When it comes to affiliate marketing, tools are your friends. They tin assistance you get much postulation and bash your occupation some faster and easier—especially arsenic your concern scales up.

I’ve been gathering and increasing affiliate websites for astir a decennary and person precocious made a “multiple six-figure” exit from 1 of my websites. If it wasn’t for the pursuing tools that I utilized connected a regular basis, this wouldn’t person been possible.

Let’s dive into the list.

Ahrefs is an SEO instrumentality susceptible of helping you with astir immoderate SEO task you tin think of.

I usage Ahrefs for a lot of things erstwhile it comes to affiliate marketing. It’s hard to prime conscionable 1 oregon 2 to amusement you. That said, the task I find myself doing astir often is moving a contented spread investigation for keyword research.

A contented spread investigation is the easiest mode to rapidly find high-value affiliate keywords. It volition amusement you precisely what your competitors’ champion keywords are.

First, plug your website into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Then, click “Competing domains” connected the left-hand menu. This volition amusement you your apical competitors based connected your existent Google keyword rankings.

Now that you spot your competitors, right-click the Content Gap tool and unfastened a caller tab (below the “Competing domains” button).

Copy-paste 3 oregon much competing URLs from the Competing Domains study into the tool. Make definite your website is successful the “But the pursuing people doesn’t fertile for” container and click “Show keywords.”

Ahrefs volition bash immoderate information crunching and show a database of keywords that your competitors fertile for, but you don’t. Peruse these keywords and prime immoderate you consciousness volition beryllium a bully people for your ain website. 

I emotion this study due to the fact that it allows maine to find high-value keywords for my affiliate websites rapidly and easily.

Let maine commencement by saying that WordPress is the astir utilized contented absorption strategy (CMS) successful the satellite and the 1 I urge for affiliate marketers. I usage it connected each my websites after all.

Because of that, I volition beryllium recommending a batch of WordPress plugins. Chief among those are SEO plugins similar Rank Math oregon SEOPress.

I utilized to usage Yoast SEO, arsenic it was the lone SEO plugin disposable that did what it did for a agelong time. However, I similar the others due to the fact that I similar their UIs better. Personal preference.

Whichever plugin you choose, the usage lawsuit is the same: Ensuring your pages person optimal on-page SEO earlier you people them, arsenic good arsenic doing important technical SEO tasks similar mounting up your robots.txt record and sitemap.

For example, here’s what SEOPress looks similar portion I’m penning a blog post:

As you tin see, it allows you to acceptable the meta tags for your posts to alteration however they’ll beryllium displayed successful Google hunt results. It volition besides amusement you if your rubric oregon meta statement is excessively long, arsenic it is successful the screenshot above. This helps you debar your results being truncated (cut off) successful the hunt results.

Internal links are a important and often overlooked portion of SEO. You tin see them arsenic backlinks you tin wholly control. And arsenic you’ve astir apt heard, backlinks are a large ranking factor.

Link Whisper is simply a WordPress plugin that allows you to add, remove, oregon edit your interior links with the click of a button. It besides lets you spot precisely however galore links each leafage connected your tract is getting astatine a glimpse to place important pages that don’t person a batch of interior links.

You tin adjacent spell to a station and spot suggestions for interior links to that station from different posts connected your site, including anchor text suggestions. Just cheque the boxes adjacent to the links you privation to adhd and click “Edit Sentence” to easy alteration the anchor text.

Hunter allows you to find email addresses astatine scale—which is particularly adjuvant for those email outreach campaigns to beforehand your contented and physique backlinks.

But successful summation to uncovering and confirming email addresses, you tin besides use Hunter to negociate your outreach campaigns. And it’s a escaped feature. 

All you person to bash is make an email database by importing a database of websites, past adhd that database to the run manager and link your email to it. From there, you tin make email templates, automate follow-ups, and spot the statistic of your campaigns.

This whitethorn beryllium an evident instrumentality to you—my exertion tried to get maine to region it due to the fact that helium felt it was excessively obvious. But I usage Google’s tools much than astir immoderate different instrumentality connected this list, truthful it’ll beryllium a disservice not to notation it (in lawsuit you’re someway not already using it).

I usage Google Docs to constitute each azygous blog station earlier I adhd it to WordPress to beryllium published. This makes it casual for maine to enactment with writers connected edits and support everything organized portion avoiding giving excessively galore radical entree to my WordPress login.

Additionally, I usage Google Workspace to make and negociate nonrecreational email addresses for my websites. So erstwhile I bash email outreach, I travel crossed arsenic a morganatic concern alternatively than immoderate random feline connected the internet.

Once I’ve finished an nonfiction successful Google Docs and americium acceptable to upload it, I bash truthful with the property of a fastener utilizing Wordable. 

Wordable imports your Google Docs consecutive into WordPress without you needing to bash it manually. It volition adhd your images, formatting, and links—while besides removing immoderate unwanted other code—within minutes.

You conscionable acceptable up your import settings 1 time, past usage those to upload each your aboriginal articles. It saves maine hours of enactment each period not having to manually adhd articles.

ConvertKit is my email selling instrumentality of prime due to the fact that of its robust automation abilities. However, it is besides pricey successful examination to different email tools. And if you’re conscionable starting out, the precocious features whitethorn not beryllium necessary. Something cheaper similar BirdSend oregon ActiveCampaign whitethorn beryllium amended for you.

That said, here’s a extremity for utilizing any email selling instrumentality to seizure much emails: create contented upgrades for your highest-performing articles.

A contented upgrade is, well, an upgrade to your contented that you connection your readers successful speech for their email addresses.

For example, I wrote a usher to the champion tiny question trailers for 1 of my websites. On that page, a pop-up shows up with an connection of a large spreadsheet comparing 50 of the champion tiny question trailers.

This benignant of straight applicable connection tends to person overmuch amended than a generic “subscribe to our email list” benignant of offer.

Canva is 1 of my favourite affiliate selling tools. It makes creating customized blog images incredibly casual for anyone, adjacent if they don’t person immoderate plan skills.

In particular, I usage it to make a Pinterest representation for each blog station I publish. This helps maine to beforehand my contented and adhd much ocular aspects to the post.

Google Analytics (GA) provides important information you person to cognize arsenic an affiliate tract operator. For example, I often usage GA to spot which pages are bringing the astir postulation to my tract and, generally, to support tabs connected my postulation fluctuations over time.

It’s besides adjuvant to adhd annotations with dates whenever you marque changes to your site, specified arsenic updating a page’s contented oregon metadata, to way whether oregon not these changes amended your postulation over time.

It’s casual successful the aged GA—you conscionable spell to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages, click the small arrow nether the information chart, past click “+ Create caller annotation.”

However, successful GA4, it’s a spot much complicated. You request to download an extension for Google Chrome, unfastened the dashboard, past click connected “Add Manual” to adhd annotations.

Follow our guide to Google Analytics for SEO to larn however to acceptable it up and immoderate awesome ways you tin usage it to turn your business. 

Google Search Console is simply a must-have instrumentality for anyone who cares astir SEO. But did you cognize you tin use it for a batch more than conscionable getting Google to spot your website?

For example, you tin usage it to find pages connected your website that are steadily declining successful postulation and request to beryllium updated to retrieve their rankings.

To bash that, spell to the Search results report, past adhd a day scope examination to spot stats for the past six months compared to the erstwhile six months.

We lone attraction astir clicks, truthful toggle disconnected the “impressions” container by clicking on it.

Click connected “Pages.”

Sort the study by Difference successful ascending bid to spot the pages with the biggest postulation drops.

If you click connected the URL, past power to the Queries study and benignant by “Difference,” you tin spot which queries are sending little postulation than the erstwhile six months.

You tin past usage this information to update the page, making it much applicable to the astir important queries sending postulation to that leafage and (hopefully) recovering your rankings.

Once you person aggregate affiliate partners and you’re utilizing antithetic tracking codes for each leafage and adjacent antithetic positions connected each page, it gets analyzable quickly.

Having an affiliate nexus absorption and cloaking instrumentality similar ThirstyAffiliates is simply a large mode to support way of your links, spot statistic to cognize which links are getting the astir clicks, and forestall others from easy copying your website and swapping the links with their ain affiliate IDs.

If you privation to find the best affiliate selling programs, you should articulation aggregate affiliate networks. Three of the champion include: 

1. AvantLink
2. ShareASale
3. Refersion

I notation these three, specifically, due to the fact that they person a elephantine enactment of mostly high-quality affiliate programs. When looking astatine affiliate programs, I look for the following:

• High payout (10%+)
• Quality merchandise oregon enactment of products
• Good marque identity
• Long cooky duration (ideally 30 days oregon more, but thing implicit 48 hours is still good)
• Quality lawsuit support, some for customers and for maine arsenic an affiliate partner

That past constituent is crucial. My champion experiences arsenic an affiliate marketer person been with companies that recognize however important affiliate selling is and person dedicated affiliate managers whose lone occupation is moving with affiliate partners.

The champion mode to fig retired if a institution has this is by reaching retired to its affiliate manager (their email is usually displayed erstwhile signing up for their program) and asking them immoderate questions, specified arsenic however they enactment with affiliates. 

If they respond promptly and respectfully, there’s a bully accidental they person a dedicated idiosyncratic and volition beryllium determination to enactment you arsenic a spouse alternatively than arsenic a faceless advertisement channel.

If you’ve been moving an affiliate tract for a while, chances are you person immoderate pages that get a batch of postulation but don’t person well. These pages are cleanable for moving show ads on—allowing you to monetize postulation that different won’t marque you anything.

However, moving ads yourself is some a headache and doesn’t person the champion payout. That’s wherever advertizing absorption companies travel in. In particular, determination are 3 large players:

1. Ezoic
2. AdThrive
3. Mediavine

These companies enactment straight with hundreds of advertizing partners to get the champion imaginable rates for their websites’ show ads. They grip the placement and everything. All you person to bash is instal immoderate basal codification connected your website (and they’ll adjacent bash that for you too).

The 1 caveat to these companies is that you person to use and often request a minimum magnitude of monthly postulation to get in. Last I checked, you request astatine slightest 10,000 per period for Mediavine, 50,000 per period for Ezoic, and 100,000 for AdThrive.

That said, if you’re adjacent to those numbers, you tin ever use and they whitethorn marque an objection for you. So it can’t wounded to try.

Website velocity is simply a Google ranking factor you should beryllium paying attraction to. If your tract loads excessively dilatory oregon doesn’t walk Google’s Core Web Vitals, it whitethorn hinder your occurrence successful the hunt results.

Not lone that, but tract velocity besides plays an important relation successful idiosyncratic experience, truthful it’s worthy investing in. A accelerated tract prevents visitors from leaving owed to frustration.

One of the easiest and quickest ways to amended website velocity (and security) is by improving your website’s hosting. Most affiliates commencement connected inexpensive shared hosting similar SiteGround oregon Bluehost. These are large to get you started but aren’t the astir unafraid oregon fastest options.

Upgrading to a dedicated hosting supplier similar Kinsta is an evident prime erstwhile you’re making decent wealth and getting coagulated postulation (100,000 visitors per period oregon more). It besides has a dedicated CDN (content transportation network), which is simply a game-changer for websites with geographically dispersed audiences.

It’s expensive—but worth it.

One often overlooked facet of affiliate selling is website security. It’s each excessively casual for your website to beryllium hacked and for you to suffer income (or worse). 

Not lone is this a pain, but it tin harm your concern successful the agelong term. Better to acceptable up protections earlier you request them. One specified mode is by installing the Wordfence WordPress plugin.

This plugin provides enhanced information features similar two-factor authentication, malware scans, a firewall, and website monitoring. It’s not precise costly and worthy the bid of mind.

Final thoughts

These affiliate selling tools person been important for maine to standard my businesses to six-figure income earners. Some of them are expensive. But arsenic agelong arsenic they are bringing you a affirmative return, they are worthy the investment.

Itching to larn more? Here are immoderate different affiliate selling guides to check out:

• 9 Key Affiliate Marketing Tips for More Money & Traffic
• Here’s How Much You Can Really Make From Affiliate Marketing
• How to Easily Find a Niche for Affiliate Marketing in 2022