Smart Shopper: Personal Finance Advisor

The days of making a living online by putting up a content site and slapping Adsense ads alongside it are fast approaching their end. At the same time, however, affiliate sites are growing quickly because for the advertisers the pay per lead model provides them with no real risk.

For publishers and webmasters that have traditionally operated in providing content or more traditional advertising, trying to get started in the world of affiliate marketing can seem overwhelming. Once you actually get the chance to look through the actual tools that you’ll need to run an affiliate site, however, you’ll see that it’s fairly straightforward. To help you break things down, we’ve compiled a list of the 75+ free online tools you’ll need to get your own affiliate site off the ground. Because we have experience in credit cards, we focused on that, but pretty much any affiliate vertical is going to use most of the same tools. So feel free to bookmark the site, and as we get suggestions we’ll go ahead and add / subtract and otherwise update this list so that it can serve as a resource for newbie affiliate marketers going forward.

So good luck and feel free to add in your own suggestions into the comments.

Credit Card Affiliate Programs

The first step to establishing a credit card affiliate site is developing and understanding the affiliate relationship. You’ll need to create accounts with some or all of the following providers and dig through the cards they offer to decide which to list on your site.

1. NCS Reporting: Along with CardOffers, NCS is the first stop when integrating affiliate credit card sales into your site. Although they still don’t offer an automated database solution to rival CardOffers, if you’ve got the time to go manual, NCS is a great way to go simply because they offer so many credit cards.
2. CardOffers: With CardOffers, you’ll get content through feeds that are matched to your site’s layout, so from a maintenance perspective using their database connection is much better than NCS’ solution. This should probably be your first stop when setting up a credit card site, and only after you’re making money should you decide to do somehting more manual.
3. Performics: While it doesn’t offer the breadth of credit card providers that NCS and CardOffers do, Performics will help you tap into some niche providers for which there is less competition online, which means you can rank faster and make cash faster.
4. Commission Junction: Although it doesn’t offer any credit card providers, CJ is still useful because it offers such a wide array of affiliate providers some of which can be useful to monetize non-converting traffic.
5. Card Commission: Card Commission will create card offers that look just like your existing site, and they’ll even keep the descriptions up to date.
6. Make Money With Credit Cards: This niche program has grown quickly of late, though by comparison it is still really small. It features a turnkey solution to get great payouts on more than 100 credit cards.
7. WealthyAffiliate: Wealthy Affiliate offers a site builder, action plans, tutorials, research tools, and much more.
8. Credit-Land: Using this program, you’ll get financial content, templates, and some optimization. I personally have never used this program, but as far as I can tell it doesn’t offer anything particularly noteworthy.
9. Commission Soup: This performance-based program offers a great way to get connected with some niche merchants.
10. siteMighty: The guys at SiteMighty use templates to create a credit card affiliate site in minutes. You just populate the site they create for you with content and get it to rank well in search engines. In exchange for them building your site, you put up their credit card offers, which of course they take a cut of. Not a terrible solution for a first timer to get their feet wet, but I’d really recommend doing this on your own, it really isn’t that hard.
11. SiteBuildIt: If you’re too lazy to build and promote your own site, you can virtually automate the whole thing with SiteBuildIt. On second thought, if you’re so lazy that you’re even considering using this program, just quit reading, because you aren’t going to be successful as a credit card affiliate anyway. This does take some real work after all.

Conversion Optimization

If you’ve got visitors, but not sales, take a look at these tools and resources to improve your conversion rates.

12. How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate: Check out this series to learn how you can make visitors convert better.
13. 25 Ways to Increase Your Online Conversion Rate: Follow these tips to get your visitors to take action.
14. Web Stats Motherload: 100 Resources, Case Studies and Tools to Analyze Your Traffic and Improve Conversions: Here you’ll find all sorts of handy resources for optimizing your site’s conversions.
15. Conversion Rate Calculator: Figure out what your conversion rate is, and even run scenarios to see how changes with affect your conversion rates.
16. Understand Visitor Patterns to Maximize Sales: Check out your statistics to learn how to better optimize your site for affiliate conversions.
17. Google Website Optimizer: Use this tool from Google to find out what parts of your page converts the best.
18. Five Keys to Improving Web Site Conversions: Check out this article to learn how you can step up your conversions.
19. Turning Browsers Into Buyers: This article offers a look at how some sites have improved their conversions.
20. UserVue: Use this service to actively watch as users visit your site, and see what changes you need to make.
21. Google Analytics: Keep up with where your visitors are coming from and what they’re doing once they land on your site. Good stats are the key to good conversions.
22. How One Word or Even One Letter Can Boost Conversion Rates By Over 400%: Read this article to learn how small tweaks can bring big conversion success.

Buying a Domain or Site

If you’re in the market for a domain or even an existing site, you’ll find these articles and marketplaces useful.

23. Afternic: Find premium domains on this marketplace.
24. How to Negotiate Domain Name Prices: With this guide, you’ll be able to get a great deal on a domain.
25. Search Engine Forums: Get domain advice or buy a site with this forum.
26. Web Site Valuation Calculator: Get a ballpark figure on a website with this valuation tool.
27. Negotiate Like a Pro: Check out this guide to learn how to successfully negotiate a domain sale.
28. Web Hosting Talk: Here you can give offers for domain names.
29. dnScoop: This forum is home to a marketplace, advice, resources, and more.
30. Negotiating a Deal: Learm how to negotiate a good price on a domain name.
31. DigitalPoint: On this forum, you can check out current sites for sale.
32. Website Value 101: How to Appraise a Website: Figure out how much you should pay for a domain with this site.
33. v7 Network: Find loads of domains for sale on this forum.

Link Building

With these guides, you’ll learn how to create successful link building campaigns.

34. 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies: Learn about loads of ways to build links with this article.
35. 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website: In this authoritative guide, you’ll learn the good and the bad of building links.
36. The Art and Science of an Effective Link Building Campaign: Learn about link building ethics, tips, and more in this guide.
37. The Professional’s Guide to Link Building: This e-book covers more than 50 different link building strategies.
38. The Art of Advanced Link Building: Learn how to build strong link building campaigns and more with this guide.
39. 10 Tips for Training a Link Developer: This article runs down the basics of link development.
40. Link Building 101: This post offers lots of advice, resources, and more for link building.
41. Link Building Guide: This simple article outlines 5 essential steps for link building.
42. The Golden Rules of Link Building: Danny Sullivan runs down a few important rules for link building.
43. 5 Link Building Strategies That Work: Learn how to write content that attracts high quality links.

Keyword Targeting

Get the most out of your advertising dollars and link building efforts with these tools designed to help you find the best keywords for your site.

44. Overture: The old standard, Overture will provide you with a list of keywords to bid on and to target for link building. Unfortunately the tool rarely works anymore, and even when it does the information is outdated, so just assume you’ll need some of these other tools instead.
45. Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool: Figuring out keywords is as easy as plugging in a URL with this tool. And since Overture never works, this is a great and reliable option.
46. Google Webmaster Tools: If you make the mistake of thinking that using a keyword suggestion tool is enough, you’re missing out on a lot of internal keyword targeting. Use this tool to find out what you’re ranking for, what keywords are bringing visitors that convert, and what terms you should target.
47. Keyword Research & Suggestion Tools: Here you’ll find a number of tools that will help you target keywords.
48. WordTracker: WordTracker will help you figure out what words people use and how popular they are.
49. Keyword Discovery: Find out which search phrases people are using, and learn how to drive traffic to your site with this tool.
50. Wordze: With this tool, you can generate large keyword lists.
51. The Keyword Tool: This tool from SEO Book will make it easy to determine which keywords you should be targeting.
52. Microsoft Keyword Forecast: Predict what’s going to be big on Microsoft with this tool.
53. NicheBot: Research multiple keyword sources at once with this research service.

PPC Campaigns

Here you’ll find PPC programs and advice for taking your PPC campaigns to the next level.

54. Yahoo! Publisher Network: With Yahoo’s PPC program, you can purchase links that will drive traffic to your site.
55. How to Optimize Landing Page in PPC Advertising for Affiliate Marketing Entrepreneurs: Learn best practices, tips, and more ways to turn PPC visitors into buyers.
56. Create New Pages for PPC Search Landing Pages: Learn why it’s important to create specific landing pages for PPC.
57. Google Adwords: Use Google Adwords for targeted PPC ads.
58. AdWords Accelerator: Use AdWords Accelerator to automate your market research and scope out your competitors.
59. “Keep it Simple, Stupid” Applies to Your Landing Pages, Too: Don’t give your visitor too many choices-make it clear for better conversions.
60. Pay Per Click Calc: With this calculator, you can determine how much revenue you’re generating from PPC campaigns.
61. Four Hot PPC Landing Page Tips for Sizzling Site Conversions: Learn what users want, and what you should do to create landing pages that convert.
62. Clicksor: Use Clicksor for relevant ads on content-rich sites.
63. Accurate Monitor for Search Engines: Monitor the position of your site on major search engines with this tool.
64. Microsoft adCenter: On Microsoft adCenter, you’ll be able to get pay per click advertising that easily fits your budget.

Inspiration

Look to these sites as models for your own success.

65. Your Credit Network: One of the things that makes this site great is its clear call to action.
66. CreditCards.com: CreditCards.com has a great domain name, conversion features, and more.
67. BradsDeals: This site is successful because it offers personalization and follows demographics carefully.
68. Business Credit Cards: Business Credit Cards offers one of the best credit and finance blogs on the web, so it’s ripe for link baiting and link building.
69. MyPoints: MyPoints has found success by constantly evaluating ad effectiveness and optimizing relationships.
70. CardOffers: This review site has loads of incoming links, plus revenue-generating links right on the front page.
71. Ebates: Ebates wisely uses an affiliate program to manage relationships with more than 1,200 advertisers.
72. Bankrate: Bankrate has established itself as an authority site, offering lots of resources for consumers.
73. Your Credit Advisor: This site has a simple interface, so it’s easy for visitors to convert.
74. CreditMe: CreditMe has resources and subscription incentives to keep visitors coming back.

Other

Check out these tools and resources for even more assistance with building your credit card affiliate site.

75. XSitePro: This site building software was designed with Internet marketers in mind.
76. Web Merge: Create loads of credit card pages quickly with this template tool.
77. iBusinessPromoter: This software makes SEO easy, offering optimization, tracking, and more.
78. Data Cleaner: Clean up your merchant’s HTML, special characters, and more with this app.
79. Rev Trends: View all of your merchant data together, get reports, and track your merchants with this tool.