More than a year into the world of online affiliate marketing, I have been fortunate enough to receive incredible training and rub shoulders with some most experienced and generous online entrepreneurs in the online world. I invite you to enjoy this share which is a form of “pay it forward”. I am writing this article to share my personal favorites when it comes to the top 10 online marketing tools. Trust me, knowledge is power, certainly when it comes to working with powerful tools that can assist you in creating your affiliate marketing and online business.
Some of the tools I am sharing with you are free, some are paid for. My aim is to direct you to the awesome free ones, reducing the amount of time you may need to spend searching for them. Also to show you the way to where your money is best spent on paid tools. Experience has shown me that you can waste a lot of money on tools you simply do not need, not to mention the time it takes to learn the hard lessons.
Each of the tools has a different function, meeting the different needs of your online affiliate marketing business. Used correctly, these tools will have a highly positive impact on your business and make your life so much easier. There is so much to do and learn when it comes to growing a successful business, these tools have assisted me by reducing the learning curve where I needed it most.
Table of Contents
1. Online and Affiliate Marketing Training At Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate is an incredible platform where you will find top-notch education offering literally 1,000’s of resources at a highly cost-effective price point too. This training will get you started with two different options on offer: Online Entrepreneur Certification and Affiliate Bootcamp. Both options offer in-depth training and support.
More than 2 MILLION online entrepreneurs cannot be wrong! That’s right, there is a community of online entrepreneurs, some highly experienced and successful, others so close to success they can taste it and newbies too. You get to rub shoulders in this community, learn from others, share your learnings and forge relationships that can take you to the next level in your business.
There is more than one membership offer available to you. One is the completely free starter membership. The second is a Premium Membership. No matter what level you are currently at (newbie to expert) you should be joining up with Wealthy Affiliate with a starter membership at the very least.
I am a member and am actively involved in the community. Being a part of the community, it would give me great pleasure to guide you through the process and share the knowledge I have gained to date. Having me guide you will assist you when you encounter the challenges (these can be expected with anything new, right?) and, assist you in your online business adventures, ultimately leading to your success. You can even visit me at my profile, hope to see you there.
2. Keyword Research Tool (Plus Niche & Website Research & Track Rankings Too!
The ability to uncover powerful keywords, niches, and also analyze websites is key to your success as an online and affiliate marketing. Fortunately, I have an awesome tool to share with you – one that will set you up for success!
Introducing (drum roll) ….. Jaaxy! Have a look at a quick screenshot below and you will see at a glance the awesomeness you can expect from Jaaxy! Not only can you do all those amazing things (Keyword Research & develop Lists of Powerful Keywords too, Site Rank, Search Analysis, Alphabet Soup, Brainstorming, Affiliate Programs, and Niche Keyword Lists!)
What would you expect to pay for such an awesome tool? My understanding is that it is extremely tricky to find a reliable and high-quality tool to help uncover the gold that is available online – plus they can get extremely pricey, from $1000 per month and more!
Just to recap, Jaaxy offers you the value of being able to complete all of your online marketing research activities. that is right, anything from keyword research (where you can find low competition keywords offering you massive advantages) to uncovering and buying domains, managing your keyword lists, competitor analysis, research on affiliate programs, get deep into brainstorming and awesome idea generation, plus you are able to track your ranking in all the search engines!
But that is not all! ?
3. Website Hosting and Support
Your successful online business needs a solid foundation, it is a given that this starts with your website – the management, hosting, and support you need must be in the hands of a more than a capable company. Having conducted much research in this area, I am aware that there are many, many options available. Truth is, they are not all offering the same level of everything you need for your solid foundation.
I am not here to knock anyone but when it comes to website platforms, this is such a crucial area, I really do want to lead you in the right direction. Some of the website platforms are completely free, the likes of Wix and WordPress, which are great platforms. The downside though is that there is can be a lot of advertising on your free site, this is really not ideal for your online business.
When it comes to Hosting, this is a particularly important area. You want to have access to excellent support and hosting which is reliable in terms of uptime and speed. My recommendation has Site Support available 24/7/365 – no matter where you are in the world, you have live support at your fingertips. Not only live support but truly excellent support! I am no techie, trust me when I say I may have tested this team to the max. They have always come through for me.
Who am I speaking about? None other than SiteRubix who are part of Wealthy Affiliate. When you create a Wealthy Affiliate account, you get TWO free websites through SiteRubix. these can be used for your online and affiliate marketing businesses. Should you decide to upgrade to Premium membership within Wealthy Affiliate, you qualify for up to 50 websites!
4. AWeber – Email Marketing
From the research I have done on autoresponders, I’ve yet to encounter a totally free one that is Affiliate Marketing friendly (sadly, MailChimp is not – though they are great for NPO / pro bono work I do). AWeber does offer a 30-day free trial though, this is ample time to have a great look at their offer and trial out the platform.
My experience of AWeber has not always been smooth – as I mentioned earlier, I am no techie! However, AWeber has pulled out the stops when it comes to support and always assisted me with the challenges I have inflicted on myself (mostly). Not only that, but they are also continuously striving to improve and further develop the technology and services available to their clients. They truly are a step ahead and I love working with them!
5. Da Button Factory.com
You may have noticed the Call To Action buttons I have been using in this article,
the ones that say things like “Sign Up For 30 Days Free With AWeber” – yeah, the blue one just above. Well, those are created within DaButtonFactory.com for free.
There is no charge, no need to even share your card information and the system is super simple to use. Have a little watch of the video below, simply click on the image and it will take you there.
Like I said, super simple to use. I created different buttons for you in this article to give you a little insight into the different colours and borders you can use. I am sure you saw that there are different fonts, sizes, and features you can use too. Great little tool this one is.
5. Canva Free Graphic Design Tool
I am not a trained graphic designer so I need help every step of the way. Canva Free Graphic Design Tool is the one that has done that for me along my online journey.
Another system that is super easy to use, offers great training to help you along the way, and fabulous tools – from different templates (literally thousands of them) to colour options, fonts and more. You simply cannot go wrong with Canva!
There is more than one membership level available with Canva, the free one which I started out with, Canva Lite (which I have recently moved onto) $6.95 per month, Canva Pro at $12.95 per month and Canva for Enterprise at $30 per month per member (this is really a corporate team membership).
You are welcome to read more in my details review of this amazing online tool:
Canva is also rolling out an Affiliate Program, which means you can make money from others joining on the paid-for memberships if you sign up with them as an Affiliate.
6. Writing Tools
As any online marketer knows, writing is a part of the deal. We need to produce content in order to achieve ranking with the search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo). The search engines look for specifics when they trawl the content we put out, this means we need to SEO our articles right too. How does one know which are the correct things to write and how to SEO articles?
Simple, SiteContent @ Wealthy Affiliate which focuses on your website content and, Grammarly, The World’s Best Grammar Checker
Grammarly assists you with grammar, spelling, and more. You can enjoy the benefits of Grammarly for free or upgrade to a paid option.
7. Pretty Links – Link Management Tools
As the name describes, this is a tool to assist you with making your links “prettier”. My understanding is that social media platforms are not in favour of traffic being directed away from them, as online and affiliate marketers our goal is to direct traffic to links where we can make some money. For example, you create a post for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn to let people know about the product you are promoting or selling. The post may contain a link to take the viewer directly to the site where they can make a purchase. That is the link we need to “pretty up” or “mask” so that we are not penalized by the social media platform.
Pretty Links is a free plug-in that you can make use of within WordPress. I use it all the time and love it!
You can learn more about Pretty Links here (and install it for free from your WP-admin space).
8. Google Analytics
This is a tool every single online business should be making use of, it is absolutely imperative that we get to understand analytics, how to read them, and how to improve them.
I love analyzing different scenarios and information, though there are times when I feel like I do not have the time. It would be completely foolish of me to ignore the facts that Google Analytics presents to me.
It is so easy to sign up with Google Analytics, there is absolutely no reason to not do it, and it’s free! Here is a link to some Google Analytics training given within Wealthy Affiliate by none other than our training chief! Enjoy.
9. Tailwind
Tailwind was introduced to me by a fellow community member. Tailwind is absolutely magic and assists with pinning to your Pinterest account and posting to Instagram.
Currently, I do not have much of a presence with Instagram but that will change. One step at a time.
Tailwind got me up and running on Pinterest and I had thousands of followers before I knew what hit me. This tool allows you to schedule posts to Pinterest and Instagram rather than doing it manually every day.
An important cautionary message: do not automate all of your social media postings. Followers like to see authentic and “real-time”. You also need to stay connected to your audience and if you are not online regularly monitoring what is happening with your own eyeballs, you could lose out.
Tailwind offers a great free trial period for 30 days thereafter the pricing is $9.99 per month per account for Pinterest Plus and $9.99 per month per account for Instagram Plus.
When starting out, it is best to keep your costs as low as possible, but once you can afford to sign up with the likes of Tailwind, I highly recommend you do.
You can get One Month Free With Tailwind – it’s another gift from me to you.
10. Unsplash.com
We all need beautiful images for our online businesses. Whether it’s for a social media post or for your website, Unsplash not only offers an amazing selection of awesome images – they are also free! That is right, absolutely free!
Unsplash is not the only place where you can find free stock images, in fact, I wrote a piece about that too which you are welcome to read my favourite out of them all is Unsplash.com. The reasons this is my preferred free image platform are:
1. An awesome array of high-resolution images – you get to choose from Editorial, Following, Wallpapers, Textures & Patterns, Nature, Current Events, Architecture, Business & Work, Film, Animals, Travel, Fashion, Food & Drink, Spirituality, Experimental, People, Health, Arts & Culture.
2. You have the option to (nor not to) credit the photographer (I think it’s only good manners to credit people for their work, especially creative work, so let’s agree to do that more often than not)
3. The search facility is a cinch to work with, you simply type what you are looking for in the search bar and click the search icon (it looks like a magnifying glass)
So that is it in a nutshell, my favourite top 10 online marketing tools. Do you have favourites that you use? If so, which ones and why? I would love to hear from you, drop me a message in the comments section below.
Thank you for taking the time to read what I have to share with you, I have loved writing this article for you.
Blessings always
Very good info on the tools which are available to start and run an online business. There were a couple of which I was not familiar. Thanks for these insights. All the Best. Joseph
Hi Joseph
That is wonderful, I am glad to see that this article has given you some insight into tools available to us online and affiliate marketers.
Blessings
Louise
These tools are really great and so effective when seeking to build a website that will be recognize by the search engines. These tools are a must in order to build a world-class website that carry a professional look which will increase your chance to have success.
Hi Norman
I am so glad to see that you agree. I know you have a great website so I appreciate your opinion.
Blessings always
Louise
Knowledge is power. That’s very true indeed! Wealthy Affiliate is an amazing platform where I am also a member. I have learned so much there, the training is awesome, and there is so much online support and help within the community available.
I heard a lot of good things about aWeber, but I haven’t used it yet. It’s a good thing they have a free month trial, so you can see if it’s a fit. I also use Unsplash for photos and I think Pixabay is also a great platform to find free pictures. I love the concept of DaButton Factory, I have never heard of them and I am glad I read about them here, because I will definitely use them. I’ll check out their site. Thanks for those great tips!
Hi Christine
Great to see another WA member here, 1,5 million of us can’t possibly be wrong 🙂 Agreed about the training and support – it is awesome and we are so fortunate to have found it!
I used to find AWeber to be quite frustrating to use, they have really upped their game though and these days they over-deliver. Very cool. I’d love to hear back from you once you’ve done the 30-day free trial.
The list I have given here is a list of my favourites, there are many places to get hold of images, I wrote an article about that too. Unsplash is my first go to, if I don’t find what I am looking for there I will look at Pixabay and some of the others too.
I learned about DaButton Factory from one of our community members – amazing how we have so much information at our fingertips. We truly are in the right place!
Blessings always
Louise x
Awesome online marketing tools to help your business, Louise, I can see why many of these are your favourites as I use many of them myself.
Tools like Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy I use almost daily and Canva is very helpful.
Of the ones I haven’t heard of, I think Tailwind is worth looking further into, but they all look very helpful!
Top list 🙂
John
Hi John
Wow, that is high praise coming from you – I really appreciate the time you have taken to read and comment here!
I agree with you when it comes to Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy, without those two I certainly would not have an online business at all!
I would love to hear what you think of Tailwind – my experience with them has been awesome, seriously, I cannot believe what Tailwind did to my Pinterest stats!
Thank you so much again.
Blessings
Louise
Hi Louise!
Thank you for sharing your personal favorite online marketing tools.
I already knew about a lot of them, but there were two I had never heard of before, and they are DA Button Factory and Unsplash. I will certainly be checking those two out and will let you know how it goes.
Have a great weekend!
Catherine
Hi Catherine
Great to see you here. Yeah, there is always something new to learn int he online business world. I am blessed in that I belong to an amazing community of online entrepreneurs who very generously share their knowledge.
All the best with trying out Da Button Factory and Unsplah, they are both awesome tools (and super simple to use too!)
Blessings as always
Louise x
Louise, you have come up with a great basic list of tools. They are all ones I am familiar with, which pleases me. I have to agree that you have selected some nice ones.
Can I add a couple to your list? Pixabay is good for free images. I also use Yahoo images, but if you use Yahoo, you have to make sure you select the proper license: There is one called “free to share and use commercially.” Select pictures from that place.
I have Tailwind and haven’t used it much. I guess I should, as it is good for Pinterest. I need 48-hour-days to get it all done! Thanks for providing this great summary of tools we all can use.
Hi Fran
Thank you so much – I am so happy to see that you concur with these tools being a great basic list of tools. I encourage you to make good use of Tailwind (especially as you have it – I assume you have the paid version, right?). You will no longer need your 48 hour days to get everything done, Tailwind is really magic!
Thank you for your addition of Pixabay and Yahoo – I wrote a piece about where to get free images, don’t recall including Yahoo images, will have a look-see.
Blessings as always
Louise x