23 Content Creation Tools Every Affiliate Marketer Needs

 Are you spending way too much time on creating content for your site/ social media/marketing campaigns?

Content creation takes up huge chunks of time for most affiliate marketers. Unfortunately, there is no way around this.

However, there are definitely some great content creation tools that can make life much easier for you.

These are some of my most-used tools. I've separated them into categories to make it easier to find the type of tool you need the most. 

Tools For Generating Ideas

If you're running low on ideas for content and don't know where to look, these tools are worth checking out. 

1. Portent Title Maker

This is one of my favorite tools, purely because it's so much fun and often makes me laugh.

Enter a keyword to see a suggestion for a blog post title. If you don't like it, hit refresh to get a new title.

Usually, I don't use the exact titles suggested by Portent, but use them as ideas for writing future posts. Try it! 

2. Buzz Sumo

Buzz Sumo is a great tool to understand and analyze what content is working in your niche. Enter a topic to see what sort of content others are writing, what is getting shared on social media and more. It's a handy tool when you have a topic but are stuck on which direction to take. Buzz Sumo can help you find the right angle.

3. Blog Topics Generator

Hubspot also has a blog topic generator that I find very useful. It works in a similar way to the Portent tool. Enter in three keywords, and the tool will return five topic ideas for you to work with.

Tools For Writing 

Make your content writing better and error-free with these web content creation tools. 

4. Hemingway

The key to writing good content that engages your users? Keep it simple. But this is often easier said than done. 

Most of us get caught up in long sentences and complicated words. Hemingway is a great tool to help you simplify your writing. It points out complex sentences and other common errors. Simply paste in your content to see what the app thinks.

5. Grammarly

Don't trust yourself to proofread your own work? Grammarly helps you by catching your grammatical errors before hit the Publish button. No more silly typos! 

6. WordPress Distraction-Free Editor

Most of you are probably using WordPress as your site's CMS. However, I find that sometimes the sidebars and everything else on the page can be pretty distracting. Add some Zen to your writing space by using the built-in distraction-free editor. Simply hit the four-way arrow icon to eliminate everything but the content area of the post .

Tools For Visual Content

Visual content is the king of content marketing. Here are some great tools to help you create quality and engaging visual content with ease. 

7. Canva

I'm no designer, so a tool like Canva has made life SO much easier for me. There are pre-made templates, social media-ready images and lots of funky fonts. The best part is the drag and drop interface means you never have to worry about understanding Photoshop layers again. 

Other similar tools include Pablo by Buffer and PicMonkey.

8. Infogr.am

If you like to create infographics, and other data visualization charts, Infogr.am is your tool. 

9. Giphy

GIFs rule the internet. Find the perfect GIF for every emotion on Giphy.

I spend way too much time on this site. You probably will too, once you discover they have GIFs for everything from your favorite TV shows and movies to fashion and food. And your favorite celebrities.  

10. Jing

Jing is my favorite tool for taking screenshots (e.g., the ones in this article). You can add arrows, highlight and circle parts of the image. You can also record videos of your screen (useful for instructional videos). You can then upload it and share the link with others, or save the file to your computer and add it to blog posts (like I have). 

Camtasia is another popular tool in the same category. You can create high-quality videos of your screen and easily upload videos from your hard drive as well. 

11. Meme Generator

No matter how many memes you see online, they never stop getting funny. If you want to create your own memes, this is the tool you should be using.

Tools For Getting Help

If you find you're running out of time to create the content you want and need, have you considered getting help?

By help, I mean finding a freelancer who can help you fill the gaps. This could mean finding a writer to help you keep your blog up to date or a talented designer who will create that infographic that has been on your mind for a while. You could even find someone to do all your instructional videos. 

Whatever you need, it's likely there's a freelancer who can help you out. 

Some popular places to find the freelancers you need include:

12. Upwork (formerly known as oDesk. Elance has also merged into Upwork.)

13. Fiverr (All jobs done for $5, but you can pay for extras, too.) 

14. Freelancer

15. 99designs

16. Textbroker

17. Visual.ly (This one is great for infographics.)

Tools For Social Media Content

Spending a lot of time creating social media content? To be honest, there are so many social media tools out there that it would probably take me all day to list them. I like two pieces of software for content creation. They help me create better content, but also more of it. 

18. Buffer

There are a lot of social media scheduling tools out there, but Buffer is one of my favorites these days. It's an especially good tool for adding third party/curated content to your social media feeds. 

You can share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn with the free plan. Definitely download the Chrome plugin for Buffer. That way, every time you find a piece of content you think your audience will enjoy, simply hit the button and it goes into your Buffer feed. 

19. Twitshot

Tweets with images definitely get more attention than text-based tweets alone. But until I discovered Twitshot, it was quite a painful process to do this. You had to manually save each image from an article and then upload it as a Twitter image.

Twitshot simplifies this process so much. Just add the link in and it will give you a selection of images from the article to add to your tweet. Plus it integrates with Buffer, which makes life even easier. 

   

Other Useful Content Creation Tools

20. Evernote

Evernote is the perfect tool to collect and curate all your ideas in one place while you put a piece of content together. You can add text, images, video, screen grabs, hyperlinks and more. I find it very useful at the research and draft stage of writing any piece of content. It's also great for creating checklists, saving links from the web, and more. 

21. Audacity

If you're a podcaster, Audacity is an excellent tool for recording, editing and publishing your podcasts. 

22. Prezi

Easily create presentations that are visually appealing and engaging. Plus it syncs with all your devices, so you can create on the go and share when you're ready. 

23. List.ly

Lists work very well online. List.ly allows you to easily create lists and add them to your blog. You can also make it a crowd-sourced list, so your readers can add to it and your list keeps growing. 

Regularly creating content is hard work, there's no doubt about that. So put these content creation tools to work for you and make your life a little bit easier. 

Of course I haven't managed to list every content creation tool available. There are thousands! Let me know if you have a favorite and tell me it helps with your content creation process. 

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Make Money Online With Affiliate Marketing

Most people's understanding of "affiliate marketing" starts and ends with the Amazon Associates program, one of the biggest in the world.

For the entrepreneur, the challenge with Amazon Associates is building enough traffic to generate substantial revenue. For the newbie, the traffic hurdle is almost unsurmountable. But don't despair! You can create a successful affiliate marketing business, if you do so strategically.

What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is when a publisher or company gives you a cut of each sale they make when you promote them on their site. There are lots of different affiliate opportunities, from courses to web hosting to books, tapes and DVDs. More on affiliate marketing.

Let the affiliate marketer beware
Affiliate marketing are sometimes touted as "get rich quick schemes" by shady sites offering pyramid schemes that promise quick cash for little effort. Make no mistake -- successful affiliate marketers put in a lot of effort toward building an audience and quality content that will bring in sustainable passive income. Expect to do a lot of legwork up front -- but if you play your cards right you can build a solid source of revenue over time

The key to successful affiliate marketing
So you've committed to building an affiliate business. Your success as an affiliate marketer is tied to these questions:

Can you find products or services to offer that offer you a great commission rate?

Can you find a niche market that is likely to buy what you are offering?

Are you able to build content and traffic around these products?

How to find a favorable commission rate
Amazon's commission rate is pennies each dollar of merchandise that you sell.
What many people don't know is that there are affiliate opportunities out there that pay commission rates that are much more favorable, from $20-$100.
Browse Commission Junction, Share-a-Sale and Ejunkie for opportunities and their general commission rate.

Target a niche
If you're just starting out, a niche market is the obvious way to go. Look for a market that has a clearly defined need and willing audience. Then, find affiliate opportunities that dovetail with that niche market.

Create an effective website
Once you have a great product you believe and a target market, you'll need to stock a site with quality content that will help drive traffic and affiliate sales. This articlehas some great tips on the nitty gritty of creating your own website. Once you have your website set up, you'll want to optimized it for conversions and sales. Learn about the four qualities of an effective website.





Build an audience through trust
The most successful affiliate marketers build compelling content first, and affiliate revenue later.

Chris Brogan has said: "when there’s an opportunity to bring something of value to your community and make some money for your efforts, then you’re looking at what I think of as a great opportunity."

To build a successful affiliate program, it helps to care about the products you are selling, and to offer legitimate value beyond just a quick sale. While you can build an affiliate business around any type of product, it helps if you actually use the product and endorse it personally.

Make sure you understand disclosure
A couple of years ago, the FCC introduced new rules that covered the increasingly professionalizing world of bloggers. Now you must disclose when you have a financial interest in a product or service you feature on your blog. This goes for sponsored posts, but more importantly, affiliate links.

Many affiliate marketers, including Copyblogger Media and Chris Brogan, attempt to use this to their advantage. How? They use the disclosure as an opportunity to talk about how much they personally love the product they are selling.


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5 of Our Favorite Ways to Make Money From Home

Working from home in pajamas is the dream of many out there trapped in the rat race. The great news is that it's not hard to get started. Below are some of our favorite ways to make money from home. 

Find a Passive Income Stream

What's "passive income"? It's simple -- finding a way to earn money while you sleep, of course! 

There's a saying in the corporate world: "Don't make yourself irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted." As an entrepreneur, this is still true in its own way.

Let's think of "being promoted" as earning more and working less. You can raise your prices, but until you can remove yourself from being directly involved in doing the work that generates the income, there's always going to be a limit to how much you can earn, and it can only increase very slowly.

More on passive income here. 

Do Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way 

Affiliate marketing is sometimes touted as "get rich quick schemes" by shady sites offering pyramid schemes that promise quick cash for little effort. Make no mistake -- successful affiliate marketers put in a lot of effort toward building an audience and quality content that will bring in sustainable passive income. Expect to do a lot of legwork up front -- but if you play your cards right you can build a solid source of revenue over time

Learn to be a successful affiliate marketer here.

Build a Blog on a Speciality Niche 

If you create a speciality blog that brings in a reasonable amount of traffic, you can enjoy income on ads you place on the site.

One good way is to craft a speciality blog with product reviews and recommendations. Be sure to pick a topic that you enjoy and know something about. If you can't stay passionate about the topic, that will show, and it also won't hold your interest. Choose a narrow enough niche to be distinctive, e.g., bands from your city, left-handed guitarists, music for a certain kind of dancing, authors of a certain religion, books about arts & crafts, etc.

More here. 

Make Money Doing Something You Love

You don't have to be a professional photographer to sell your photos for money. People are constantly in need of stock photography for websites, presentations, brochures and so on, and are willing to pay for the right image. People generally search for images on stock photography sites by keywords, not by photographer, so you have the same chance as anyone else of having your image picked. Just be careful that you don't have images of trademarked brands, copyrighted art or people's faces that are readily identifiable (unless you have a model release), but just about anything else is fair game, and I promise - you'd be amazed what people need pictures of, so don't make any assumptions. If it's a decent photo, upload it. Some sites to get you started include Fotolia, ShutterStock, Dreamstime,  and iStockphoto. The great thing about this is that it's truly "set it and forget it".

More ways to make money online here. 

Build an Information Products Business 

If you have a knack for teaching or making complex material more digestible, consider the field of information products.

You can create your own webinar or ebook using low-cost tools, such as Camtasia, YouTube, and Powerpoint. If you are interested in using the resources of a larger company, new educational startups like 

Udemy and Skillshare allow anyone to create and sell classes through their platform. Though they take a small percentage of your profits, you can take advantage of their built-in communities and marketing lists.

How to get started: Read our guide to information products.

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7 Reasons Why No One Clicks Your Affiliate Banners

Placing affiliate banners on your blog is one of the most common blog monetization techniques.

Not the most or the least effective. In-between.

Since the case when (almost) no one clicked a certain banner is not very uncommon, let’s analyze together why such an unpleasant situation usually happens and see what you can do to avoid it.

Speaking about solutions, the easiest one is to remove all banners. Remove all so called distractions and you won’t need to read further. There’s a huge disadvantage though…

Putting all your eggs in one basket (for example focusing only on building your list) and copying a good method without having the right skills frequently lead to a big fat failure.

It’s your risk and your decision.

If you’re still here, let’s start today’s journey…

1. Banner Ad Blindness

It’s true that some people trained themselves not to see the banner ads.

The same as I trained myself not to see the opt-in boxes and all the “great” random incentives I never planned to read or watch.

Easy Fix: Move on. Focus on the problems you have better chances to fix.

And don’t even think about listening to the bloggers who claim that banner advertising is dead. If 90%+ of your visitors don’t take action on your marketing goodies (banners, opt-in boxes, etc), it doesn’t mean that banner advertising or list building are dead.

The only sure thing is that the people claiming that banner advertising (list building, etc.) is dead simply don’t understand marketing.

Have you ever gone fishing? Have you ever caught all the fish? Period.

2. The Mobile Traffic and the Sidebar Banners Are a Bad Match

Does your blog have a lot of mobile traffic? Well, then there’s no wonder that no one clicked the sidebar banners.

If you use a responsive theme, the layout of your blog is different for the mobile visitors. The sidebar isn’t a sidebar anymore. It goes to the bottom of the page…

The article comes first, then maybe the related posts and/or the sharing buttons, then the comments, and finally the sidebar.

Who do you think will scroll down to the sidebar, and why? Almost no one. I guarantee you.

Solution: If most of your traffic comes from mobiles, you should consider the total removal of your sidebars. The blog will load faster. As for the blog monetization, focus on the areas that are seen by your readers.

3. Bad Banners, Designed for Branding Purposes Only

See the banner on the left side? There’s a brand name and then some text that doesn’t reveal any information – it may be related to almost any product or service.

If your readers have no clue what SBI! stands for, why should they click that banner? Is it because they click banners for no reason? :P

If some readers are kind of familiar with that brand name, why should they click the banner? Is it because they’ve seen it again and again and now decided that it’s time to find out more about it? Well, if they click the banner you should consider yourself very lucky. But this is gambling, not affiliate marketing.

Solution: Before choosing a banner, forget who you are and what your goal is, and put yourself in your reader’s shoes. The reader needs a reason to click. Not understanding what you advertise isn’t a good reason.

4. Stupid Banners. Plain Stupid

I discovered this masterpiece on someone’s blog…

Free domain starts at $3.95/month

Is this text designed to make people laugh at both the company and the affiliate?

The designer and the Affiliate Manager didn’t notice the problem. The blogger didn’t notice it either.

So many people… I wonder if it’s not something wrong with me. Maybe I don’t understand very well the meaning of the word “free.”

Solution: What can I say? Open your eyes.

5. Ad Blockers

Did a blog or a business bother you? In the past, the elegant solution was to boycott that business by not buying anything and never returning back.

These days people are more pragmatic… Why not getting the stuff they’d like (the tips, the content) under the conditions they decide and without having the owner’s agreement?

So the ad blocking technology was developed. An ad blocker hides totally or partially the ads from your website. Without your agreement. Millions of users and supporters.

I wonder how far is the moment when a piece of software will also decide that some of your opinions suck and they should be hidden. Or replaced by other ones that will please the visitor. Unfortunately it seems that we aren’t that far.

How to Fight Against Ad Blockers

– host the banners on the server that hosts your site;
– don’t put your banners on folders titled “banners” or other names that may relate to advertising;
– cloak your affiliate links;
– don’t use in your site code classes or ids that may be related to advertising. Example: id=”ad_45″
– don’t use ad management plugins that use classes or ids that may be related to advertising. Examples: “Ads by datafeedr.com” or “Datafeedr Random Ads V2”
– use anti ad blockers plugins.

6. Promoting Products That Don’t Match Readers’ Interests

If you promote products or services that don’t match readers’ interests, it’s obvious that they won’t click your banners.

The question is, how to know in advance the interests of the future readers?

The easiest solution is to look at your own blog post. There’s the answer. Ask yourself, “Who is my blog post addressed to?”

For example, I don’t know who you are, but long time before you decided to visit this page, I knew some things about you.

I didn’t know whether you have a cat or not. I didn’t know whether you use Twitter or not. But I was 99% sure that you’re a blogger. And you’re interested in monetizing your blog. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had too many reasons to read this article.

Based on these two interests of yours, I planned what to promote on this page.

Does this monetization strategy always work? Of course it doesn’t, have you ever seen a perfect strategy? But it maximizes the chances to get the click.

7. Promoting Very Popular Products or Services

You may be surprised. Promoting very popular products or services via banners usually doesn’t work so well. Here’s why…

Case Study: I decided to promote GetResponse, one of the most popular email marketing services.

Based on their relationship with GetResponse, I divided the readers of my blog in five categories:

a) GetResponse users
b) GetResponse former users
c) People who heard of GetResponse but decided to use another service
d) People who never heard of GetResponse and use another service
e) People who don’t use any email marketing service.

Now let’s see what the chances for getting the click are:

a) GR users will never click the banner.
b) GR former users were disappointed or discovered a service they thought that fits better their needs. Hard to make them come back just by showing them a regular banner.
c) and d) Usually people don’t switch from one service to another just because you show them a banner.
e) If they think that they don’t need such a service, it’s hard to make them change their mind by showing a banner.

No big chances to get the click, don’t you agree?

Solutions

Of course that the best solution is to write a review or a comparison between that popular service that you promote and a competitor. Like I did it here: AWeber vs GetResponse. But we’re talking about banners here, aren’t we?

The banners provided in the affiliate area usually aren’t that good. They won’t make people from categories b), c) and d) change their mind.

In GetResponse’s particular case I was lucky. If you’re not on mobile, you’ll see on the sidebar a floating banner that actually doesn’t promote GetResponse email marketing service but a free training program. That banner addresses all categories of readers.

What to do if you’re not that lucky?

The possible solutions are:

– design your own banner
– use a regular banner, but add additional text around it.

Irrespective of the solution you choose, the additional text added around a regular banner or included in a new banner should have the goal of changing people’s mind. It’s not easy. Spend more time on it. Otherwise you’ll get another regular but useless banner that won’t change anyone’s mind.

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Internet Marketing Explained

Definition of Internet Marketing and How to Use It to Build Your Home Business

Definition of Internet Marketing:

The most basic explanation of Internet marketing is any sort of advertising, promotion, or marketing tactic used online. This includes promotional websites, email marketing, and social media. 

The goal of Internet marketing includes:

• Communicate a company's message about itself, its products, or its services.
• Conduct research as to the nature (demographics, preferences, and needs) of existing and potential customers.

• Sell goods, services, or advertising space over the Internet.

Sometimes someone may tell you they have an Internet marketing business, but unless they offer services to help people market online, that's not exactly true. Internet marketing is simply another avenue for promoting your business the same as off-line tactics.

Why Market Online

For a time, the Internet was seen as a novelty and while some innovative businesses used it to promote their products and services, most existing businesses ignored it. Today however, ignoring the Internet in growing your business would be a fatal mistake. Consumers use the Internet to find information and resources, and if you're not there, they won't find you. Even if you have a local business listed in the Yellow Pages, odds are your customers will still go to the Internet before their phone book.

Marketing online has many other benefits including:

• Affordability: Many online marketing strategies are free (i.e. social media marketing) or very low cost.

• Reach: This is especially true if you business doesn't have to be limited to your local area. The Internet reaches around the world.
• Always working: The Internet never sleeps. Night owls can learn about your business and even buy from you even while you're sleeping.
• Focus in on your target market. It's easy to find your target market online so you can save time and money on marketing strategies to speak directly to your most likely buyers.

Internet Marketing Strategies

When it comes to marketing online, you have many choices. Here are just a few options:

• Website/Blog: Every business should have a website or blog. It can be an online storefront, or at the very least a hub that potential clients and customers can find to learn about and contact you.
• Search engine marketing (SEM): While you don't want to rely solely on search engines to deliver potential clients and customers to your website, you don't want to ignore it either. SEO is an easy way to help search engines list you so your market can find you. Or you can pay to have your site highlighted on search engines.
• Email: Every business should have an email list. It's the best way to stay in touch and build a relationship with your prospects and customers.
• Social media: Consumers use social media to learn about your products and services, find great deals, get help and more. Social media marketing is an excellent way to find your market and build a relationship with it.
• Guest writing: Writing articles or guest blog posts is a free way to get in front of someone else's market and show off your expertise. 

• Affiliate programs: Offering compensation to others who promote your products and services on your behalf is not only affordable (you only pay when you have results), but also a great way to exponentially spread the word. Instead of you just you promoting, you'll have a team of sales people.
• Paid advertising: There are many options for getting your ads online including text or banner ads on other websites, advertising through other websites' email lists, and pay-per-click promotions (i.e. Google Adwords or Facebook Ads).

Anytime you can get your message in front of your market is good. One goal many people hope for when marketing online is to create a viral marketing campaign.Great blog content, videos and social media that have visual interests are some of the best options for encouraging sharing. 

Also Known As: online marketing, web marketing, website promotion, online business, Internet business

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What is Website Promotion?

Information and How-To on Website Promotion

What is Website Promotion?

Website promotion is a collection of tactics, actions and techniques that serve to drive traffic (visitors) to your website.

Why is Website Promotion Important?

Websites offer a multitude of benefits. For some online entrepreneurs, they are storefronts selling goods. Others earn income through advertising, sponsorships and affiliate marketing. Others are marketing tools in and of themselves, providing information about the business and how to best get in touch for services.

While all these website options work, they only fulfill their purpose if people visit them. If you think of a website like a storefront, that store doesn't make money unless someone walks in and buys. If a website is like an online magazine (such as a blog), it only makes money if people visit and buy from advertisers. As a marketing tool, websites deliver information about your business only if they know about it and visit it. 

Web promotion is how online businesses get the word out about the website. The more targeted traffic (visitors who fit your target market) a website receives, the better the chance of making sales, earning ad income and gaining clients. 

How is Website Promotion Done?

There are endless ways to promote your website, and new methods continue to arrive. Websites can be promoted in a variety ways both online and off. 

Online Website Promotion

Anything that allows you to include your website URL can be considered promotion including an email signature line or participating in online forums.

Here are a few common website promotion tactics:

• Email marketing
• Blog marketing
• Social Media
• Advertising
• Search engine marketing
• SEO

Offline Website Promotion

Some offline website promotion techniques include:

• Direct mail
• Publicity 
• Networking
• Public speaking
• Television and radio advertising
• Newspaper advertising

Best Practices for Website Promotion

The ideas listed above are not the only strategies you can use to promote your website. Because there are so many different ways you can market your website, it can get overwhelming. Further, without a plan your promotional efforts can be a waste of time. As you prepare to market your website, here are few things to do and keep in mind.

1. Know your target market. Your goal isn't just in getting as much traffic to your site as possible. A million visitors means nothing if none of them are interested in what you offer. Knowing and understanding your target market will allow you to focus your marketing efforts on those activities that put your message in front of your most likely visitor in a way that entices them to visit.
2. Use search engine optimization strategies, but don't rely on search engines alone to deliver traffic. Making it easy for search engines to understand, index and rank your site is a no-brainer. It's free and not that hard to do. At the same time, you don't need to spend a fortune in SEO services or hours and hours studying SEO. Checking your website stats and keywords every month or so will help you understand how people are using search engines to find your site and other information in your business area. 

1. Promote where your market hangs out. If your market isn't on Twitter, you don't need to tweet. When considering how and where to promote, think about where your market turns to get similar information and resources related to what you offer. This isn't just other websites or social networks, but also, offline sources such as groups and print media.
2. Hook your market with a message that speaks to them. That means opening with a hook that entices and intrigues your market. It should be benefits oriented in that it promises to solve a problem, improve life, or be entertaining. The better your promotional copy, the better and bigger the results on your marketing campaign. 
3. Track your efforts. You'll save time and money if you know what promotions are delivering results and which aren't. 

Also Known As: online promotion, website marketing, web site marketing, Internet marketing, online marketing.

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