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Most Important Resources for Getting the Most out of YOUR Affiliate Marketing Business
These are some of my most recommended tools and resources for affiliate marketing. Almost all of them are ones that I either use now or, have used in the past. I only recommend products and services that I believe in.
What are these Tools and Do You Really Need them?
New to affiliate marketing?
Then, this is the right place to start. But before you look at these essential affiliate marketing tools, I would recommend reading through the affiliate marketing guide for beginners.
First things first.
Do you really need all of these tools mentioned on this page here?
Heck, No!
You can do without most of these barring the absolutely essential ones. But then, there is a difference between trying to change that burst tire of your car with bare hands and with a set of spanners.
The best investment is in the tools of one's own trade.
- Benjamin Franklin
You got what I mean?
Tools help simplify the process of achieving that goal. Just as in anything else, tools help in affiliate marketing as well.
They help speed the process and simplify it.
So, do you need these tools?
That's a call you need to take.
Onto the second most important thing.
I always recommend starting a blog for affiliate marketing. And these tools that I have compiled on this page will help you with everything from starting a blog to making money from affiliate programs.
So if you are planning to start a blog, then these tools are extremely important for the success of your strategy.
But then again, the decision is entirely yours.
Some of these links are affiliate links and if you choose to click on them and buy, then I will earn a commission without any extra cost to you.
Most Essential Affiliate Marketing Tools
Almost all of the affiliate marketing tools that I recommend here, is tried and tested and I have personally used them in the past or, are using them right now.
On the ones that I am no more using - To answer your question on why I am not using them right now, it is because as things progress, you look for tools and utilities that have more features.
And when I find some, I move onto them. But something to keep in mind is that, this will always be at a slightly higher cost.
So does that mean that the earlier tool was inferior?
Not really! It will depend upon what your requirements are. And "UPGRADATION" is a constant feature in life. Isn't it?
Now onto these recommended affiliate marketing tools.
Absolute essentials
Blog Hosting - Shared Hosting Plans
For people who are starting out on the internet, the easiest option of hosting their website is by using a "Shared Hosting Plan". Shared hosting is cost-effective, is easy on your pocket and can give you the flexibility required to manage your websites.
Here are some of our favorite shared hosting providers.
Hostinger
Hostinger is our favorite and most preferred hosting provider. In fact, almost 75% of our websites are hosted on Hostinger today.
Their servers are blazing fast, provides a lot of options, has an exceptionally good customer service and technical support and are amazing when it comes to resolving issues. Their plans are extremely friendly on the pockets, especially for beginners.
Hostgator
We love Hostgator, who is another of our preferred hosting provider.
They have excellent and affordable plans and have fast and reliable servers around the world. So you wouldn't experience any kind of delay in your website loading.
Their technical support is also good and they take exceptional care of their customers.
Bluehost
We used to host a lot of websites with Bluehost but later moved on to Hostgator because of a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Bluehost is costlier than most other hosting providers and provides less for every dollar spent.
Secondly, I wasn't very impressed with their response time in technical support.
Though I see a lot of big marketers promoting Bluehost a lot and raving about their customer support, my experience wasn't that great (only from a response time perspective).
But, still they are very good when it comes to their servers and I recommend them.
Stores4Domains
Stores4Domains is a company that I have a stake in and provides quality hosting service.
Their windows hosting is the best but their Linux hosting is also great.
They aren't very low cost in comparison to the other providers but their servers are top notch and provide a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Their technical support is also exceptional and you can rest assured that you are in safe hands.
They have a wide variety of offerings and includes everything that you would need from an online business perspective.
Blog Hosting - Managed Wordpress Hosting
Wordpress needs a lot of maintenance like upgrading the installation periodically, updating plugins and themes, ensuring security of the websites etc.
All of this takes a lot of time and can be overwhelming for marketers who should ideally be focusing on their business.
It is hence that we always recommend a good "Managed Wordpress hosting" solution for hosting Wordpress websites. And here are a few that we use and hence like.
Hostinger
Hostinger is our favorite for all kinds of hosting solutions because they are affordable, easy on the pocket, has exceptional technical support and listens to their customers.
Their managed wordpress solution is one of the most affordable one with all essentials though it might not have the bells and whistles (which is practical sense is pretty useless) that some of the other providers give.
We recommend and can vouch for their service and support.
Hostgator
Hostgator has a pretty good Managed Wordpress hosting solution.
The only thing that we do not like is the lack of control. They provide you with a custom dashboard which doesn't give you a lot of control over what you want to do with your websites. This means that you will have to reach out to them time and again for small things which isn't something I really prefer.
But from a service perspective, they are amazing and has a very responsive and excellent technical support team.
GoDaddy
GoDaddy's Managed Wordpress hosting is very affordable and has a lot of features.
Their backup and restore solution is something that we absolutely love because there isn't a simpler and easier to use solution than this one.
Their Managed Wordpress also has excellent security, so you can have complete peace of mind.
The only thing we hate is their technical support. Their agents aren't quite as knowledgeable and informative as your would expect Wordpress experts to be and they have some standard responses to questions. This will also depend upon which part of the world you are in. At least the Indian support was near pathetic. So if you are in India, I wouldn't recommend them but otherwise they are an amazing hosting provider.
Stores4Domains
Stores4domains also offers some excellent Managed Wordpress solutions but again their prices aren't the lowest around.
You will find pretty much everything that you would need from a Wordpress hosting, in their plans with excellent security features, a reliable backup and restore solution and a good amount of bandwidth and space.
Their technical support is also pretty decent and you wouldn't be disappointed.
Recommended Wordpress Themes
A good theme is the foundation of your Wordpress site. With Google putting more and more emphasis on page load speed and "Core Web Vitals" to rank your websites/blogs, it has become even more important that you theme is free of coding errors and that it uses clean codes in line with Google's requirements.
Also with WordPress updating every week to counter security vulnerabilities, it is important that the themes are also updated regularly to counter security issues. So choosing a good and reliable theme becomes very important.
Here are a few themes that we have used and recommend.
Thrive Themes
Thrive Themes is our favorite and most recommended WordPress theme provider. Thrive Suite has an amazing theme builder which can be used to build a custom website as per your choice, much better than what a developer would do for you.
Thrive Suite also comes with multiple other conversion optimized plugins which are important for running an online business.
The best part is their customer support which is simply amazing. They keep their products regularly updated and takes page load speeds very seriously. You can read my Thrive Suite review here.
GeneratePress
GeneratePress is a low-cost yet multi-functional WordPress theme. We absolutely love the simplicity of the theme and the multiple customization options that are available. The best part is that this is probably the lowest priced theme on the internet today and hence the most affordable for beginners.
This blog was running on GeneratePress until about January 2021 and the blog looked pretty much the same as it is today. That's the kind of customization options that GeneratePress offers.
The theme is fast loading, search engine optimized and is managed by a team that is passionate about their product who ensure regular updates to their themes. Their support team is amazing and very helpful. You can read my Generatepress review here.
Landing Page Builders
Landing page builders are an essential part of marketing. With WordPress moving to Gutenberg, building a landing page with the native WordPress options isn't very difficult.
But landing page builders give you more flexibility and customization options and also helps you ensure that you have control over what is happening on these pages.
Moreover, landing page builders gives you access to a range of selling solutions and helps you with better ROI when you sell your products and services.
Thrive Architect
Thrive themes has one of the most powerful landing page builders - Thrive Architect.
We have been using Thrive Architect for more than 8 years now and "satisfied" would be an understatement. We are absolutely thrilled with the product.
Thrive Architect gives you numerous customization options yet keeps it simple and easy to create a landing page. It has a ton of features to help you build a conversion focused landing page.
Thrive Architect comes as part of the Thrive Suite.
Read the Thrive Suite review here.
Optimizepress
Optimizepress was my first landing page builder and I used it to design the sales page for the first product that I had created.
I absolutely love Optimizepress and consider them as an amazing landing page builder even today.
But they were a little slow to adapt to the changing technological landscape. That when I moved onto Thrive and since then I stayed with them because I love their product and support.
Though things have changed at Optimizepress and their latest version is at par with any good landing page builder, I continue to stick with Thrive Architect.
But we would still recommend Optimizepress because of the quality of products that they make.
You can read my comparison of Optimizepress vs Thrive Themes here.
Clickfunnels
Clickfunnels is more of a funnel builder than a landing page builder. It was probably the first of its kind hosted funnel builder and emphasized more on building a funnel for your business.
A funnel is an essential part of your business and with the simple click and create funnels, this difficult task can be simplified in Clickfunnels. Building a landing page is just one of them.
We used Clickfunnels initially for building our landing pages and funnels but later transitioned to Thrive Suite because we wanted more control over what we were doing and preferred a self-hosted solution over a hosted-solution like Clickfunnels.
But we still love Clickfunnels for its simplicity and excellent features.
Leadpages
Leadpages has some nice landing page and optin form building capabilities.
Leadpages had made landing page creation simple by providing a hosted solution that took care of the difficult part in the process.
We used Leadpages for about 5-6 months and were pretty impressed with their functionality and the features that they provided.
But we felt that it was priced a little higher and found that Thrive themes could provide all of those features at a much lower cost.
If you are somebody who likes a hosted solution and doesn't need a website, domain and a hosting then leadpages is definitely a solution you can look at.
Lead Pages and Optin Form Builders
If you are not building a list, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. I learnt it the hard way and still regret not building my list when my blog was getting a ton of traffic.
Optin forms are hence a very important part of your marketing strategy. How well your optin form is built and how well converting they are will define how your list building works.
These are some of the recommended optin form builders that we have used in the past or, are using these days.
Thrive Leads
I have been using Thrive Leads for almost around 10 years now. In fact I started off with their product called Hybrid Connect which they later updated and renamed as Thrive Leads.
I came over to Hybrid Connect (Thrive Leads) from Popup Domination because of the amazing features and control that HC provided at that time. When it was later updated to Thrive Leads, the features were simply out of the world. No optin form builder plugin offered the kind of features that Thrive provided.
They still continue to impress me with the feature additions that they do.
Thrive Leads has a ton of templates, better control over how, when and where your forms need to appear and a host of other features. Thrive Leads is now part of Thrive Suite.
You can read my Thrive Leads review here.
Optin Monster
When I moved over from Popup Domination, I was actually looking for a popup builder plugin that had more features and better controls. That's when I came across both Hybrid Connect (later changed to Thrive Leads) and Optin Monster.
Optinmonster was an amazing plugin that could do a lot more than just build popup forms. I super enjoyed the features especially the geo-targeting feature. I was running Optin Monster on some of my websites and Thrive leads on some of the other.
Though I later completely transitioned over to Thrive Leads because that gave me many other options like the landing page builder etc., I still love Optin Monster.
So if you are looking for only an optin form builder that focusses on conversions, then Optin Monster is what I would recommend.
Autoresponder Services for Email Marketing
In order to have an effective email marketing system, you need a reliable autoresponder service. Not all autoresponder services are made equal. Hence choosing the right one is not only critical but also an important decision from an ROI perspective.
With the many technological changes, email marketing has also evolved. Services now compete not just on deliverability but also aspects like simplicity, automation availability, segmentation support etc.
Here is our recommendation for an auto responder service.
Aweber
I simply love Aweber. We have been using them for almost 12 years now and absolutely love their services. They have a very reliable autoresponder service with a decent deliverability.
They were a little slow on adding features which is why I happened to try out a few other autoresponders in between but eventually came back to them because their support and care for their customers were second to none.
They have added all the bells and whistles that you would otherwise see in most new generation autoresponders but are still priced very optimally. With Aweber, you get a better value per dollar spent on your autoresponder service. It is hence that we recommend them.
You can get a fully functional FREE account with Aweber and try them out.
Convertkit
Convertkit is a new generation autoresponder service and they captured the market pretty fast primarily because of the many advanced features in terms of automation that they offered.
A lot of internet marketers praise their services and use them. Two of the best internet marketers that I follow, Pat Flynn and Andre Chaperon, both use Convertkit, which makes me believe that they would be really great.
I had used their free version for some time to check them out. But since that did not offer any of the advanced features, I wasn't really able to test them well. They were a little on the costly side
Though we haven't used Converkit, we are still recommending them because of the great reviews that they have.
Social Media Management Tools
Social media has become an integral part of marketing. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook is where most of the marketing, sales and after-sales support happens these days.
While these social media channels being the single point where people live, it is essential that you build a robust social media strategy for your business.
Here are a few social media management tools that we use and recommend.
Tailwind
Pinterest is one of our largest traffic sources. We never realized the power of Pinterest until we started using Tailwind.
The tool is so powerful that we can now schedule almost a month's worth of content in a day. And the kind of engagement and virality that our Pins get is all thanks to Tailwind.
If you haven't been using Pinterest, then it is time to check it out. And don't forget - Tailwind is the tool that will make your Pinterest marketing strategy go out of the roof.
We have a nice little discount for you in case you wish to try Tailwind out.
SocialBee
Socialbee is an awesome social media management tool. We have been using it for some time to schedule our content for Facebook and Twitter.
With Instagram automatic scheduling being introduced to SocialBee, it has become out all in one tool for social media management
A simple interface, easy scheduling options and an amazing way of organizing your content, SocialBee has everything that you will need to stay organized with your content and manage it well.
Buffer
Buffer was our go to tool for social media management until we moved over to SocialBee.
We could grab a lifetime deal for SocialBee on Appsumo and that meant that we could save some bucks on the monthly that we were paying for Buffer.
But even for that low monthly price, the features and control that Buffer gave was immense. So it was worth it.
Even today we recommend Buffer because we love them and their support.
Other Noteworthy tools
ContentStudio
Content Studio was a tool that we used for some time for our social media management. It is a praiseworthy tool and has a lot of useful features.
It not only helps in scheduling content but also helps in curating good content for your social media channels, in addition to keeping your schedules organized and plan it.
Content and Keyword Research Tools
Keyword and content research is extremely important in content marketing. With the millions of content pieces that are generated every day, standing out amongst them isn't going to happen unless you generate content that is not just valuable but also unique.
These are the tools that I use(used) and recommend for researching keywords, niches and topics. All of these tools are online or, cloud based and I prefer them because of the flexibility it gives.
Desktop tools are the thing of the past and I no more recommend desktop tools to anybody.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is our go-to tool for both Keyword research and Content research. It is also the first place that we go to check and optimize our site and content from an SEO perspective.
It is a simple tool that is easy to use and doesn't overwhelm you. There is a free option and a paid option and you can opt for the the one that fits you depending upon your usage.
With more and more features being added, this is the tool that we would recommend to all affiliate marketers.
Labrika
Labrika is the second tool that we use for SEO. It is an all in one SEO tool that works a lot like SEMRush.
It has an excellent keyword tracker and content analyzer tool that can firstly help you optimize your content for the keywords that you choose and secondly help keep a track of how they are performing on Google.
You can schedule a weekly report and monitor your website's performance using that.
We were able to get a lifetime deal from Appsumo. Even if you pay the monthly pricing, it is still worth the price because of the many features that are available.
You can read my comparative analysis with SEMRush here.
Other Noteworthy Tools
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is an amazing tool with a ton of features that can help you not just rank your content on search engines but also generate unique and share worthy content.
We had used Ahrefs for quite some time but decided to move over to a combination of Ubersuggest and Labrika because of the one time, lifetime pricing that we could get.
For the dollar spent on Ahrefs, the value was immense but we didn't actually need all of those tools and features.
Hence saving a few bucks made sense to us. But we do recommend Ahrefs if you think you will use at least 70% of the features that are available in the tool.
SERanking
SERanking is very similar to SEMRush but is available at a much lower pricing. The features are pretty much the same.
There were a couple of things that we liked about SERanking. It was easy to use, had a clutter free and simple dashboard and wasn't overwhelming like that of SEMRush.
We used it for some time before we moved on to our current choices and for the time we used it we really enjoyed it.
If you are looking for an alternative to SEMRush, then you should definitely try out SERanking.
Other recommended tools
Affiliate Promotions
AmalinksPro
AmalinksPro is the best Amazon affiliate marketing tool. There's a ton of options that the plugins offers like product showcase boxes, comparison tables etc.
The best part about the plugin is that you can create all of these beautiful ways of promoting Amazon affiliate products even if you do not have Amazon API access.
You can read my AmalinksPro review here.
WP Product Reviews
One of the best ways of promoting affiliate products on your blog/website is by writing product reviews.
With Google ranking reviews that have the right review schema, product reviews have gained even more importance.
WP Product reviews is a plugin that generates beautiful review boxes and also generates the correct review schema helping you to rank your reviews on Google.
Affiliate Link Cloaking
Thirsty Affiliates
We use Thirsty Affiliates for link cloaking because it has some great analytics and is quick and easy to cloak affiliate links.
Thirsty affiliates has a FREE and a PAID version. The free version should be enough for most marketers.
Pretty Links
Pretty link is a quick and easy cloaking and redirection link.
Their premium version has a lot more features but the FREE version is pretty simple and does what it is required to do. So the FREE version should be more than enough for any affiliate marketer.
Project Management Tools
Ora
Staying organized is an important part of succeeding in your business.
We learnt it the hard way. Haphazard actions with no real plans meant that everything was all over the place and nothing really helped.
That's when we decided to manage our business as a project.
We started with Trello and found that it changed the way we were managing things and since then we have continued to keep it that way.
Right now we use Ora which is an amazing project management tool, just like Trello and we transitioned over to them after we got a lifetime deal through Appsumo.
Trello
We have used Trello for some time for our project management. In fact, Trello was the first tool that we used for managing the various things that we did in our business.
It's fun using their cards and the drag and drop features are extremely easy and fun to use.
While we have since moved over to Ora after we got a lifetime deal through Appsumo, we still love and recommend Trello for people who still want to go with one of the firsts who designed Project Management in a fun way.
If you are somebody who loves using ready made templates for your business, then you will find quite a few Trello templates out there which isn't available with the other tools.
Miscellaneous Tools and Resources
Appsumo - Discounted Offer Marketplace
If you are interested in a specific tool but cannot afford or, do not want to enter into a monthly or, yearly subscription, then head over to Appsumo.
There are chances that you will find the tool or, a similar one there at a one time payment for life.
And rest assured, you wouldn't find any compromise on Quality.
Kashoo - Accounting Tool
We manage all of our accounting requirements using Kashoo.
There are a ton of requirements from a Company perspective other than just the year end accounting.
Kashoo fulfils all of this and more. And yes, we bought this tool from Appsumo for a one time lifetime payment.
Crello - Image Editor Tool
People swear by Canva and we swear by Crello.
Crello is an image editing service like that of Canva and has pretty much everything that you will find in Canva, but at a much lower price.
And we bought Crello too at a lifetime payment from Appsumo.
Designrr - Create eBooks from Blog posts
Designrr is an amazing tool to build lead magnets.
You can create amazing looking ebooks from pretty much anything including your blog posts, youtube videos etc.
And you can even design a beautiful ecover for your ebook. All without spending hours in front of your computer.
Shortpixel - Image Optimization plugin and service
Some of our websites are image heavy and we have experienced how these images weigh on a website's loading speed.
Shortpixel takes the pain out of managing these images. It reduces the size of the images without loss in quality and also serves them from a CDN thus helping increase the page load times.
Rankmath - the Best SEO plugin for Wordpress
There are people who say they are in love with Yoast SEO.
But we fell in love with Rankmath. Rankmath is an SEO plugin that gives you all of the premium features offered by Yoast, but for FREE.
Linkwhisper - Create strong internal link structure
Do you believe that internal linking can help rank your websites on Google?
We never knew the importance of internal link building until we started using Linkwhisper.
And yes, you can rank a website on Google merely by focusing on build a strong internal link structure.
Wondershare Filmora - Video creation and Editing tool
We create all our videos and edit them on Filmora.
Filmora is much cheaper than Camtasia Studio and has much better features too.
The tool is simple and easy to use and gives you a lot of customization options.
Goals on Track - Goal tracking tool
Staying on track with your Goals can be difficult if you are like me. It is difficult to be disciplined and lack of discipline is the biggest reason for missing your goals.
Goals on track helps me stay on track with my goals by being disciplined and also ensures that I stick to my routines.
RescueTime - Staying Organized
Rescuetime helps reduce distraction and helps me stay focused on what is important.
You can track the time you have spent on different activities also set goals.
Letreach - Notification Service
Notifications are a great way to staying connected with your website visitors and continuously engaging with them.
We use Letreach as our notification service because they are affordable and has a lot of features including segmenting your audience.
Instapaper - Article saving & Bookmarking
There are times when you are reading an interesting article or, watching a very nice video and want to save it for later.
Instapaper helps you bookmark all of these articles, videos and blogspots and also annotate, highlight and keep notes when you are researching on topics.
Don't know where to start?
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investing in yourself
Training & Courses
The biggest mistake that a lot of affiliate marketers make is in spending money on the next "shiny object" that they find.
investing in shiny objects have never made anyone richer. But investing in self has.
It is important to invest in yourself if you are to stay ahead in marketing. You learn new skills and polish your existing ones all while following the advices from successful people.
Here ae some trainings and courses that I recommend. These are the ones that I invested in when I was trying to upskill myself.
Autoresponder Madness
Nobody does email marketing like Andre Chaperon. And that is why he gets the kind of results that no-one gets.
Imagine reading an email that makes you wait for the next email in the series like it is a Netflix series.
That's what Andre does to his email. His idea of writing emails like a "Soap-Opera-Sequence" is praised by marketers big and small.
And he teaches this exact method of email marketing in his course Autoresponder Madness.
This is one course that you absolutely need to join.
Pinterest Traffic Avalanche
Pinterest - a yet untapped source of traffic.
Pinterest was never a part of our strategy and we always thought that Pinterest was only for sharing cooking, baking, fashion and such pictures. But all of that changed after I read a small book on generating Traffic using Pinterest.
I needed more and detailed information. That's how I joined the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course.
And, this changed everything. Today Pinterest is the number one source of traffic to most of my blogs and that is all thanks to this course.
Keep in mind that this course isn't a guarantee to generate traffic just like everything else. It is a guide to the strategies and you will need to implement it if you are to see results.
Books that I love and Recommend
The 4-Hour Work Week
The best I have ever read, this New York times bestseller is a must read for all marketers.
This is Marketing
Seth Godin's, "This is Marketing" is all about market in this century.
He breaks some myths in this book and teaches some long term strategies in marketing.
You can read my thoughts about the book here.
Traffic Secrets
Traffic Secrets is a book that will teach you how to generate real traffic.
This book isn't like other books on traffic sources that is full of fluff.
In Traffic Secrets, Russell Brunson teaches some real strategies on generating traffic.
You can get it for FREE by paying only for the shipping charges..
The Magic of Thinking Big
This is my favorite book and in fact the first of the books that I read before starting my side hustle.
Affiliate Marketing is a strange business. To keep going, you need a goal and a dream.
And this book, is a guide to finding your dreams and goals.
Read about my story here.