Tools I Use

Best Internet Marketing Tools

I thought it would be helpful to create a resource page that you can come visit often for the Best Internet Marketing Tools that I use on a regular basis or recommend highly. I’ll add to it, or take away, as I learn more, but you’ll notice that in the future I will reference this page and these services quite often. I recommend bookmarking it for your reference and convenience. These products and services are the exact same tools that I have used to build my site, go from virtual obscurity to a solid income producing website in just a few months time. I hope you find them helpful as well!

These are all things that I have experience with that I am recommending because they are helpful and are companies that I trust. If you’re planning on building a nice business, these are some of the best internet marketing tools you can use in my opinion. Please do not spend money unless you feel it’s for something you really need and will help you reach your goals.

Blogging Platforms and Best Themes

WordPress .org: The #1 Blog Publishing Platform. Notice I did NOT say WordPress.com. I’ve done an article that tells you the difference between the two WordPress.org vs WordPress.com. Free and easily customizable with wonderful support. All of my blogs use WordPress.

Theme4Press - Precisio Pro is the theme I use, and I get compliments all the time on how “clean” it is. I use it for my wife’s site too, and it is extremely versatile. It is a premium theme although it’s very affordable, but the options, and look and feel are amazing to me. Check out their other themes at Theme4Press.com

Woo Themes: The ultimate resource for premium looking WordPress themes. Woo Themes are developed by web designers so they look nice, and convert well. Very customizable and user friendly.

Theme Forest – Theme Forest has one of the largest selections of themes available online from multiple authors. It’s part of a group called Envato that has after-effects for sound files, video intros, landing pages, and graphics. You can view the sound effects at Audio Jungle, and there’s just some REALLY cool stuff from these guys!

Studio Press – Studio Press is one the top WordPress theme designers in the world. Their Genesis framework is one of the most popular options used by the best bloggers online. The interfaces are very easy to use, and the support they give is better than the industry standard.

Elegant Themes – Elegant Themes may be the best deal on Premium themes for WordPress. Elegant themes offers 70 Premium themes for only a $39 one-time fee. They also offer some of the best support in this particular space. They have a good selection of great looking themes without question.

Best Blog Hosting Sites for WordPress.org

Bluehost: My website is hosted on Bluehost, and Bluehost is the best on this list if you’re looking for speed on your site. Host Gator and GoDaddy are less expensive, but if you have a site that gets a lot of content later, especially video or images, you will want the extra bandwidth. I also recommend using Bluehost if you would like my assistance setting up your own wordpress blog. I give an hour of free consulting with 1 year of paid hosting, and 2 hours for 2 years of hosting. BlueHost is easy to use, has 1-click automatic WordPress installation, and excellent customer service. Highly recommended for your first site.

Host Gator – If you’re going to have multiple blogs and domains, I HIGHLY recommend Host Gator. They have excellent support that is easily reached by phone or with their always on chat feature. Host Gator is very affordable, the most affordable in my opinion for new blogs. The other thing is that they also have one-step setup for WordPress so you can have your blog up and running in just a few minutes. Host Gator and Blue Host are the two best choices for setting up your blogs based on my experience.

GoDaddy : The Largest Hosting Site out there, and reasonably priced. Good customer service, and easy to use control panel. GoDaddy is a big player for hosting, but not the most user friendly for WordPress Blog hosting in my opinion.
FreeBlogFactory: This is where I direct people that have no knowledge of WordPress, need extensive training to learn about blogging, and also want more customizations from professional designers for a great price. I don’t want to become a web designer necessarily, and these guys do a great job setting up a beautiful website for a very affordable price. You can truly get a Free WordPress Blog set up, but Bradley Will and his team do a super job of doing the extras you may want for your blog. I also give a Free Hour of Consultation if you setup your WordPress site here.

Empower Network – I would say quite frankly, go buy this blogging platform even if you have or want to build your own personal blog. Empower Network is THE EASIEST way to start a blog and get traffic immediately. Empower Network has an Alexa rating of 1000 which means if you have a blog there, you will get traffic on whatever you want to get traffic on. They also have a great affiliate program where you can get “100% commissions”. Tons of training is included for $25 a month from David Wood and David Sharpe, 2 of the brightest minds in the world of Attraction Marketing. Don’t buy a bunch of hyped up training..please! Join Empower Network for $25 a month and you just might find that they give you all that you need.

Content Submission, Content Syndication, SEO, and Article Marketing Tools

TribePro and Onlywire - This is a MUST HAVE, I repeat MUST have for anyone looking to be successful online in my humble opinion. Social signal, likes and shares from social networks, is the one component that matters the most in getting ranked in the search engines. Backlinking has some relevancy still, but not like it did in the past. Bad content that doesn’t get liked, shared, or syndicated with comments most likely won’t get top rankings. TribePro is what almost every major player online is using to get their content syndicated, and quickly! I get over 1000 shares within a couple of days, and it grows organically over time on every piece of content I submit to TribePro! Did I mention you can put TribePro and Only Wire on autopilot too? Seriously…if you have one tool in your toolbox, check out TribePro and Onlywire. You’ll be glad you did!

Traffic Geyser - This is my number tool for Video Submission, Social Bookmarking, and advanced Video Marketing training you can’t find anywhere. It’s a complete marketing system complete with lead capture pages, easy to use submissions out to top Article and Video Sites, and the one tool that helped me start making money online with video. I love Traffic Geyser and you will too. Try it for $1 Today. It’s somewhat pricey at $97 a month, but when you can submit to 20 video sites, 20+ article and blog sites, and 40 or so social bookmarking sites easily with one click, it’s better than PPC for advertising. Most of my traffic comes as a result of Traffic Geyser for submission, and TribePro for syndication.

The Best Spinner: The #1 Article spinning software that saves a ton of time by allowing you to easily reword articles that you’ve already written so you can submit them to multiple directories online without worrying about duplicate content.

SEOPressor – SEOPressor is another must have plugin in my opinion. It’s only $47 one time, and will save you a ton of time with on-page SEO. It also takes out the guesswork of what should, and should not be on your page. Get your page SEO’d to 90% or more very easily using SEOPressor. Awesome awesome tool!

Network Marketing and Internet Marketing Education Systems and Alternate Blogging System

Empower Network - Again, I highly recommend the training that Empower Network offers and the learning curve is almost zero for blogging immediately. Additionally, David Wood and David Sharpe host weekly training calls and webinars that are fantastic. Empower Network is quickly becoming the “go to” experts in the Attraction Marketing arena and it’s NOT a fluke they’ve added 20,000 members in less than 4 months. It’s easy, it’s duplicatable for your team, you get traffic to your content immediately, and they have a great affiliate program on top of the training they provide. Join Empower Network for $25 a month and you’ll learn a ton from these guys.

My Lead System Pro - The leader in the Direct Sales Industry for the Serious Network Marketer. This system is completely duplicatable for your team, and will leverage your time by connecting your leaders with the best trainers in the entire MLM Industry. However, the setup is very intensive and meant for an above average or even exceptional player. MLSP is the big time but be prepared to put in some effort to set up the system. It’s worth it, but it’s nothing like the Empower Network for ease of setup. Mike Dillard, Tracey Walker, David Wood, and Todd Falcone are just a few leaders that have aligned themselves with MLSP. Check out the Video for More Information.

Keyword Research Tools

Market Samurai: The number one tool for keyword research available, hands down. It also helps you track where you rank in the search engines and what you need to do to get to the top positions.
Google Adwords Tool: A tool to help you decide what keywords to use for your Adwords campaigns. You can also check to see the popularity of certain keywords and the competition for ads for those keywords as well.

Email Subscriptions & Marketing Tools

Talk Fusion - E-Subscription Forms and Video Autoresponders. Video Marketing is THE best way to brand yourself, and your company. When people watch a video of you or your company, they begin to know, like, and trust you without ever speaking or talking to you. A Video Autoresponder from Talk Fusion is an excellent way to combine a typical email marketing newsletter with the power of video.

Aweber: The internet’s most powerful email opt-in service and email marketing/broadcasting tool. This is what many use to build their email list and newsletter.

Website Analytics and Grading

Google Analytics: Google’s free website tracking and analytical tool. A must have for anyone with any type of website.
Hubspot – This is a great place to check your site for errors, and find areas of improvement. I highly recommend starting out so you will know what you need to work on in the future.

Outsourcing Work

Elance: Hired service for just about anything you can think of.
Odesk: Another outsource website for freelancers, IT companies, programmers and web designers from abroad.
Fiverr.com - Fiverr is a very cool site that links you with people that perform tasks for $5. Make a custom header, build backlinks, design blogs, write articles, you name it. It’s worth investigating

Best Books for Blogging and Mindset for the Home Based Business Industry

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss, Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich: Pretty much the most awesome book in the entire world. I reference this quite a bit in my posts.
ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse: The best book about blogging from the number one online blogger, Darren Rowse.
Moonlighting on the Internet by Yanik Silver: I also own this book and it’s really what inspired me to go full time working online. I finished it in 1 day because it’s so good.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker: Along with Think and Grow Rich, the is one of the best books I’ve read on preparing yourself to be successful. A great resource for anyone, and its a very good read.

For Capturing Video and Screencasts

ScreenFlow (for Mac users) – Screen capture software
Camtasia for Mac - Another option for screen captures
Camtasia for PC (Camtasia Studio) – for screen captures and what I’m currently using