Organizing Your Affiliate Business With OneNote 2007
September 1, 2008 by Jon
Filed under Reviews, Software and Tools
Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is an electronic notebook that can be used for organizing your affiliate business with to-do lists, notes and research, and so much more.
Product Name: Office OneNote 2007
Developer: Microsoft
Platform: Windows Vista / XP
Purpose: Digital notebook that organizes your notes, lists, audio notes, web site printouts, and anything else you wish to store digitally.
Price: $68.99 (as of 2008-09-01)
Introduction
When you run an affiliate marketing business, you have a lot of stuff you need to keep track of, including:
- To-do lists
- Affiliate program details
- Research notes
- Brainstorming ideas
- Keyword lists
- Membership usernames and passwords
- Etc.
It can be a daunting task to keep everything straight, but if you don’t, you end up being disorganized. When you’re disorganized, you don’t work efficiently, and so ultimately you lose money. Office OneNote 2007 is a software program that can help you stay organized in every area of your business.
Who Is This Product For?
In a nutshell… EVERYONE. There isn’t a person living who doesn’t need to stay organized. If you’re an internet or affiliate marketer and own a computer, there’s no doubt that you need to stay organized. So yes… that’s you! 
If you already have software or a system for staying organized, and it works well, then you might not have a need for OneNote. However if you don’t have a system in place yet, or if your current system isn’t working that well, then you will want to seriously consider OneNote.
What Can It Do For You?
The premise behind OneNote 2007 is extremely simple:
- You create notebooks.
- Each notebook can have sections.
- Each section has pages.
- You can also create groups of sections containing lots of individual sections.
The beauty in the simplicity is you can use OneNote in the way that works best for your needs. It doesn’t “force” you to adopt any particular organizational method.
Key Benefits:
Here are some of the key benefits you get when you use OneNote 2007:
- Never Lose Your Work
All of your notes are automatically saved in real-time. So you can work according to your own schedule, and you never have to worry about saving your work or losing anything. - Stay Organized
You can type anywhere you want on a page, just click and type. You can create as many pages and sections as you need. You can tag and flag selected text. You can organize things the way that works well for you, but if you misplace something inside of OneNote, it’s just a quick search away. - Never Forget Key Tasks
You can easily create to-do lists inside of OneNote, and checkmark tasks that are completed. You can even create Outlook tasks from inside of OneNote with a single mouse click. - Remember Great Ideas
If you’re like me, you often have a great ideas at times when you’re not ready to work on them. And if you’re like me, you sometimes forget those great ideas.
With OneNote, you can easily type your idea onto a brainstorming list or page, and then move on to whatever else you were working on. Then later when you’re planning and researching, it’s easy to refer back to your ideas. - Easily Manage Keyword Lists
Forget about Excel or text documents for your keyword lists. When you manage your keyword lists in OneNote, you have your keyword lists, to-do notes, and project ideas all in one place. - Work From A Single Workspace
You can use OneNote to do nearly all of your work in one place. For example, if you had an affiliate campaign you were just starting, you could create a new notebook or section for that project. Then you would have pages for your research and brainstorming. Next you’d create a page for your project’s to-do list and keyword lists. Finally you could write your web site content (blog posts, content, etc) directly in OneNote, easily referring to your lists and research… all inside of one application! Then copy and paste your content into your web site or blog, and check off those tasks from your to-do list.
Unique Features:
OneNote 2007 contains unique features that I haven’t seen before in a single software application:
- Audio Notes
Some people don’t like to type notes, they’d rather speak them. A lot of people own digital voice recorders for this very purpose. However going back through your recordings takes time and can be tedious. As long as you have a microphone on your computer, OneNote lets you record audio notes directly into the software. The audio notes can be stored on any page you want. Best yet, OneNote will scan and index the words in the recording and use them for search results. So if you spoke the phrase “Amazon affiliate program” in your audio note, if you later do a search for that phrase, your note will appear in the search results! - Screen Clippings
OneNote has the ability to create a screen clipping from anything visible on your desktop. The clip will then be saved as a graphic in your OneNote notebook. If the graphic contains any text, OneNote will detect that, so when you search through your notes, it will include the text from the graphic in the search results!
Are There Any Problems?
Sure, like all software, OneNote 2007 is not perfect. Here are some things I would improve if I were in charge of developing the software:
- OneNote doesn’t have an easy way to run in minimized mode. While there is a system tray icon running at all times, the actual software always appears as a normal application in your taskbar when it’s running. If you want to minimize the software, you have to close it. The program does launch extremely quickly, but still it’s annoying. I would add a ‘minimize to system tray’ option.
- Everything is contained in a single window. The software does have feature to launch a new window, but it doesn’t have any type of advanced window management. So if you want to view two different pages side-by-side, as an example, then you have to manually position the windows. I would add window management features like ‘view side by side.’
Conclusion
I realize this isn’t some sexy new affiliate software… it’s just some boring productivity software… right? Well here’s the deal: you need to stay organized.
It’s really that simple. If you’re not organizing your efforts, then you’re not working efficiently. If you’re not working efficiently, then you’re leaving profits on the table.
If you want to maximize your efforts and profits by staying organized, then Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is a software product that will give you the tools you need to organize your work. It won’t make you money in and of itself, but it will help you stay organized so your money making tasks stay on track.
Value: 8/10
Return on Investment: 9/10
Ease of Use: 9/10
Overall: 26/30
Click here to learn more or purchase a copy:
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-OneNote-2007/
Bonus Savings Tip: OneNote 2007 is included as a part of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, which also includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This package costs about $20 more than the stand-alone OneNote software, so it’s a better deal if you want the extra software.
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