The other day I was watching a home improvement show on cable. The remodeling guy was installing a new deck, with an awesome built-in grill. I could practically taste the steaks and barbecue already.

But then he said something like, “Backyard parties and dinners from the grill won’t happen unless you begin building your deck with the right tools.”

The right tools… that’s what my dad always said when I was growing up and that is what carried over to what this blog is all about; the right tools to build your business!

It didn’t matter if I was making a street scooter, a pig shaped cutting board for a mother’s day present, or helping him build a fence for our house. If he caught me trying to slide by with a tool that wasn’t right for the job he made me hustle and get the right one.

Usually these tools were very inexpensive, yet when I used them they saved me a ton of time because I could work so much faster. It’s like that in affiliate marketing too.

It doesn’t matter if you’re following the blueprints given to you in a $2000 course and have all the head knowledge in the world about affiliate marketing. If you don’t use the right tools it will take you much longer to achieve your goals.

So here are a few more tools that will save you time as an affiliate marketer (after all giving you tools to build your business is our purpose):

* Using WordPress to create your blog. You do have a blog, right? I hope so, because a blog is one of the best ways to develop a following and build trust, which leads to increased sales. WordPress is the quickest way to set up a blog and a WordPress blog will show up in the search engines more quickly.

* Google Alerts and Google News. One of the fastest way to find ideas for content for your blog is to go to Google News and type in search terms for your niche. For example, I just typed “All time top NFL quarterbacks” into Google News. A story popped up about the top ten quarterbacks of all-time. If I had a blog in the football or sports niche this would be good material for a post about achieving greatness. You can also sign up to have Google Alerts send you an email with stories for certain phrases.

* WordPress plugins. From SEO to getting rid of spam comments, plugins are tools that will ensure that your blog operates at maximum efficiency.

Most of the above tools are free (some plugins have a small fee). All of them save you valuable time.

For one of the best “set it and forget it” tools for WordPress blogs, check out this plugin that will automatically insert Clickbank ads onto your blog: http://buildyourbusinesstoolbox.com/tools/wpaffiliate