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Do you consider yourself a content marketing affiliate or do you want to become one? It doesn’t matter how much experience you have or how good your affiliate marketing results have been in the past, there are always ways to improve your performance. In this article, I’m going to show you nine free content marketing tools which will help you do just that!
A lot of people see Google just as a universal search engine, but it has so much more to offer than that. The main goal for all MoreNiche affiliates is ultimately to be at the top of the SERPs, but unfortunately, you can’t ignore the process of actually getting there and reaching the top position. When we talk about content marketing at MoreNiche, it’s important to be aware that certain tools and the strategies you deploy may be the game changers in becoming a super affiliate.
As many of you know, MoreNiche banned all voucher codes as we want to protect our hard-working content affiliates. So, whether you’re a content marketing beginner or a pro, this post could change your whole approach as I show you the 9 free online content marketing tools that you should be implementing in your marketing strategy.
FREE CONTENT MARKETING TOOLS TO ADD TO YOUR ARSENAL
1. GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
If you don’t have an account yet, start creating one right now and link your site(s) to it. It provides many SEO tools and other resources to utilize for your affiliate site – so don’t waste any more time!
The Search Console offers tools that could have a huge impact on your success, so let’s dig a bit deeper and look at three in more detail.
PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed is not only very important for your visitors, but also for helping your affiliate site reach the top of the SERPs. Your goal should be to have a site that is as fast as possible, so check your site now with this tool and let Google help you to make it fast on all devices.
Structured Data Testing Tool
You can use this tool to check if Google can correctly parse your structured data markup and display it in the search results, which means it will help you to optimize how your affiliate page appears in the SERPs.
Mobile-Friendly Test
With over 60% of searches coming from mobile devices, you now need to ensure that your affiliate site is mobile friendly, as this will have a massive impact on your search results and with organic traffic. Simply add your URL and click ‘Run Test’. If your website fails the test, make the necessary changes straight away!
Google Search Console has everything an affiliate could possibly need. You can use it to discover the overall health of your site, track key search metrics and much more. In my opinion, it’s a must-have tool!
2. GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER
If you’re looking for a keyword tool that helps you to filter out the best keywords for your affiliate site, then this is one of your best picks. However, you’ll need to register for a Google AdWords account before you can use it. There are quite a few good free keyword tools to choose from, but the Google Keyword Planner remains one of the best in terms of usability and outcome.
As a content affiliate, you should be constantly trying to identify keywords that can give your site or blog post a proper boost and the visibility you are after in order to generate sales. If, for example, your primary keyword is a very competitive one such as, ‘best bodybuilding supplement’, you’re probably not going to achieve high rankings with this, so it makes sense to go after long-tail keywords instead which often drive more targeted traffic to your dedicated affiliate website.
The Google Keyword Planner can uncover exactly these terms. And by analyzing the keywords you will then be able to move forward with the findings and create blog posts around them. From my experience, by experimenting with different options for your primary keyword, you will always find more long-tail keyword ideas along the way.
3. GOOGLE TRENDS
Do you sometimes struggle to think up new ideas for content generation? As we’ve just seen, Google Keyword Planner can help provide you with keyword-related ideas within your industry, whereas Google Trends is the ideal tool to explore any topic for your content and to discover what’s trending.
I advise affiliates to also check which stories are trending, as they may match your industry and you could capture some traffic by targeting these as well.
Apart from content ideas generation, Google Trends is also very good for identifying new niche markets you could dive into, as well as for understanding the seasonality trends of products you are already promoting. This will help you to lay out your marketing strategy in terms of when you should be focusing most of your time on a particular niche.
Google Trends is easy to use: just type in your topic, review the results Google supplies (you can also target particular countries), and then let your creative juices flow.
4. GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Every MoreNiche affiliate should have a content marketing strategy in place. If you haven’t got one yet, now is the time to implement it. A lot of goals you set will be based around the amount of targeted traffic you want to drive to your website and all the metrics related to it. Google Analytics is a fantastic tool with great functionality and it can help you to identify bottlenecks if you learn how to use it fully.
I’m a big fan of Analytics as it can provide an instant snapshot of your overall site performance within a certain period of time.
That way you can track if you are on the right path to achieving your set goals, for example, increased pages per session, reduced bounce rates, improved time on site or increased organic search volume.
If that’s not enough, Analytics has plenty of options for you to dig even deeper into for valuable data. From real-time data to demographic data to user flow, it’s all available to you. I particularly recommend that you check out the performance of your top landing pages on a regular basis, to monitor whether the time spent on a page is going up and the bounce rate is coming down.
Looking at these stats will give you a good idea of what’s working with your audience with regard to topic selection, landing pages and the overall content provided on your site.
GOOGLE G SUITE
Here at MoreNiche, we scrapped Microsoft Office a long time ago and now use the all-in-one Google G Suite solution to record data, track changes and more importantly, to collaborate with others.
G Suite comes with apps including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and much more. Often I add additional plugins to these applications to ensure they do exactly what I need them to do.
I frequently work with third parties and have to say that Google’s G Suite is ideal for increased productivity and working efficiently on the same projects together. For affiliates, G Suite will make tracking your own data and collaborating with business partners, freelance writers, translators or designers a walk in the park. Give it a try!
6. GOOGLE+
It’s not yet the big social network that Google had hoped for, but nevertheless, it’s still a powerful tool for content affiliates as you can connect with other influencers while also sharing your 10x content. You can use Google+ to share your high-quality content with your followers, actively network by connecting with others and discover content that can impact your affiliate business.
Social activity is an important part of the Google algorithm, so if you distribute your 10x content on socials such as Facebook and Twitter, don’t forget to add Google+ to your schedule.
7. GOOGLE ALERTS
This tool allows you to be creative with ideas. I always recommend that affiliates set up alerts for their top competitors. It will allow you to keep track of what your competitors are doing and give you the opportunity to target the same coverage areas.
You should also set up alerts for industry-relevant keywords. This will enable you to create up-to-date 10x content and provide you with future blog post ideas.
8. GOOGLE CHROME
I wouldn’t use any other browser as I find it fast and easy to use, but there is more to Chrome than that.
Google Chrome has a great choice of SEO extensions that can help you to make better decisions about your content marketing strategy. Extensions such as SEO and Website Analysis or Ayima Page Insights will pull you an SEO report for any website straight away. With this tool you can track the impact of your own SEO strategy but also see what your competition does.
9. GOOGLE OPTIMIZE
This tool is integrated with Google Analytics and can help you identify parts of your website that need improvement. Google Optimize allows you to test different variations of your site and then tailor it to deliver a personalized experience to your visitors. It allows easy A/B website testing and puts your customer insights to work.
CONCLUSION
It goes without saying that some free content marketing tools created by Google will be more effective for your particular needs than others. However, I believe the ones I’ve highlighted in this article, if used wisely, have the potential to significantly improve your content marketing performance and generate a greater overall return on investment.
Have you used any of these tools before to improve your affiliate content marketing strategy? Or do you use other ones your fellow affiliates should know about? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.