godaddy for years, and I think their services are good.  However, I must warn you that they offer a lot of upsells during the registration process that you probably do NOT need.  So, when you buy domains through GoDaddy, like I do, simply skip all the upsells and only buy the domains.  You can add services later, if you need them.  (NOTE:  I use GoDaddy only for domain registration.  I do NOT use their web hosting services, email services or anything else — just their domain registration services.)