In this resources page, I am going to share with you the tools that I used to create stunning websites and grow my online marketing business.
Full Disclosure:
Some of my links are Affiliate Links which I will receive small commissions if you click through it and made a purchase. If you are not comfortable in doing so, I would suggest that you open a tab and search for the product.
I only recommend the product that I’ve used before. Although I might not an expert in that product, at least it helps me throughout my journey as an online marketers.
Bootstrap and Start Small
There are many free tools which you can utilize during the startup phase of your affiliate marketing journey.
Like many of us, you weren’t sure what lies ahead of the journey of your online business.
For every business that I started, I will make sure to keep my initial investment in as minimum as possible.
Every dollar that I spend, I would expect to have $3 worth of value out of it.
Luckily in the affiliate marketing, you are able to start small and scale it as you grow. There are tonnes of free tools that you can leverage to grow when you just getting started.
But this means that you are going to work your ass out of it to be successful. Are you ready for this?
Let me show you my secret weapon that I use to build my online business.
Essential Tools For Affiliate Marketing
Essential tools are required for you to kickstart your affiliate marketing journey. Here are some tools that you must have:
- Domain and Hosting: It is required to create and hold the content of your website.
- Keyword Research Tool: Look for keywords that are searched by people before producing content. If not, your content will never be seen.
- Tracking Tools: Track your goals, traffic, behavior and performance of your website and visitors so that you can improve your website in the future.
- Affiliate Network: The middleman the bridge between the business owners and affiliate marketers.
Hosting and Domains
1. Wealthy Affiliate
If you have read my review on Wealthy Affiliate(WA), it is most than just an affiliate marketing course.
Hosting is one of the perks that come with the premium membership of WA. (There are two more which we will talk about in the later section)
A domain will cost you about $13.99 in WA which needed to be renewed every year.
In addition, WA provides additional features such as SiteProtection, SSL Encryption, and SiteSpeed to improve speed and protect against spams and hackers.
What I like about WA:
- Hosting is pre-configured to host only on WordPress. Makes the server more optimized for speed.
- 24/7 website support team to answer anything related to your website.
- Host up to 25 domains on a single affordable fee.
You can register a free account on their sub-domain, SiteRubix to get a feel of how to create your own website.
Eventually, you can transfer the sub-domain to your very own domain.
Keyword Research
When you write an article, you need to make sure that you are having a keyword phrase.
Keyword research is an important element to make sure that you are creating content that people want to read. It is so important that I never settle with only one tool.
I use 3 of them quite extensively. My number one recommendation for the keyword tool is Long Tail Pro.
2. Long Tail Pro
Long Tail Pro(LTP) is a paid keyword research tool which is well recognized by affiliate marketing gurus such as Pat Flynn and Matthew Woodwards.
It is very intuitive, user-friendly and easy to navigate around to analyze and find great keywords that are low competitions.
What I Like About LTP
- Industry standard keyword research tool which uses Majestic metrics at an affordable price.
- Keyword competition analyzer with in-depth metrics on your top 10 competitors makes it easy to navigate around.
- Site rank to track the performance of your website for certain keywords.
What I Don’t Like About LTP
- It is a cloud-based software. Sometimes it will be slow when processing the keyword.
- Constantly improving on the software. It will be buggy sometimes.
- There are limits on every function that are provided in the software.
Visit my in-depth review on LTP now to learn more. (Snapshot included in the post)
3. Jaaxy 
Jaaxy is created by the owner of Wealthy Affiliate(WA). This is the second perk that comes with WA.
As the owner knows, keyword research is needed to excel in affiliate marketing.
All WA premium members will have the lite version(specially for WA members) of Jaaxy which is sufficient to perform basic keyword research and analysis.
What I Like About Jaaxy
- Using proprietary metrics Quoted Search Result (QSR) to gauge on competition is great.
- Alphabet soup technique which use to look for keyword
- No limit on the search query.
What I Don’t Like About Jaaxy
- There are some search volume results doesn’t correlate well with Google results.
- Provide basic information about your top 10 competitors in the searched keyword.
- Manually reveal the QSR for keywords that you are interested.
If you have already been using WA, Jaaxy is good enough for you to perform keyword research.
A pro version of Jaaxy for non-WA members will set you back at $49 a month. I would recommend you go for LTP instead.
4. UberSuggest + Moz Toolbar
Ubersuggest and Moz Toolbar are two FREE tools (Ubersuggest is completely free, Moz Toolbar has free and paid version) which I used for keyword research and competitor analysis.
Ubersuggest is great in providing hundreds of relevant keyword based on the seed keyword that you provided.
After you found some relevant keywords, you can head to Moz Toolbar to look at those competing sites how strong they are in terms of page authority (PA) and domain authority (DA).
What I Like About Ubersuggest + Moz Toolbar
- It is FREE to use!
- Hundreds of keywords in less than 30 seconds.
- Fast and free way to obtain the strength of the competing webpage.
If you are looking for free keyword tools, try using Ubersuggest and Moz Toolbar in combined.
Tracking Tools
If you going to make sure that your website is on the right track, you will need a proper tracking tool.
On tracking tools, Google gets you covered.
5. Google Analytics
Introducing Google Analytics. It is an analytics tool which is used to track the behavior and performance of your website.
This tool is so powerful that it can identify which location, browser, provider’s network and even the time that a user lands on your page.
Don’t worry, the visitor’s personal information such as name, address and phone number will not be shared.
Why I Use Google Analytics?
It’s a FREE yet comprehensive data analytics tool which allows webmasters to analyze the website’s performance.
I mostly use it for checking my daily traffic, analyzing individual page performance, putting goals on pages as well as study the behavior of my visitors.
You can import my customized template to your Google Analytics to track on your organic search traffic performance.
6. Google Search Console
Another Google tools which I use is the Google Search Console.
Google Search Console provides the information on your website’s technical performance such as indexed pages, structural data audit, searched keywords and crawl errors.
If you are alien to the phrase above, don’t worry. It takes time to get yourselves familiarize with all these terms.
Why I Use Google Search Console?
It provides all my website’s information such as error or missing page URL so that we are aware of the technical problems.
Besides, I use it to search for performing keywords of my site and enhanced the page to get a stronger ranking. It can be used to look for new keywords.
Whenever you created a piece of content, you can let Google know by pasting the link in Google Search Console.
It will fasten the process of the page being index in Google.
Affiliate Network
To become an affiliate, you will need to be enrolled in the companies’ affiliate program.
7. Affiliate Network
While some companies have their own affiliate program on site, many leverage on huge affiliate network to help them to track the links and deal with commission payouts.
Not all affiliate networks are easy to join. Some required you to show that you have a decent traffic on your website before being accepted.
The easiest affiliate network to join is Amazon Affiliate Program. You can literally get started with it without being review by Amazon.
What you need to show is you can acquire qualifying 3 sales in 180 days.
Here are some of the well known networks that you can join:
Beware of some affiliate networks which doesn’t have a good reputation. They often underpay their affiliates.