Being in the internet marketing game we are always on the lookout for products to make our lives easier. This can include ebooks, themes, software programs, membership sites or WordPress plugins. With this in mind, I decided to write up a post on the products we actually use and recommend.
1. Ninja Affiliate
I love this plugin! What it does is add affiliate links automatically to keywords in your posts. You simply add your keywords and affiliate links in the backend on your WordPress dashboard and Ninja Affiliate will automatically add affiliate links to those keywords wherever they appear on your blog – for both old and new posts. So you don’t have to spend hours adding affiliate links to every blog post you write. Just add once in the dashboard and they are automatically added to both old and new posts.
You also have the option for nofollow links, and to choose how many links you want in each post. It also provides statistics so you can see how many times the links have been clicked on for each keyword. If you take a look at the links in this post, most of them apart from the internal links have been added automatically by Ninja Affiliate. I don’t have to add them every time I create a post. This saves me a heap of time.
It can also cloaks the links so that they don’t appear as long affiliate urls but instead they look like internal links.
Highly recommended!
Click to read our full review – Maxblog Ninja Affiliate Review
2. OIO Publisher
If you want to make money from advertising on your blog then this is definitely the plugin to go with. It makes the whole process sooo much easier. The initial set up is all you will need to do and once done everything is handled for you. You simply have to approve the ads with a few clicks and the ads go up automatically on your site. This is a bargain for the price as it will save you a heap of time doing it all manually.
Click to read our full review – OIO Publisher Review
3. Affiliate Organizer
We have used the Affiliate Organizer for years now. It is the one program I use on a daily basis. What this program does is store all of your user names and passwords. But that’s not all it does, it has a calender function to include upcoming events and tasks; a category to store websites including DNS settings, ftp settings, passwords etc; a section to add affiliate merchant details, a category where you can details for forums that you have signed up with and even a section to keep track of tasks you’ve outsourced. I really couldn’t live without it.
Click to read our full review – Affiliate Organizer Review
4. Flexsqueeze Theme
This would have to be my favorite theme at the moment. I know everyone raves over the Thesis theme but I much prefer the Flexsqueeze theme. It is so much easier to use and is perfect for the type of product review sites we use. It allows you to create a full page review without the sidebar displaying. So there are no distractions for the reader to click away. They stay focused on the review and click on the links in the review. The developer of this theme made it so easy to change colors, the blog width, the header and footer and pretty much anything else in the theme from fonts through to the background color so you can make the theme look completely unique with just a few clicks of your mouse.
5. aWeber
aWeber is a must have for anyone wanting to develop a email list. We have been using aWeber for a number of years now and have had no issues. Their pricing goes up with the more subscribers you get up to the maximum of $130 a month if you have 10,000 subscribers or more…but then if you have that many subscribers you should be able to easily make the money each month to cover the fee. If you can’t then you are in the wrong business.
You can create unlimited email lists, send email newsletters using their templates or your own, create autoresponders and more.
6. The Best Spinner
I’ve never been a fan of spinning articles only because the spinners I have used in the past have been pretty pathetic in terms of creating a readable article. This one is different. It’s not called The Best Spinner for nothing – this is really a quality product and produces really well spun articles. It probably takes about half an hour to spin a 400 word article but from that one article you can get up to 100 other articles. This one is definitely a winner with me.
7. ReviewAZON
This is a great plugin for anyone wanting to promote Amazon products. We use it to a limited extent in that we only use it on blogs we aren’t currently working it. It is just a way for us to quickly get content on our blogs so that they stay active. For our reviews written from scratch we don’t use this plugin. Even so, if you want to get content up fast then it really is an excellent program. What ReviewAzon does is allow you to create product pages in minutes using the content from Amazon. You can literally create a blog full of content in just a few hours.
So there you have it, 7 products that we use regularly that we would recommend to others. What are your thoughts?
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I currently only use Aweber off that list, so I have a few products to check out. ReviewAzon looks like a really interesting product!
.-= Tom´s last blog ..Communicating With Offshore Programmers =-.
I really like ReviewAzon. We’ve tried different plugins to promote Amazon products but this one is definitely the best.
Paula,
I’ve had the Ninja Affiliate plugin for a while now and I love it also. So easy to use. I also use it for building internal links – you can automatically set up links to other blog posts rather than affiliate products.
I think that is one side of the plugin that isn’t heavily promoted but it works just as well.
Andrew
.-= Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..Blogging Guide: Increase Your Traffic and Google Crawl Rate =-.
Yes I forgot to mention that. It makes it so easy to create internal links within your site.
I currently own or have owned all but ReviewAZON, which I will check out for sure. :)
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..TweetMeme Installed! I Have Some Questions… =-.
Yep it’s worth taking a look at. As I say, we don’t use it on our top quality review pages but for the blogs we aren’t working on, it’s a great way to keep content constantly going in without too much effort.
OK so it doesn’t really produce top notch reviews, or you just know YOU can do better from scratch?
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Comment Contest: 5 Days Left! =-.
We just use a different format on our top review pages and it works so why change it.
I do like this plugin however because although it drags content over from Amazon you can change it. Unfortunately most people don’t so really you are trying to compete with Amazon if you do that. If you use this plugin in the right way then you can do well with it.
That was written rather confusingly, but i think i got it. lol
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Ari Answered Your Questions; Intriguing Post =-.
I can easily choose three things off that list that I need to try: aWeber, Ninja Affiliate and OIO. I’m hearing more and more about OIO so I’m really curious.
G’stuff!
.-= Moon Hussain´s last blog ..Why You Shouldn’t Stick to Your Schedule =-.
OIO is brilliant. So easy once you set it up. From then on it does the work for you. And it gives you so many options for text links, banner links and sizes.
im thinking of aweber because my email list has become a priority this week, is there any free alternatives available or shall i just bite-the-bullet and go for aweber?
.-= Herbie Hysteria´s last blog ..Case Study: Mansha Sweet Centre, Nelson =-.
I don’t know of any free versions that I can recommend. I am sure there are some out there. I think if you really want to get serious about it though, you should go with a paid version. Something that is free is free for a reason and it usually means it lacks the features you really need. That ultimately means extra work for you.
Herbie
Mailchimp (http://www.mailchimp.com/) is free for the first 500 subscribers – then you have to start paying.
Andrew
.-= Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..How to create awareness for your blog =-.
That’s pretty good. Do you actually use them Andrew? Are they any good?
Paula is right.
Yes, there are some free and lower cost options available. However, there are 3 prime areas where free or low low cost with surely kick you in the whatsit eventually…true story.
Hosting/Domains/Autoresponder
Pay now with cash or pay later with time, aggravation, frustration, and a myriad of other negative emotions.
I feel confident enough to say, GUARANTEED.
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..What are YOUR Top 3 Social Sharing Recommendations =-.
I used Aweber for a couple of years but finally got tired of their high rates. If they were the only show in town I likely would have continued to use them. However, I found a great alternative which is actually easier to use, allows you to import from other lists, includes a great link cloaker and is very reasonably priced.
It’s called RapidResponseBot and you can check it out at:
http://rapidresponsebot.com/
You may be lucky like I was and have the chance to get a lifetime offer of only $69. However, even without that the regular price is less than half of Aweber. They also have an affiliate program so with a couple of sales your membership is free.
.-= Bill Gould´s last blog ..Unexpected Holiday =-.
OIO – Can this be used to coordinate non-paid advertising, or would one of the freebie banner type plugins be better for that?
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Theme Customization 5- New Pages, Tabs, and More! =-.
You can use this for non-paid advertising. You can put whatever banner ad you like in it – paid or unpaid.
And the one can be used on multiple blogs or is there licensing involved?
.-= Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..What are YOUR Top 3 Social Sharing Recommendations =-.
It can be used on multiple sites as long as they all belong to you.
Just found your blog for the first time – very nice Paula. I can see that you’re sort of like me in your styling. Obviously the products listed above are affiliate links but in general the content you write is more about helping people than making money because (like me) you make your money from other types of websites.
Rather than making money online by telling people how to make money online you just plain make money online by creating good websites.
In any case I’ll be sticking around.
Chris
.-= Chris Guthrie´s last blog ..What I read in April =-.
Thanks for visiting Chris. I just took a look at your blog. I see you make a good proportion of your income from Amazon. Not many people realise the advantages of using Amazon. I also think many use it in the wrong way.
I really like your blog – it’s well worth a visit… http://www.makemoneyontheinternet.com/
Thanks for these tips – any tool that helps keep track of log-ins or passwords is always great.
Found your site through Lynn Terry and I’m rapped that you’re in Australia! I will be following along.
.-= Michelle Brown´s last blog ..Looking for inspiration…? =-.
Nice to meet you Michelle. What part of Australia do you live in? We are in the ACT.
Found your site from the recent MaxBlogPress posting, & was intrigued by the little popup encouraging me to “leave a comment”
On doing so, I viewed the page in Firefox with the Quirk plugin installed, & noticed all the links from previous commenters were identified as “no follow” by Quirk.
Wouldn’t that discourage acquiring comments? It seems many people in your audience are also seeking links back to their efforts, but unless I’ve misunderstood this, they’ll not be doing so this way.
Our site was dofollow for some time but all it seemed to do was encourage spammers so we turned it back into a nofollow blog. I tend to find that leaving it as nofollow results in better quality comments. When it was dofollow a good majority of the comments tended to be one-liners and a number weren’t even related to the topic. It just wasn’t resulting in a quality blog. I prefer quality over quantity any day.
Glad to come across your blog and references. I’m new to affiliate marketing (blogging), since February 2010. Haven’t made any money yet so I’m hoping your references and advise will help me do just that.
.-= Tony Jaye´s last blog ..Burberry Coat Review =-.
Hope we can help Tony. It’s hard work when you first start in this business but it’s also a lot of fun.
Nice product list. About half of these I’ve heard about and use(d).
I plan to buy OIO and maybe check out reviewazon.
OIO is just brilliant. I highly recommend it. So easy to use and it does all the work for you.
I am also a fan of Reviewazon although I have just been given a copy of WPZon Builder which is very similar and I am quite impressed. I’ll be writing up a review sometime this week for it.
Thanks for sharing your favorite tools for successful affiliate marketing. I presently use some that you listed and and excited to try out some of the others I haven’t tried yet!
It’s funny how a lot of us internet marketers use the same products. I guess if the product is good enough people will buy it.
Hey Paula! I’d be interested in how you are using Aweber on your product sites. Are you just sending out emails with special promotions, or do you have more of a blog approach talking about specific product areas?
.-= Brad Harmon´s last blog ..How Does Health Care Reform Affect Your Small Business? =-.
To be quite honest Brad, we don’t really use aWeber much on our product blogs as we have around 20 sites so we just never got around to it on all of them. On the ones we do use it on, we generally send out info on products that have come on sale at Amazon and tips and hints.
I use aWeber mostly for this blog since everyone keeps telling me ‘the money is in the list.
Hi Paula. You have written such a good list. In some parts, I do agree with you. But, if you said that ReviewAzon is the best, I myself prefer WP Zon Builder. Your blog is very nice, Paula.
Yep, I have to agree with you. I just got a copy to review and I do have a slight preference for it over ReviewAzon. You can read the review here: http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2010/05/31/amazon-wordpress-plugins-our-review-of-wp-zon-builder/