Tools For Worldwide Businesses.

Location Independence is all about selling online. Whether you’re selling your own products & services or doing affiliate marketing – you need to know which tool gets the job done.

This resource was created to help you get started fast. Got a question? Just ask! We’re here to help.

NOTE: These links ARE NOT affiliate links. Read why I killed all my affiliate links from Nomad Couch.

Also note that I don’t update site anymore. Read more about why I decided to quit blogging here.

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Setting Up The Foundation - The Very Basics

1: Buy a Domain & Set Up Hosting

BlueHost: 1-click script installs, unlimited domain hosting & more. Our favorite and highly recommended.
HostGator: Another great host with similar features. Also offers the dedicated servers if you need more power & flexibility.
Namecheap: Pretty much what the name says. Cheap service to grab that domain name you've been looking for. Super easy domain transfers and they also offer solid web hosting services.

2: Install & Set Up WordPress

WordPress: Incredibly diverse platform for creating all kinds of sites. Pretty much the only site platform you'll ever need.
WordPress Database Backup: Backups. This plugin schedules them for you and keep your data safe.
W3 Total Cache: Improves your site's performance and user experience via caching.
Login Lock: Improves the security of your WordPress site via strong password policies and more.

3: Get & Install a Quality WP Theme

WooThemes: Our first stop for finding quality WordPress themes.
ThemeForest: HUGE collection of quality WP themes.
Elegant Themes: Another premium provider of quality WordPress themes.
Thesis Theme Framework: Especially popular among bloggers. Offers great SEO options and development flexibility.
Genesis Theme Framework: Another solid theme framework. Used by bloggers like Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan.

Want to sell your own products or services?

Whether you want to sell physical products, digital downloads or your services, these tools & services gets the job done.

Easy Online Store Builders

StoreFront Themes: 3 Easy steps and your WordPress powered store is up and running! Supports WP eCommerce, WooCommerce & Jigoshop plugins.
Shopify: Very easy to use online store builder. Beautiful site templates to choose from.
E-Junkie: Just need a easy solution for digital product storage and delivery? E-Junkie is one of the best out there.

eCommerce Plugins for WordPress

All these plugins enable you to sell physical products, digital products or even your own services.

Want to sell other people's products or services?

Become an affiliate and start selling products & services that are a good match for your site's audience.

Our Favorite Approach To Finding Affiliate Products or Services

We rarely specifically search for products or services to affiliate on our sites.

Instead, when we:

hear good things about a product or a service
test it ourselves
feel strongly that it would be of great value to our site's audience

That's when we start looking if they have an affiliate program in place and apply for it.

Look for the affiliate link on the site's bottom navigation (affiliates, partners, etc.).

New To Affiliate Marketing?

Our good friend Corbett Barr runs a great beginners course on affiliate marketing that we highly recommend (you can find us there too). Especially recommended if you're just getting started with affiliate marketing!

Affiliate Products & Services

Affiliate commissions vary from product to product (or service) and can be pretty much anything between 5% and 80% (sometimes even more). Physical products almost always have lower commission rates (due to shipping etc. costs). We've seen digital products with commissions going all the way up to 80%.

ClickBank: A huge number of digital affiliate products that you can promote online.
E-Junkie: Another place to search for digital affiliate products.
Big Affiliate Networks: You can find all types of products & services from these big affiliate networks: Commission Junction, ShareASale and LinkShare.
Amazon's Affiliate Program: Become an affiliate to Amazon.com products of your choice.

Pay Per Click Ads

Pay Per Click (PPC) means, you get a certain amount of money each time someone clicks an ad on your site (your role here is called "the publisher"). The amount of $'s per click is usually determined by the advertiser.

Google AdSense: Google ads for your niche site.
Bidvertiser: Very much like Google AdSense. Contains an easy to use tool for customizing ads.
Clicksor: Another alternative with great selection of different ad formats.
Infolinks: Yet another alternative with easy to use "1-minute-integration".

Want to sell subscriptions, setup recurring payments or turn your site into a membership site?

Building a web service, online course or a membership site and want to be able to charge your users a monthly fee? These should get you started.

Membership site software & plugins

WishList Member: Easy way to turn a WordPress blog into a full-blown membership site. Integrates fully with PayPal, 1ShoppingCart, ClickBank and many others.
aMember Professional: Very powerful and flexible membership software. Integrates with nearly every payment system out there.

More Ways to Handle Recurring Payments

Chargify: Easy to setup recurring payments for your product or service.
Spreedly: Flexible and can handle all types of transactions. Good selection of payment gateways to choose from.
Recurly: Another great choice. Good automated billing functions and business reporting features.
Braintree: Merchant account, gateway and recurring billing, all in one package. Used by Github, 37signals and many others.

Track your Sales, A/B Test and Communicate With Your Clients

Although many of the tools mentioned above include various features for tracking sales, managing buyers and more, here are a collection of tools that enable you to get even more out of your sales site.

A/B & Split Testing

Does red "Buy now!" button make more sales than the blue one? We'll.. how about testing it?

Recommended reading for getting started with A/B testing: The Ultimate Guide To A/B Testing (Smashing Magazine).

Now, Put Your Site To The Test

Optimizely: Add one line of JavaScript code to your site and start A/B testing.
Visual Website Optimizer: Easy to visual designer for creating multiple variations of your website.
Google Website Optimizer: Google's free tool for A/B testing. This will get you started with A/B testing.

A/B Test Email Subscription Boxes

OptinSkin: Want to track which one of your website's email subscription box convert the best? You can also create multiple A/B tests with different box layouts! Supports all the popular email services including MailChimp, Aweber and more.

Landing Page Platforms & Themes

Unbounce: Landing page platform with integrated A/B-testing.
KickoffLabs: Very easy to create landing pages with great integrated statistics.
Premise: Advanced & powerful landing page theme for WordPress.

Even More Landing Page Themes

ThemeForest: By far our favorite place for finding beautiful landing pages.

Email Marketing Services / CRM's

MailChimp: We've been using MailChimp at Nomad Couch from the very beginning and we're still in love with it. Just keeps getting better and it's completely free for up to 2000 subscribers.
Aweber: Another service we use on some of our sites. They offer a great API for 3rd party integrations.
iContact: Another very popular email marketing alternative.
Infusionsoft: Especially popular among the high-end internet marketing community.