Internet Marketing Tools

I've included in this list all of the products and services I use in my day to day work online. There are many ways to make money online, but, a good set of tools always helps you accelerate your work.

There are so many different ways to build your own products and services, affiliate sites, drive traffic, and optimize your search results that if done manually would take a long, long time!

I've been helping online marketers for a number of years now and have found both free and paid services that can vastly accelerate your ability to truly be your own boss.

Internet marketing is my passion - make it yours too!

(Yes, some of these links are free while others are affiliate links -- this is how I support The Agile Marketer)


Learning the Ropes

  • Underground Traffic Secrets - ($17 audio ebook) If you are going to start anywhere online - this is the package to get. A collection of interviews with 12 successful online marketers, Phill Turner gets insights into how they would approach working online if they could go back and do it again. A wealth of information for beginner, intermediate and advanced marketers. 
  • Honest Riches - ($37 ebook) I first met Holly Mann in 2005 and can say that I would stake my reputation on her!  If you feel like your head is spinning about Internet Marketing in general and need a guide to teach to the end-to-end view of working online, then this is the only guide I recommend.  Holly takes you from the ground up of starting your business to the final path of making money online.  Don't hesitate on this one - plus, she's one of the nicest online gurus you'll ever meet.
  • Extreme Wealth Mechanism - ($37 video training) though I would recommend that you purchase Honest Riches if you're new to internet marketing, you can just jump right in and create your own information product. I know that the hype and polish of Extreme Wealth Mechanism seems a bit over the top -- but I do own this guide and recommend it for anyone who wants to truly work online. With a number of training videos, this guide leads from product creation to packaging, copywriting and publishing.

Building Your Website 

Hosting

  • Blogger - (Free) this is the premiere free blogging tool that I use for many of my blogs and affiliate sites. Blogger is truly the most customizable template format with widgets, pages, javascript, and plug-ins. It is also one of the few free, hosted platforms allowing AdSense ads.  Over the last three years, Blogger's flexible capability is even better than ever.  This is a great platform to get started on.  Hosted by Google's giant infrastructure, Blogger's uptime is almost 100%. 
  • Hostgator - ($8 month) in my mind this is the best hosting choice for anyone starting out to build both their own custom corporate presence but also their niche or Wordpress websites. With full hosting capabilities, low monthly cost, $100 Adwords credit, many applications to choose from (Wordpress, PHP, Joomla, Drupal, Wiki, etc), plus, unlimited domains and MySQL databases -- you can't go wrong! 

Domain Names

  • GoDaddy.com - ($3 to $20 a year depending on name and features) I use GoDaddy exclusively for all of my domain naming. Quick and easy, GoDaddy can manage all of your domain name needs, be your DNS control for hosting and do name protection for your account.   

 Web Page Layout & Site Builders

  • Wordpress.org - (free) if you're looking to build a passive income blog or easy niche site there is no better or easier platform to use than Wordpress. Recent stats show that nearly 20% of all websites created in the world today are Wordpress sites.  Most hosting centers have free one-step installs of Wordpress right from their control panel making it even easier to use.  If you use Hostgator above - they have an easy install for all of your sites. 
  •  EZNicheBuilder - ($97, but, a one time fee that includes hosting) for an all-in-one package you can't beat EZ Niche Builder for building affiliate sites. What I really like about it is that you don't need a hosting plan - they host for you, no monthly fees, full access to original content articles for $5, ebay shops, video pages, news and ads.  A great way to start and not have to worry about anything but your content and a domain name.


Site and Keyword Analysis

  • Google Adwords Keyword Tool - (Free) this is the free Google tool allowing you to generate keyword lists from a key phrase or directly from a webpage. It will give you monthly search results and competition.
  • SEOBook Keyword Tool - (Free, but you have to register) do you really want to learn about SEO? Well, this is the site to go to! But, besides the great SEO material, this site has a number of fantastic tools -- the keyword research tool is exceptional!


Generating Traffic 

Article Marketing

  • Article Marketing Robot - ($97 - much less than a service of typically $300 a year) plain and simple, this product works! I use it all the time to submit my spun articles to various article directories. There's a bit of a learning curve to setup your accounts and directories you want to push content to. But, you get unlimited domains with only a one time fee which is much cheaper than an article submission service.  Plus, there is a built-in article spinner as well so your submissions will vary automatically.

Article Writing

  • 99centarticles - (about $4 to $5 per 500 word articles) I absolutely love, love this service for outsourced article writing. I cannot tell you just how much this service will save you precious time when it comes to writing content. If you are trying to break into online marketing, it typically takes 30 to 60 minutes to write a high quality 500 word article.  Take that into consideration if you need more than 10 articles or blog posts.  Great turn-around time as well!

Link Building

  • Wordpress.com - (Free) this is the free Wordpress hosted blogging platform (not to be confused with Wordpress.org - the software you download to your own hosting account). Though not as open and customizable as Blogger, this free platform is probably a bit easier to use. Free Wordpress looks for blogs to be as human readable as possible -- not allowing spam or ads on the free site.  For driving additional inbound links and traffic to your core site, Wordpress is a great option.
  • Posterous - (Free) I guess I would call this platform more of a micro blogging service. A great platform to highlight a side interest or niche that can point back to your core site or articles. Easy to use with multiple ways to post remotely, Posterous is a great traffic generating arm to any of your sites.
  • BuildMyRank - ($59/month) I spent all of Nov, Dec and Jan of 2012 doing a long deep-dive look into this tool to see if it could really deliver results. After careful study I can say definitively that this tool works fantastically for any domain. I was able to boost my domains up to the first page of Google in about 3 weeks for a narrow niche and 8 weeks for a competitive niche (a jump from #49 in Google to #7). Highly, highly recommended!!

Extra Services

  • Fiverr.com - (free to use, $5 per service purchased) a quick and easy way to get services for your sites such as blog comments, youtube comments, submissions to directories, article writing, voiceovers, etc. Only $5 for each service offered. (Also, a quick way to make $5 for your own services). Be sure not to over do it, however - you can get banned from services if you pile on a blast of comments or ratings in a few days!