In this post I have compiled a list of plugins that I think every affiliate should consider for implementation on their blogs. Hopefully you will go and install these plugins and see the benefits they have to offer. I personally use all these plugins on several of my blogs.

1. All in One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack is a brilliant plugin. Downloaded by over 4 Million people, this plugin is probably the best SEO suite you can find, and it’s FREE. If you want to properly optimize your blog for the search engines, then you need to install this plugin asap.


2. Google XML Sitemaps

This is another fantastic plugin that will allow your blog and all it’s content to be fully crawled by bots.
This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog.


3. Affiliate Link

If you are sick and tired of uploading redirect files to your server, or adding lines of code to your .htaccess file, then you will LOVE this plugin.

Shrink, track and share any URL on the Internet from your WordPress website. You can now shorten links using your own domain name. The plugin also tracks each hit on your URL and provides a full, detailed report of where the hit came from.


4. Wordpress Link Cloak

Even though this is a commercial plugin, it’s a LIFE SAVER as well as a money generating machine.
This plugin allows you to link keywords to affiliate links in your content across your blog . This means that if you constantly link to a service or product from your posts, this plugin can save you the hassle by doing it all at a few clicks of a button.


5. Psychic Search

I just love this plugin. You know that little search box on all Wordpress blogs? Yup, you will be surprised how many times people search for stuff using your search feature!! Psychic Search saves that data and tells you what people are looking for on your site! That’s some powerful stuff.


6. RSS Auto Submit

This is a bloody good time saver. Even though the author’s site is “black hat”, this free plugin is pretty whitehat and safe. RSS Auto Submit submits your RSS feed to 16 RSS directories and if you know anything about getting indexed, traffic and getting backlinks, you’ll know that submitting to 16 RSS directories on autopilot is pretty darn awesome.


7. Mediacaster

In today’s world you HAVE to go where technology takes you. That means your blog has to include audio, video and any other media that appeals to today’s readers. Mediacaster is not a free plugin, but it’s a darn good investment and will be something you will use for pretty much the rest of your blogging/affiliate life.

Mediacaster takes over the normal Media manager in WordPress, and allows to seamlessly insert Audio, Video and non-image files on your site.

Supported media formats include: .mp3, .m4a, .aac, .flv, .f4v, .f4b, .mp4, .m4v, .mov, .3pg and .3p2. Other file types are treated as downloads. YouTube videos and play lists are also supported.


8. Star Rating for Reviews

How many times have you wished you can post those little stars at the bottom of a product review?
If you are an affiliate who does regular pre sells, my gut tells me you will love this.

Star Rating for Reviews is a simple WordPress plugin that inserts pretty rating stars based on the score you assign using intuitive, inline [rating:] tags. It can also calculate and output overall ratings for you based on all previous scores you have assigned, useful for reviews that have multiple categories or an album review where each track is assigned a score.


9. WP-Banner Plugin

WP Banner Admin allows you to manage various banner ads from different affiliate programs. With the banner plugin you can manage: different banners from one affiliate program, different banners from different affiliate programs and your own banner campaigns limited by date or page impressions.

This plugin also has the ability to rotate banners which is pretty good if your blog has lots of traffic.


10. Sociable

This plugin is a MUST-HAVE. We live in the age of information sharing and web 2.0.

People regularly bookmark and share information and sociable makes it very easy for them to do so.
With sociable you can automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites.


11. Exclude Pages

Every blog needs this because the default code in themes do not allow us to exclude certain pages from our navigation menu. I have blogs with dozens of PAGES. Without this plugin, my navigation bar at the top of my blog would have looked like a crippled pyramid.

This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus).


12. Advertising Manager

If you are not into displaying your own banners on your blog, you can try Advertising manager!

This plugin will manage and rotate your Google Adsense and other ads on your Wordpress blog. It automatically recognises many ad networks including Google Adsense, AdBrite, Adify, AdGridWork, Adpinion, Adroll, Chitika, Commission Junction, CrispAds, OpenX, ShoppingAds, Yahoo!PN, and WidgetBucks.


13. Amazon Reloaded

I just love Amazon. Their products convert into cash much easier than pretty much any other website.
This plugin makes it easy for post authors to quickly search Amazon’s index from their WordPress post interface and grab text links or images to place in their posts.


14. Popshops for Wordpress

Are you a Popshops user? Me too. I just love datafeed driven sites. The wordpress Popshops plugin makes this super easy to accomplish! This plugin is in beta, but seems to work pretty well.


15. Ultimate Google Analytics

If you are an experienced affiliate, you know that tracking your traffic is VITAL to online success.
Knowing where that traffic comes from is seriously important. Not knowing is like trying to build a puzzle in the dark. It doesn’t matter what your skill level, you need to incorporate Google Analytics into your marketing efforts.

It allows you to add Google Analytics JavaScript to each page on your weblog without making any changes to your template. The plugin can also add tracking to outbound links, downloads from your own site and mailto: links.



To your success,
Reinhardt

Sometimes we just find ourselves to become lazy and demotivated. It easily happens to all of us and can sometimes occur on a regular basis. Luckily for you this is easily fixable as well as preventable if you follow these eight simple tips.

1. Write down a to-do list

Every night before I go to bed I take just 5 - 10 minutes to simply write down a small list of things I have to do the next day. I make sure to write down “do-able” tasks. Each task would be something that, if I look at it, I can DO it and tick it off.

For instance, if task number one is “Set Up Wordpress Site”, I will make that my heading and break down the tasks like this,

1.Buy domain name (namecheap)

2. Install wordpress software (fantistico)

3. Find a theme (themeforest.net or woothemes.com)

4. Install correct plugins (All in one SEO, Akismet etc…)

and I’m done. If I do all those tasks above, then my main task will be DONE and I can tick them all off.

2. Get into a new environment

This is one of the BEST and easiest things you can possibly do for yourself if you have trouble getting into working mode. We get so used to our own environment that we spend less time working and more time doing other things. If you are working from home, then you definitely know what I’m talking about. You can easily find yourself watching too much television or simply sitting in front of your PC and browsing numerous sites that doesn’t really add any value.

The answer to this problem? Get out of the house! That’s right! You can even leave your PC at home as long as you just get out of the house and to a new location where your brain can focus on the task at hand.
Visit the library or just go sit at a coffee shop (in the quiet area!!) and use an hour or two to think about your business and the tasks that needs to be done in order for your plans to become a reality.

Take a pen and a little white page book with you and just write down everything that you need to do in order to make your plans work. You can even brainstorm NEW ideas. You have no idea how powerful this new environment technique can be for you. If you want to take your laptop with then do it, but make sure that you only work in the new environment. DO NOT browse facebook or twitter while in this new environment, otherwise you will create a new habit which will turn this new brain stimuli technique into another useless time waster.

3. Cut distractions

Turn off your T.V. Your television is a massive distraction. You might think that it keeps you awake or that it provides some form of periodical entertainment, but it wastes an immense amount of time…not to mention breaking your concentration which can only be regained again after 20 minutes.

You might not know this, but your PC/laptop is also a HUGE distraction. If you work from home then your PC is literally stealing your time. So many people get caught up in Facebook, Twitter, email or games that they go in circles, never getting ANYTHING done during the day. And then they wonder why they are not making any money. When you are working on a project, ONLY open the software and browser windows that you need. You might find yourself to sporadically wanting to quickly go “check” on something. DON’T. I promise you that if you first finish the task at hand and THEN go “check” on that something, you will have a feeling of greater satisfaction. Stay away from the temptations.

4. Break down big plans into smaller task clusters

If you are planning a biggish project. Do yourself a favor and work out the entire plan in mind map format.
By doing that you are essentially taking something that looks like a big one-sentenced paragraph and breaking it down into more “readable” chunks. Mind maps are fantastic for this and there are several mind map software or services on the web.

5. Make contact with a mentor

Do you have a mentor? If not, get one! They are there to motivate you to do better than you are currently doing. They also help light the spark under your ass, because they have successfully done what you are still trying to accomplish.

6. Make contact with other like minded passionate people

Some people might not have a mentor to talk to, but the next best option is to collaborate with people who do what you do for a living. You HAVE to connect with these people in person. I have stayed under the radar for 2 years until I finally met other affiliate marketers in person. When I met them in person, my passion for this career exploded. You can also learn a LOT about the industry just by talking to them.

If you have trouble finding them OFFLINE, then why not arrange an online meeting with conferencing software. Contact them and ask them to join a free conference call and have a chat with you.

7. Log activities

Activity logging software/service is a great way to track and see how you spend your time.

The Action Machine is a software that helps you stay productive within specific time frames.

RescueTime is an online service and is a MUST-USE for any online marketer. Rescue time actually tracks what you are doing online and aggregates the data so you can see how much and where your time is spent.

8. Exercise

This might sound redundant, but it’s a fact. Regular exercise improves your health and your brain’s ability to focus better. If you are a couch potato, get OFF the couch and do a bit of exercise. Go to the gym and get on the stationary bike or do a bit of weight training. You will soon find yourself addicted to it. If you are a person who trains regularly or does body building, just watch out not to over train your body. The brain does not respond well to a fatigued body.

Regards
Reinhardt

Sometimes you simply cannot find a good enough product offer in your affiliate network for a specific niche. Or you see your competitors promoting something that your network doesn’t offer.

Introducing OFFER VAULT

OfferVault stores a HUGE database of affiliate networks and they make it easy for you to search through the massive archive with their easy to use search feature.

The search feature brings back comparable results so you can cross check offers from the various networks.

There are some pro’s and con’s to using OfferVault.

Pros:

1. Centralization of data
2. Easy to use interface
3. Accurate information
4. Keyword and competition data!

Cons:

1. Some high profile offers are not yet available.

I suggest you get over to OfferVault and create an account ASAP.

Cheers
Reinhardt