If you’re just getting started out as a new affiliate (also known affectionately as a noob ) , then you’re probably looking to take advantage of all of the free affiliate marketing tools that you can get your hands on. Equally important are website promotion strategies.

How do you get traffic to your site? How do you find out how well your site is doing? What additional avenues are there to get the word out about what you’re doing? All of these questions are very important, and it’s comforting to know that, not only are there free affiliate marketing tools that can provide you with the means to find out more about your website’s performance, but there are also simple things that you can do to let people know that your site exists. We’ll take a look at a few of these in this three-part series.  Off we go!

Google Analytics

Google Analytics allows you to track certain areas of your website’s performance. There are a wide variety of reports that give you information on how many visitors came to your site, where they were from, how they got to your site, what actions they took while on your site and how long they stayed. It will also tell you whether or not your visitors gave up during multi-stage checkout procedures.

Comparison Tools

One of the things that I love the most about Google Analytics is the ability to compare traffic from two different time periods. There is a date range that can be chosen, and once you have selected the time you want to research, you can put a checkmark in the “Compare to Past” checkbox, which will allow you to select a new date range. You’ll see the difference in the amount of traffic, page views, bounce rate, average time on site and the percentage of new visitors during the time periods that you are evaluating.

Google University

When used properly, this is a free affiliate marketing tool that can provide you with some stellar information on how visitors are using your site. Anyone can become a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant by taking the exam. It costs $50 to take the test. To get certification, there are free courses offered by Google. And you don’t even have to take them with the aim of taking the exam. It is well worthwhile for anyone who is curious about how to use this tool effectively to sit through the courses (they’re presented in video) in order to expand your knowledge of how to use Google Analytics.

Even if you have been using Google Analytics for a while, getting more in-depth information on how to use this tool certainly can’t hurt, and may even provide you with some great new ideas for metrics that can provide you with information about how well your online business is performing.

In the next post in this series, Maranda Moses is going to take a closer look at Backlink Watch, a free affiliate marketing tool that shows you who is linking to your site, and talk about commenting on blogs as a means of promoting your site.  S’okay?