complete affiliate marketing course for beginners with timestamps YoutubeScribe.com

[0:00] Hey, it’s Sam Oh and welcome you to our
affiliate marketing course for beginners.
[0:04] This course is made up of 16 lessons
and will walk you through the process,
[0:08] tactics, and strategies to create your
own revenue-generating affiliate site.
[0:13] There’s no fluff, no bs, and no sales
pitches for a premium course.
[0:18] So let’s get started with the first lesson, where
we’ll talk about what affiliate marketing is and
[0:22] how it works.
[0:24] So affiliate marketing is when you
promote another company's products.
[0:28] And when someone makes a purchase
because of your referral, you're compensated
[0:32] with a commission.
[0:33] Now, in order for the affiliate company to attribute
sales to the right person, the merchant usually uses
[0:39] a unique link that looks something like
this, which is called an affiliate link.
[0:43] When a visitor clicks that link from your
blog, website, or wherever,  a cookie is
[0:48] stored on their device.
[0:50] And an affiliate cookie does two main things.
[0:53] First, it helps the merchant attribute
the sale back to the right person.
[0:57] And second, cookies usually hold an expiration
date, meaning people don't need to immediately
[1:03] purchase the product after clicking your link.
[1:06] Let's run through an example,
so everything is crystal-clear.
[1:10] Let's say a visitor comes to your post
about gardening hoses and clicks on
[1:14] some of your affiliate links.
[1:15] This leads them to a product on Amazon.
[1:18] But wait... they have to go and pick
up their kids from soccer practice.
[1:22] So they do that, have dinner, and then go
back to Amazon.com in their web browser.
[1:27] They find the product again and then purchase
it along with a game console controller.
[1:32] Because they clicked on your affiliate link,
a cookie was stored on their device.
[1:36] And because Amazon has a 24-hour cookie
duration, you would still get compensated
[1:41] a percentage for both the garden hose
and the console controller, even though
[1:46] you weren't promoting it.
[1:47] Now that we've covered the basics of what
affiliate marketing is and how it works, let's
[1:52] talk about what you'll need to get started
with affiliate marketing which is coming
[1:56] up in the next lesson.
[1:57] In this lesson, we're going to talk about
the two things you need to get started
[2:01] with affiliate marketing.
[2:03] The first is a property or platform.
[2:06] A platform is simply a place where
you can recommend your links.
[2:09] So that might be your own
website or YouTube channel.
[2:12] Now, creating either of these is pretty
straightforward so we won't go into
[2:16] things like how to make an affiliate
website because this course is about
[2:20] the actual marketing of an affiliate site.
[2:23] The second thing you'll need is
relevant and consistent traffic.
[2:27] Relevant traffic means that you're attracting
visitors to your website that are interested
[2:31] in a topic and ideally want
to make a purchase soon.
[2:35] And one of the most important parts
to getting relevant traffic is by creating
[2:39] content, which will house information
as well as your affiliate links.
[2:44] So that might be reviews of products, best
of comparison lists, and how-to articles.
[2:50] We'll talk about how you can come up
with these topics in a later module.
[2:54] As for getting consistent traffic, much of that
will come down to where you get your traffic from.
[2:59] Three of the most popular channels are
social media, ads, and search engines.
[3:05] Now, social traffic is typically inconsistent
because social media networks are designed
[3:10] to surface new content.
[3:12] But many affiliate pages can actually
be somewhat evergreen.
[3:16] So if you don't have a significant following
and brand, I wouldn't count on social media
[3:20] as a reliable primary source
for traffic to an affiliate site.
[3:25] Now, ads can be great because you
can get highly relevant traffic fast.
[3:30] But you have to pay for every single
person who clicks on your ad.
[3:34] So unless you're a part of a very high-paying
affiliate program and you have the expertise
[3:39] with ads and conversion rate optimization,
I'd stay away from ads because you'll find
[3:45] yourself underwater fast.
[3:47] Now, search traffic is free,
consistent and passive.
[3:51] And the way you get search traffic is
through a marketing method called
[3:54] search engine optimization, or SEO.
[3:58] It's the primary traffic source I recommend
and it's what many multi-million dollar
[4:03] affiliate websites rely on.
[4:05] We'll go much deeper into the tactical and
strategic elements of creating content and
[4:10] getting relevant and consistent traffic in
a later module but first, you need to know
[4:15] whether the reward will be worth the effort.
[4:18] So in the next lesson we're going to talk
about how to make money with affiliate
[4:21] marketing and how much you can actually make.
[4:25] In this lesson, I'll give you a high-level overview
of how to make money with affiliate marketing.
[4:31] Now, as we discussed in the beginning of this
module, when you join an affiliate program,
[4:36] you're able to generate unique affiliate links.
[4:38] And when someone clicks on one of your links
and makes a purchase within a set period of time,
[4:44] you're paid a commission.
[4:45] So very generally speaking, the more relevant
traffic you get, the more clicks you'll get on your
[4:51] affiliate links.
[4:52] And the more clicks you get, the more conversions,
which equals more money in your pocket.
[4:58] And as long as your revenue exceeds
your costs, you'll be profitable.
[5:02] Now, you might be wondering how much
money you can make as an affiliate marketer?
[5:06] The simple answer to that
is that there is no limit.
[5:10] For example, Pat Flynn used to share his
income reports and reported over $100,000
[5:15] in affiliate commissions in December 2017.
[5:19] Ryan Robinson also shares his income reports.
[5:22] And in October, 2019, he reported
over $19,000 in affiliate revenue.
[5:28] Both of these gentlemen have done
an excellent job building their brand
[5:32] and I'm sure it's taken a lot of hard
work and time to get to where they are.
[5:37] But the reality is that your checks might
look more like this – at least when you're
[5:42] first starting out.
[5:43] Now, if you want to make a sustainable income
with affiliate marketing, you need to think of your
[5:48] affiliate site as a business.
[5:50] It will be a grind and there will
be some disappointing times.
[5:54] But that's totally fine because when you
adopt this business mindset instead of
[5:59] seeing it as a way to "hopefully" make
a few bucks here and there, you'll be
[6:03] setting yourself up for success.
[6:06] So with the fundamentals in the books, let's
move on to the next lesson where I'll give you
[6:10] a high level overview of what it looks like
to start and grow your first affiliate site.
[6:16] In this lesson, I'm going to give you
a high-level blueprint to start your first
[6:20] affiliate website.
[6:22] And this lesson will give you a good idea
of the skills, techniques and strategies
[6:27] you'll learn throughout this course.
[6:29] But first, let's recap some key principles
we've covered in the previous 3 lessons
[6:34] which are going to play into your strategy.
[6:36] So, at a high level, your affiliate site is going
to be made up of primarily blog posts.
[6:41] And the types of content you'll create
will mostly be informational pieces.
[6:46] For example, how-to articles and
comparisons of different products.
[6:50] And within the content, you'll add your
affiliate links to products you recommend.
[6:55] Now, when someone clicks on one of these
links and makes a purchase you're going to
[7:00] be compensated by the affiliate
merchant or partner.
[7:03] Now, not only will your content convert visitors
into revenue, but it's going to attract visitors
[7:09] to your website, too.
[7:11] And the marketing method we'll use to get
traffic to your affiliate site is search engine
[7:16] optimization because the traffic
is free, consistent and passive.
[7:21] Best of all, SEO traffic will help you generate
consistent revenue that compounds over time.
[7:27] Now, there are actually quite a few steps
to get to the point of generating consistent
[7:32] traffic and revenue.
[7:33] But to give you a high-level overview,
we can break down the process into
[7:37] four macro steps.
[7:39] Finding a niche; planning your website;
building your website; and getting traffic to it.
[7:45] So let's go through these phases at
a high level, starting with finding a niche.
[7:50] When you're starting an affiliate site,
especially if you're relatively inexperienced,
[7:54] it's beneficial to start with
a heavy focus on a niche.
[7:58] For example, it would probably be better
to start a barbeque recipes site rather than
[8:02] a generic one on all types of recipes.
[8:05] And that's because broader topics tend
to have more competition and as a result,
[8:10] it'll be tough for you to get traffic to your site.
[8:13] And without traffic, there is no revenue.
[8:16] Now, this is just one small example of the things
you'll need to consider when choosing a niche.
[8:20] There are other things to evaluate like
breadth of the topic, personal interest,
[8:25] commerciality, and more.
[8:27] We'll go through some techniques in module 2
to do this and I'll give you a checklist which will
[8:32] give you the best chance at creating
a successful affiliate website.
[8:35] Alright, the next stage is
planning your affiliate site.
[8:39] This is where you'll be creating
the blueprint for your affiliate website.
[8:42] And there are two things in
particular that you'll need to plan.
[8:45] #1. You'll want to plan your content strategy.
[8:48] And this is a super-important step
because it's foundational to both
[8:52] traffic and conversions.
[8:54] Now, the majority of the planning will be
done through an SEO technique called
[8:57] keyword research, which is a process
to understand the queries people use
[9:02] to search for products, services, and
general information in search engines.
[9:07] And the second thing you'll need to
plan is your site or content structure.
[9:11] And by structure, I'm mostly talking about
grouping which is done with internal links.
[9:16] We'll cover all of this in
great detail in module 3.
[9:19] Now, after you've finished planning
your site, you'll need to build it out.
[9:23] This includes making a website and
setting up tools for things like tracking.
[9:28] Now, the most time-consuming and
important part of this stage is creating content.
[9:34] Because content is what will help you to rank
in search engines and it's what your visitors
[9:38] will use to make buying decisions.
[9:40] We have an entire module dedicated to
content creation where we'll talk about
[9:45] the content creation process, the types of
content you should create, and I'll also give
[9:50] you templates you can follow for
various affiliate type content.
[9:53] Now, getting traffic through SEO is
much more challenging than just
[9:57] writing good stuff.
[9:59] A key ingredient to rank high in Google
and attract a ton of visitors to your site
[10:03] will be backlinks.
[10:05] We'll talk about some basic strategies that
any beginner can implement which should
[10:09] help power your pages to rank for their
target queries and hopefully put some
[10:13] money in your pocket.
[10:14] So now that you have a high-level overview of
what building your affiliate site will look like,
[10:19] let's get our hands dirty and move on
to the second module, where we'll dig
[10:22] deep into finding niches, qualifying them,
and choosing one that'll be right for you.
[10:29] In this module, I'm going to show you
how to find, choose and qualify a niche
[10:34] that's right for you.
[10:35] But before we get to the techniques to find
and qualify a niche, you need to know what
[10:40] to look for in a niche.
[10:42] And there are four factors we'll focus on.
[10:45] The first factor is competition.
[10:47] Now, because we established in the first
module that we'll be creating content and
[10:51] ranking it in search engines like Google,
we'll be looking specifically at SEO and
[10:56] keyword competition.
[10:58] And the main purpose of this is to get an idea
if we could somewhat easily rank for keywords
[11:03] that are relevant to an affiliate site.
[11:05] Now, there are a lot of things that go
into assessing keyword competition,
[11:09] but at this stage, we just want to get
a high-level overview for a niche.
[11:14] So we'll use a simple 3-step process to do this.
[11:17] Step 1: Generate keyword ideas.
[11:20] Step 2: Filter for low-difficulty keywords
using a metric called "keyword difficulty,"
[11:26] And step 3: Narrow in on affiliate keywords.
[11:30] To get started, search for a phrase related
to your niche in a keyword research tool
[11:34] like Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, then
go to the Matching terms report.
[11:39] Now, to filter for low-difficulty keywords,
just set a keyword difficulty filter to have
[11:44] a max value of something low like 10.
[11:48] Finally, you'll want to filter
for affiliate-type keywords.
[11:51] For example, keywords that include the word
"best" tend to surface product roundups like
[11:57] "best golf clubs".
[11:58] Or keywords that include the word "review"
will usually surface product reviews like
[12:03] "stix golf clubs review".
[12:05] To do that, hit the Include filter, choose
the Any tab, and in the text field, just add
[12:12] words like "best" and "review".
[12:15] Now, if we hit the Show results button,
you'll see there are thousands of relevant,
[12:20] low-difficulty keywords that cumulatively
have high search demand.
[12:24] Again, we've only scratched the surface
with keyword competition and we'll go
[12:29] into more detail later.
[12:30] But if you want to learn more now, then
I recommend watching our full tutorial
[12:34] in our free SEO course for beginners on how
you can assess ranking difficulty for any keyword.
[12:41] In fact, I highly recommend watching the full
course as the concepts and techniques will
[12:46] be fully applicable for affiliate sites too.
[12:49] Alright, the second factor is commerciality.
[12:52] Now, not all niches are created equal.
[12:55] Some have insane commercial value which can
lead to millions of dollars in monthly revenue,
[13:01] while others might only result in
a few hundred dollars – if even.
[13:06] Ideally, you want to choose a niche that
has mid to high commercial value so that
[13:11] you don't reach a point where you'll
max out on your profit potential.
[13:15] A few things you can do include, market research
on the niche, look at commissions for relevant
[13:20] affiliate programs, and look at advertising
costs to get an idea of how valuable certain
[13:26] queries are to different companies.
[13:28] We'll talk more about understanding
commercial value in the next lessons.
[13:32] The third factor to consider
is personal interest.
[13:35] Plain and simple, you don't have to be passionate
about a niche to make a successful affiliate site.
[13:42] But it doesn't mean you should choose
a niche just for profit potential.
[13:46] From my experience, choosing a niche
that you're at least somewhat interested
[13:50] in is the best route to go.
[13:53] Because people often quit their affiliate
sites because they have zero interest in
[13:57] the products they're recommending 
and the content they're creating.
[14:00] Losing drive may be
the #1 killer of affiliate sites.
[14:05] The fourth factor to consider is
breadth of the search market.
[14:09] Again, because we're going after search
traffic, you want to get an understanding
[14:13] of how much traffic you can get to
your content from search engines.
[14:17] Fortunately, keyword research tools make this
easy for us because they tell us search volumes,
[14:23] which are the number of monthly
searches that happen for a query.
[14:27] SEO tools can also give you search traffic
estimations for your competitors which is
[14:32] even more helpful than search volumes
because what we want is traffic, not searches.
[14:37] So by understanding the breadth of
the search market, you're essentially
[14:41] getting an estimation of how many people are
interested in topics you'll be writing about,
[14:46] how much traffic you can get from these
topics, and in turn, how many clicks you
[14:51] can get to your affiliate links which should
directly be correlated with your revenue.
[14:56] As a general rule of thumb, you'll want to
start off pretty niche because competition
[15:00] will likely be lower.
[15:02] But your niche should be tied to a larger
industry so you have the opportunity to
[15:07] niche out, which is going to give you
room to eventually reach more people.
[15:12] For example, you might start an affiliate
site in the bed frames niche.
[15:16] And after doing some quick keyword research
for affiliate keywords, you'll see that there's
[15:20] a cumulative search volume of over 130,000
monthly searches in the US just for "bed frames."
[15:28] Not small at all, but not huge.
[15:32] But the great thing about bed frames is that
it's quite natural to niche out to topics like
[15:37] "mattresses," "pillows," "sheets," and
even to the broader topic of "sleep."
[15:42] There's tons of room for growth.
[15:45] Now, what you're going to find as
you're researching niches is that
[15:48] lot of these factors are connected.
[15:50] For example, niches that are highly commercial
will also have high competition and niches with
[15:56] low competition will often be
things you're not interested in.
[16:00] It's all about finding a balance from
this criteria then committing to a niche.
[16:05] In fact, these four things that we just talked
about are going to help you rate any niche
[16:11] so you can qualify one that's right for you.
[16:14] But before we get to qualifying, we need
to start brainstorming a list of niches and
[16:19] doing our research.
[16:20] And that's what we'll be talking
about in the next lesson.
[16:24] Now, before we get into the research and
qualification methods, let's quickly recap
[16:28] the four things you should look for in a niche.
[16:31] And these are:
[16:32] The level of SEO competition, which will
tell us who we'll be up against or even if
[16:37] we can compete.
[16:39] Commerciality, which will give us hints
into how much money we can make.
[16:43] Personal interest, which is important
to most people because you want to
[16:46] to actually enjoy what you're doing.
[16:48] And the breadth of the search market,
which gives us an idea of the size of
[16:52] our addressable market – at least for
the type of traffic we'll be going for.
[16:57] These will help us qualify a niche so we
can make an informed decision when it
[17:01] it comes time to choose one.
[17:03] Now, the process to find and qualify
niches depends on where you are in
[17:08] your niche selection process.
[17:10] And you'll probably fall into one of two buckets.
[17:13] Bucket #1: You already have a general
idea of the niches that interest you.
[17:18] And bucket #2: you don't have a concrete
idea yet, but you're open to any and all
[17:25] opportunities if they seem interesting.
[17:28] Let's go through the process for bucket #1
first and I'll show you how you can find
[17:32] information to check off items on
your qualification checklist as we go.
[17:37] Alright, so assuming you already have
a general idea of niches that interest you,
[17:41] the first thing you'll want
to do is write them down.
[17:44] So for me that would be topics like
golf, clean energy, and personal finance.
[17:51] Now, because these are all things that
I'm interested in, we can add a plus to
[17:54] the "personal interest" qualification factor.
[17:57] Now, for each of these topics, you'll
want to brainstorm some broad topics
[18:02] and products related to that niche.
[18:05] For example, if we were to do this for
the golf niche, I'd jot down ideas like:
[18:09] "golf," "putter," "irons," and "wedge."
[18:13] Now, with our subtopics in hand, the next
thing you'll need to do is about 3 minutes
[18:18] of preliminary keyword research.
[18:20] And you'll need a keyword
research tool to do this.
[18:23] So I'm using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer
and all I'm going to do is paste my list
[18:28] of subtopics and run the search.
[18:31] Next, I'll go to the Matching terms
report to get a list of keyword ideas.
[18:36] Now, not all of these keywords will
be relevant to an affiliate niche.
[18:40] We want to find topics where it's easy to
naturally recommend different products.
[18:44] Fortunately, so-called "affiliate keywords"
are easy to find using keyword modifiers.
[18:51] And these are just add-ons to a base keyword.
[18:54] For example, when a query includes the word
"best," it usually means you need to create
[18:59] a product roundup.
[19:01] Queries that contain the word "vs" or "review"
usually mean you'll need to write a review or
[19:06] comparison article in order to rank in Google.
[19:10] We'll get into the details in a later
module as this is more related to SEO,
[19:14] but we're not quite there yet.
[19:16] But if you can't wait, then you can watch
our video on search intent in our free SEO
[19:20] course for beginners which
I'll link up in the description.
[19:24] Now, because we know we can find "affiliate
keywords" by looking for queries that contain
[19:28] the words "best," "vs,' or 'review,' we can
take these words and paste them into
[19:34] the "include" box in Keywords Explorer.
[19:36] I'll also hit the Any word tab because
we want to see keywords that contain
[19:41] any of these keywords in addition
to one of our searched topics.
[19:45] Hit Apply, hit Show keywords and we now
have a list of mostly commercial topics
[19:51] that would be valuable to a golf affiliate site.
[19:54] In fact, the fact that there are nearly two
million monthly searches in Google from
[19:59] just the US alone tells us that the breadth
of the search market is quite large.
[20:05] So we can add a plus to that
factor on our qualification list.
[20:08] Now, some of these are going to be quite
competitive to rank for, but we can actually
[20:13] filter for low-difficulty keywords
using the Keyword difficulty filter.
[20:18] All you have to do is set the maximum
KD value to something low like 20.
[20:23] And right away, you'll see that there's
still nearly a million monthly searches
[20:27] that happen for these low-competition
keywords each month.
[20:31] So both SEO competition and
search breadth seem good to me.
[20:36] Now, to get an idea of commercial value,
you can scan through the CPC column
[20:40] to see how much advertisers are willing
to pay for a click for a specific query.
[20:45] But these values are only for one query
which isn't that helpful because you want
[20:51] to get a full picture of how valuable your
traffic would be if you were to rank for
[20:56] a lot of these affiliate type keywords.
[20:59] And the way to do that is to find a competing
affiliate site that's already ranking for queries
[21:04] that you'd want to rank for and are
not mega authorities in your niche
[21:10] because they'll be too tough to compete
with, at least when you're first starting out.
[21:14] So to find these competing websites,
you can use Ahrefs' Content Explorer.
[21:18] Just search for something like "best golf" and
then set the search mode to a Title search.
[21:24] And this will show us pages that
contain the words "best" and "golf"
[21:28] in the title of the pages.
[21:29] Basically, it's going to show us other
golf affiliate pages, many that are
[21:33] from dedicated golf affiliate sites.
[21:36] Now, because SEO competition is a big part
of qualifying a niche, especially for beginners,
[21:42] I recommend setting a Domain Rating
filter to have a low maximum value of
[21:47] something like 20.
[21:48] And again, Domain Rating is a metric that
tries to measure a website's authority.
[21:54] Hit Show results, and now you have a list of
pages from low authority websites that are
[21:59] likely posting affiliate content on golf products.
[22:03] But we don't need to see pages at this point.
[22:05] We want to know more about how
websites are performing as a whole.
[22:08] To view the top websites, just
click the Websites tab.
[22:12] And now you can see a list of low-authority
websites, the amount of total organic traffic
[22:17] they get, and their traffic values.
[22:20] Now, traffic value tells us how much it would
cost to pay for this amount of organic traffic
[22:26] if you were to buy it from Google ads.
[22:28] And the reason why it's a decent proxy
to understanding a site's commercial
[22:32] value is because if advertisers are willing
to pay this much money to get this traffic,
[22:38] then it's likely valuable.
[22:40] Now, it's important to note that when you're
looking at these metrics, you need to make
[22:44] sure that the sites you're analyzing are actually
going to be competing niche affiliate sites.
[22:50] Just scan the domain names and if it sounds
like it might be a niche blog, click it to investigate
[22:56] the types of content they create.
[22:58] So for this site, it's clear that it's an affiliate
website as the content is primarily based
[23:03] around reviews and product round-ups.
[23:06] Now, going back to Content Explorer,
you'll see that the site gets a ton of
[23:10] monthly search traffic and it has
a traffic value of around $70,000/month,
[23:16] while being a low-authority site.
[23:19] Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean that
this site makes $70,000/month, but
[23:24] it tells us that the topics the site ranks
for have clear commercial value.
[23:29] So let's add a plus to that qualification factor.
[23:32] Now, it's important to note that you
shouldn't use traffic value as the only
[23:36] means to understand commercial value.
[23:38] One key component that we didn't talk
about here are the affiliate programs
[23:43] that these sites are using.
[23:44] And I'll show you how to find affiliate
programs for a niche in the next video,
[23:49] so stay tuned for that.
[23:50] Alright, now let's talk about finding and
qualifying niches if you're not quite sure
[23:55] of the topics you want to cover.
[23:57] There are two effective ways to find niches.
[23:59] The first is to look at the sites that are
linking to a big affiliate program like Amazon.
[24:05] For example, that golf affiliate site we
found earlier is an Amazon affiliate.
[24:10] And if we hover over one of the affiliate
links, you'll see that the link points to
[24:14] a page on the domain amzn.to.
[24:18] This is Amazon's shortened URL.
[24:20] So with that domain in hand, let's go
to Ahrefs' Site Explorer, type in the URL
[24:25] amzn.to, and run the search.
[24:28] Next, head on over to the Backlinks report,
which is going to show us all pages that
[24:33] link to this website.
[24:35] Now, because SEO competition and breadth of
the search market are important considerations
[24:40] when choosing a niche, we can set some filters
to narrow down the results, seeing as amzn.to
[24:46] has nearly 50 million links.
[24:49] First, I'll choose "One page per domain" because
we're interested in website data and not so much
[24:54] page-level data at this point.
[24:56] And then I'll set the Domain Rating
filter to a maximum of 20 to filter
[25:00] for low-authority websites.
[25:02] Next, I'll set the Domain Traffic filter
to have a minimum value of 10,000,
[25:07] which will help us understand
breadth to a certain extent.
[25:10] Finally, I'll click on More filters
and choose Language.
[25:15] And I'll set this to English.
[25:17] All looks good, so let's hit Show results.
[25:20] Now it's just a matter of skimming through
the referring page column and using some
[25:24] common sense to infer what
the site may be about.
[25:27] For example, this one is a stock checker,
this one is on headphone reviews, and this
[25:33] one is on knives.
[25:34] The knives one is actually pretty interesting
because this website only has a Domain Rating
[25:39] of 6 and gets around 100,000 monthly
search visits from Google each month.
[25:45] So this tells us that SEO competition is
likely weak for this niche and the breadth
[25:50] of the search market, even for
low-difficulty keywords will be decent.
[25:55] So let's add a plus to those factors.
[25:58] Now, to get an understanding of commerciality,
we can look to the traffic value for this site.
[26:03] To do that, I'll just run a new domain search
in Site Explorer for nothingbutknives.com.
[26:09] And as you can see, the site has a monthly
traffic value of around $50,000 which is pretty
[26:15] impressive for such a low-authority site.
[26:18] Now, as for personal interest, that's up to you.
[26:21] Alright, the second way to find niches is to
search for "best of" posts in Content Explorer.
[26:27] To do that, just search for "best" in
the search box and set it to a Title search.
[26:33] Next, we'll set a DR filter to have
a maximum value of 20.
[26:37] And just like we did before, I'll
set a website traffic filter to have
[26:42] a minimum value of 10,000.
[26:45] We'll set the Language filter to
English and then hit Show results.
[26:49] And this is basically showing us pages
from websites that get a lot of traffic,
[26:54] are low-authority, and are in English.
[26:57] Now, if you want the summarized version,
you can hit the Websites tab to see the top
[27:01] 100 websites in Content Explorer's search
results based on their organic traffic.
[27:06] Then, just skim through the domain names
to see if there are any obvious niche sites
[27:11] that you might be interested in exploring.
[27:14] For example, this site looks like it's on
work boots, which gets a ton of search
[27:18] traffic, has high traffic value and
has very low website authority.
[27:23] There's a triple plus for our work boots niche.
[27:26] And for good measure, I'll click through
to the site and yes, it is an affiliate site
[27:32] all about work boots.
[27:34] Now, that is a niche I would
have never thought of.
[27:37] Now, if you want a bigger list to skim
through, go back to the pages tab and
[27:42] hit the "One page per domain" filter.
[27:44] Finally, hit the "Exclude homepages" filter,
and you'll have tons of results you can
[27:49] look through along with their
SEO metrics to help qualify niches.
[27:54] Now, the qualification methods we
went through are just quick checks,
[27:58] especially for the commerciality factor.
[28:01] The affiliate programs that are associated with
the niche will often determine the potential
[28:05] revenue you can generate because different
programs offer different commissions.
[28:11] So in the next lesson, I'm going to show
you the best affiliate programs to join
[28:15] and how you can find niche affiliate
programs that are worth exploring.
[28:20] So let's kick things off with possibly
the most popular affiliate program,
[28:24] and that's Amazon Associates.
[28:26] This is Amazon's affiliate program.
[28:29] They have millions of products you can
promote and it's probably the most trusted
[28:33] ecommerce brand in the world.
[28:35] So in my opinion, Amazon Associates is
the best catchall affiliate program in the world.
[28:42] Now, their payouts differ based
on the category of the product.
[28:45] And commissions can range from
1 to 20% of the sale price.
[28:50] Now, let's look through the pros and cons
of this program, starting with the pros.
[28:54] We already touched on one and that's
the fact that you have a huge inventory
[28:58] of products to choose from.
[29:00] Another pro is that you can monetize
international traffic using their OneLink feature.
[29:05] Basically, you create a single affiliate link for
a product and depending on the location of
[29:10] that visitor, they'll be sent
to their local Amazon site.
[29:14] For example, let's say a person from
the US clicks your affiliate link.
[29:18] They'll be directed to
the Amazon.com product page.
[29:22] But if someone from Canada or the UK
clicks that same link, they'll be redirected
[29:27] to the amazon.ca or amazon.co.uk
product pages, assuming they exist.
[29:33] And the final pro is that Amazon's
conversion rate is extremely high.
[29:38] Because it's Amazon and most people, at
least in the US, have an Amazon account,
[29:44] there's very little friction from
product page to checkout.
[29:48] And remember, as an affiliate,
you don't get paid for clicks.
[29:52] You only get paid when the merchant gets paid.
[29:55] Now, the main con with Amazon's affiliate program
is that the commissions are generally pretty low.
[30:01] And for many niches, there are other
programs that offer better payouts.
[30:05] We'll get into finding these
affiliate programs in a bit.
[30:08] The next affiliate program is Target.
[30:11] Target is a big box store in the United States
and has a huge inventory of products – much
[30:17] like Amazon.
[30:18] Now, their payout is pretty low at "up to 8%."
[30:22] But one differentiator from Amazon is
that Target offers a 7-day cookie life,
[30:28] while Amazon only has a 24-hour cookie.
[30:32] This means that if someone clicks your Target
affiliate link and makes any purchase within
[30:37] 7-days, you'll be paid a commission.
[30:39] Whereas with Amazon, the person who
clicks the link needs to make a purchase
[30:44] within 24 hours.
[30:46] The next affiliate program is Commission Junction.
[30:49] Actually, CJ is an affiliate network.
[30:52] Basically, companies who want to start
an affiliate program will sign up with
[30:56] Commission Junction and they'll handle
all the tracking and software related things.
[31:02] Now, the pros of CJ is that you get access to
a directory of thousands of affiliate programs.
[31:08] They also share stats like the average 
earnings per click over 7 and 30 day
[31:13] time periods, as well as the commission rates.
[31:16] Another pro is that unlike Amazon,
you're not limited to physical products
[31:20] or Amazon subscriptions.
[31:22] There are companies that offer
intangible products like Booking.com,
[31:26] which handles travel bookings and
software companies like GetResponse
[31:31] which offers email marketing services.
[31:34] Now, a downside to CJ is that you have
to actually apply for each program and
[31:38] get accepted.
[31:40] Most of these affiliate merchants from
my experience are much pickier in who
[31:44] they allow to become an affiliate
compared to Amazon.
[31:48] So while it doesn't hurt to create a CJ
account and apply for these programs,
[31:52] you may initially get rejected until you reach
a certain amount of consistent traffic.
[31:57] But there shouldn't be anything to worry
about because if you follow the steps in
[32:01] this course, you should be able to do that
with SEO, which we'll get in another module.
[32:06] Alright, the next affiliate program is ShareASale.
[32:09] And actually, this is also an affiliate network.
[32:13] Now, I won't bother talking much about
ShareASale because it's pretty much
[32:16] the exact same as Commission Junction,
but there are different merchants that use it.
[32:21] For example, Etsy and Weebly both use
ShareaSale to run their affiliate programs.
[32:26] Alright, so now that we've covered some of the
more general affiliate programs and networks,
[32:31] let's talk about how you can find
niche affiliate programs that are
[32:34] likely high-performers in your niche.
[32:37] And it's quite simple.
[32:38] You just need to look at which affiliate
programs your competitors frequently link to.
[32:43] After all, if a lot of your competitors
are using a specific affiliate program,
[32:48] then chances are, it converts
and/or pays out well.
[32:52] And there are two ways to do this:
[32:54] The first is to go to Google and search
for something like "best [product name]."
[32:59] For example, in the previous lesson,
we found an affiliate site about knives.
[33:04] So I might search for "best knives for camping."
[33:08] Then you can click on a few of the
articles to open them in new tabs.
[33:12] And all you have to do now is hover over
their affiliate links to see who they link to.
[33:17] Now, this is functional, but
it's not exactly efficient.
[33:21] A better way is to use a free
feature in Ahrefs' SEO toolbar.
[33:25] Just click on the icon, choose the Links tab,
and select "External" from the dropdown
[33:31] to see all external links on that page.
[33:34] And as you can see, this page only seems 
to link to Amazon's affiliate program.
[33:39] Now, if we look at the next ranking page, you'll
see that they link to Amazon and another one
[33:44] called "Avantlink" which is an affiliate network 
that companies like REI and Campsaver use.
[33:51] So to research the programs further, you'd
need to sign up for an account at Avantlink
[33:56] and check out the metrics they
provide on these programs.
[33:59] Now, the downside to this method is
that we're looking at just one page.
[34:03] And this page happens to be
about knives for camping.
[34:07] But a site about knives would probably
talk about kitchen knives too.
[34:10] And you don't buy kitchen
knives at a camping store.
[34:13] So a much better way to get a holistic view
of all affiliate programs in a niche is to see
[34:19] who your competitors link to
most across their entire site.
[34:23] For example, in the last lesson on finding
niches, we found this niche site about knives.
[34:29] And according to Ahrefs' Site Explorer, it
gets a ton of search traffic which is quite
[34:34] valuable as you can see from
their monthly traffic value.
[34:38] Now, to find the affiliate merchants that
this knife site links to, you just have to go
[34:42] to the Linked Domains report in Site
Explorer, which shows you all websites
[34:46] that this site links to.
[34:48] Just sort the table by the "Links to Target"
column to see who this site links to most.
[34:53] Now, all you have to do is skim the domain
names to see if they look like it would lead
[34:57] to an affiliate program or network.
[35:00] We already know that all of the Amazon
links will be affiliate links.
[35:04] Then you'll see this shortened URL
shrsl.com which this site links to
[35:10] hundreds of times.
[35:12] This is Shareasale's shortened
URL for affiliate links.
[35:16] Now, if we click on the number for this row,
and click one of the affiliate links, you'll see
[35:20] it leads to a knife company called BladeHQ.
[35:23] And if we look up that site in ShareaSale,
you can see the commission amount and
[35:28] earnings per click metric.
[35:30] Scrolling further through the list,
you'll see that this affiliate site
[35:33] also links to avantlink.com.
[35:35] And if we expand these links in Ahrefs,
and click one of those affiliate links,
[35:40] you'll see it sends us to another
site called Buck Knives.
[35:43] Then it's just a matter of researching
the details on their affiliate program.
[35:47] Now, if you rinse and repeat these steps
for a few popular niche affiliate sites,
[35:52] you should be able to find some common
programs which will be helpful when choosing
[35:56] the best affiliate program for your site.
[35:59] Your competitors have basically done
the research and testing for you.
[36:03] Now, when you're choosing an affiliate
program, you'll want to consider two
[36:07] additional things.
[36:08] The first is product and brand reputation.
[36:11] Beginners often choose programs
that have the biggest payout.
[36:15] But the reason why a lot of affiliate programs
offer huge payouts is because their product is
[36:20] inferior to many of their competitors' products.
[36:24] Remember, after someone clicks your affiliate
link, they have to make a purchase in order for
[36:30] you to get compensated.
[36:32] Also, people who purchase poorer quality
products are more likely to return them.
[36:37] And when refunds from your referred sales
happen, you lose your commission too.
[36:42] By recommending good quality products
from solid and well-known brands, you'll
[36:47] help your visitors and your bank account.
[36:50] Quick sidenote: this is actually why I don't
recommend using Clickbank as an affiliate
[36:55] program as I've never once seen a quality
product or brand run their affiliate program there.
[37:01] Alright, the second thing to
consider is conversion rate.
[37:04] Now, most affiliate programs won't list
conversion rates for their product and
[37:08] landing pages.
[37:10] But if you happen to be working with an
affiliate manager in one of your programs,
[37:14] it doesn't hurt to ask.
[37:16] To illustrate the importance of conversion rate,
let's run through an example for the knives niche.
[37:21] So according to Amazon's commission table,
sports and outdoor goods pay out 3% of the sale.
[37:27] And most camping knives
will fall into this category.
[37:30] But that other affiliate program we found
on Shareasale, BladeHQ, pays out 5%.
[37:36] Well, let's say you get 100 clicks to
your affiliate links and the average
[37:40] order value is $100.
[37:42] If 7% of those clicks convert on Amazon
and only 3% of clicks convert on BladeHQ,
[37:48] then that means your commissions
from Amazon would be $21, while
[37:52] your commissions from BladeHQ would be $15.
[37:56] So despite the fact that BladeHQ has a bigger
payout, Amazon would be the affiliate program
[38:01] to go with in this scenario.
[38:03] Now, this example is a bit oversimplified
because you need to consider things like
[38:07] traffic source, your content,
and the intent of the visitors.
[38:12] These are all things we're going
to cover over the next 3 modules.
[38:16] In fact, the next module is all about
planning your affiliate site's strategy
[38:21] which is going to give you a blueprint
to follow for the rest of this course.
[38:25] In this module, we're going to do some
planning for your affiliate marketing site.
[38:29] Now, before we work on the actual tasks
involved in site planning, it's important
[38:34] we get on the same page and go over
the affiliate marketing strategy we'll be
[38:38] using for our site.
[38:40] And we'll basically be expanding on
the affiliate blueprint that was covered
[38:43] in lesson 1.4.
[38:45] So as a quick refresher, we want to create an
affiliate site that'll generate consistent revenue.
[38:50] In order to do that, we'll need consistent
traffic to pages that organically recommend
[38:56] affiliate products.
[38:58] And the best way to get that traffic is
through a marketing technique called
[39:01] SEO or search engine optimization because
traffic is free, passive, and consistent.
[39:08] Now, the general process to get SEO
traffic will follow three basic steps.
[39:13] Step 1 is to do affiliate keyword
research which is the process of
[39:17] finding topics suitable for an affiliate site
that people search for month after month.
[39:22] Step 2 is to create content that people want
to see when searching for these products.
[39:28] And step 3 is to get backlinks to these
pages, which will help you rank high in
[39:32] Google search and get that consistent
traffic to your pages, which again, can
[39:38] allow you to build that consistent revenue.
[39:40] Now, these are the technical and creative
things we'll have to do to get to our end result.
[39:45] But what we haven't really talked about
yet is what the overall strategy looks like
[39:50] from a birds-eye view.
[39:51] The basic idea is to choose a niche
that has plenty of things to talk about
[39:56] and then to choose a sub-niche
from that niche.
[39:59] For example, you might choose golf
as your main niche and then "putting"
[40:03] as your sub-niche.
[40:05] Then you'd cover absolutely everything
in the putting category before moving on
[40:09] to the next sub-niche.
[40:11] Let's dive deeper into an example to help
you visualize what this strategy looks like.
[40:16] So let's say your niche is fitness equipment
and your sub-niche is dumbbells.
[40:20] That means you're going to cover
everything under the topic of dumbbells.
[40:25] As an example, you might create equipment
roundups on "the best adjustable dumbbells",
[40:30] "the best dumbbell sets", and
"the best dumbbells for home".
[40:33] Now, let's zoom into adjustable dumbbells.
[40:36] So let's say you cover five different adjustable
dumbbells in your post like these ones.
[40:40] Well, to cover this in full, you now
have five new reviews to write up.
[40:45] Now, let's say you also want to write
up content on dumbbell exercises.
[40:49] Well, you can now write about dumbbell
exercises for chest, biceps, triceps, back,
[40:55] and legs.
[40:56] Let's zoom in on dumbbell
exercises for biceps.
[40:59] This would be a listicle that talks about
all sorts of great exercises for your biceps.
[41:04] And assuming you cover these bicep exercises,
you have a bunch more posts you can create.
[41:10] Now, assuming your content is great, what
you're essentially doing is positioning your
[41:14] site to be the authority of dumbbells in
the eyes of visitors which will help with
[41:19] conversions and search engines,
which will help with traffic.
[41:23] Now, assuming you get through the hundreds
or maybe even thousands of dumbbell-related
[41:27] content, this is where you'd revisit your
main niche, and then choose another
[41:31] sub-niche - let's go with barbells.
[41:34] Then you'd become the authority of
barbells and do the exact same thing.
[41:38] And what you're essentially doing here is
creating a massive web of related content
[41:42] that's going to be the foundation to not just
an authoritative affiliate site, but a business
[41:48] that has potential to go
beyond affiliate marketing.
[41:51] Now, I need to pump the brakes here
because before we can even think of
[41:54] becoming this mega authority site,
we need to start from square one
[41:58] and find some topics that would
be appropriate for our site.
[42:01] So throughout the rest of this module,
I'm actually going to do all of the work
[42:05] with you to plan for this
hypothetical affiliate site.
[42:08] And in the next lesson, we're going to go
up here to step 1 which is to do affiliate
[42:12] keyword research for your niche.
[42:16] Now, keyword research is the first step in
our flowchart in our journey to a consistent
[42:21] income through an affiliate site.
[42:23] And it's basically going to set the foundation
for the topics you'll create content on.
[42:28] So simply put, keyword research is
the process of finding search queries
[42:31] people use when looking for products,
services, or general information.
[42:36] Now, because we won't be selling products or
services directly to consumers with an affiliate
[42:41] site, we ideally want to find topics where
it's easy to organically recommend products.
[42:47] But before we get into the techniques to
find topics, it's important we talk about
[42:51] one foundational thing that's
massively important in SEO.
[42:56] And that's search intent.
[42:57] Search intent tells us about
the purpose of a searcher's query.
[43:01] And by understanding the intent of a query,
you'll be able to determine whether you can
[43:06] easily recommend products or not.
[43:08] For example if someone searches for
"best protein powder," chances are,
[43:14] they're in the market to purchase a product
but they want to weigh out the pros and cons,
[43:18] look at different brands, and assess
variables like price, quality, and so on.
[43:24] As a result, you actually need
to recommend products.
[43:28] And the people who read this article may
very well click affiliate links to the products
[43:33] and make a purchase.
[43:35] Whereas a topic like, "what is protein
powder," is more informational in nature.
[43:41] Based on the keyword alone, we don't
know whether the searcher is writing
[43:44] a research paper, exploring the world
of supplements, or wants to know
[43:48] which type of protein powder to buy.
[43:51] Simply put, this topic probably wouldn't
generate many clicks to protein powders
[43:56] because the majority of people
aren't in the market to buy any.
[44:00] So adding product recommendations
would probably be unnatural.
[44:04] Now, in general, there are four types of so-called
affiliate keywords we'll want to go after.
[44:09] And these are: general comparisons; branded
comparisons; product reviews; and T&A keywords.
[44:16] Now, before we get into how you 
can find these types of keywords,
[44:20] I'm going to choose a niche and
do keyword research with you.
[44:23] So to set some context, I'm choosing
baby products as my main niche.
[44:27] And as I taught in the previous lesson,
I'm going to choose a sub-niche to start.
[44:33] Let's go with car seats.
[44:34] Alright, so let's talk about the four
different types of affiliate keywords,
[44:38] how they fit into an affiliate marketing site,
and how you can find them for your site.
[44:43] The first type of keywords
are general comparisons.
[44:47] These are your typical "best
[product name]" keywords.
[44:49] For example, "best car seats," "best
booster seats," "best strollers," etc.
[44:56] It's super easy to recommend products
in posts targeting these keywords because
[45:01] searchers are looking for
product comparisons.
[45:04] After all, the keyword, "best" implies
that a comparison needs to be made.
[45:09] On top of that, people searching for these "best
product name" keywords are likely in the market
[45:14] to purchase something in the near future.
[45:17] They just don't know which product.
[45:19] So to find these keywords, you'll
need a keyword research tool.
[45:23] And I'll be using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
[45:25] Alternatively, you can follow along with this
tutorial using Ahrefs' free keyword generator.
[45:31] To get started, I'll search for a few broad queries
related to my sub-niche like "car seat," "car seats,"
[45:38] "booster seat," and "booster seats."
[45:40] Let's run the search.
[45:42] Next, I'll head on over to the Matching
terms report to generate keyword ideas.
[45:46] Now, since we're looking for general
comparison keywords, I'll click the "include"
[45:50] filter and type in "best."
[45:53] Apply the filter and you'll see over 18,000
keyword ideas that include at least one of
[45:59] our seeds and the word "best."
[46:02] Now, since there's probably too many keywords
to filter through manually, let's narrow this list
[46:07] down to just low-competition 
topics to get started.
[46:11] And to do that, we'll set a maximum keyword
difficulty filter to something low like 20.
[46:17] And there are some great topics
here that are worth considering
[46:19] like "best rotating car seat" and "best 
car seats" for various different ages.
[46:25] So from here, you can jot down some keyword
ideas that interest you or if you have an Ahrefs'
[46:30] account, you can actually add these
to a keyword list which is what I'll do.
[46:35] Now, if you don't have an Ahrefs account, you can
still use our free keyword generator and search
[46:39] for something like "best product name."
[46:42] You'll have limited data, but it should be good
enough to set you off on the right track.
[46:46] Now, a quick but important sidenote: you
shouldn't just go after keywords with low
[46:52] Keyword Difficulty scores.
[46:54] Higher competition often indicates
that there's more popularity and/or
[46:58] commerciality to a topic.
[47:00] For example, the query, "best car seat"
is significantly more competitive than
[47:05] the ones we were looking at.
[47:07] And according to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer,
the top-ranking page for this query, gets around
[47:12] 38,000 monthly organic
visits from the US alone.
[47:16] So these types of keywords are worth adding
to your keyword list too to tackle at a later time
[47:22] when your site is a bit more established.
[47:25] Alright, the next type of keywords
are branded comparisons.
[47:28] These are keywords where a searcher
wants to compare the differences
[47:31] between two branded products.
[47:33] For example, that might be
"chicco car seat vs graco".
[47:37] These types of keywords usually have lower
search demand, but they typically convert better
[47:41] than general comparison keywords because
the searcher has likely narrowed down their
[47:45] purchasing decision to a few key products.
[47:49] The easiest way to find these keywords
is to create a list of brands or products
[47:53] in the same category.
[47:55] So assuming I wanted to find branded car seat
comparison keywords, I could search for a bunch
[48:00] of car seat brands and run the search.
[48:03] Next, I'll go to the matching terms report.
[48:05] And again, I'll go to the Include search box,
and this time, I'll type in "vs" and I'll also add
[48:11] the phrase "car seat" since these companies
make all sorts of baby products.
[48:17] Apply the filter and we now have a list
of keywords that would work perfectly
[48:21] for branded comparison blog posts.
[48:24] Now, if we do the same thing but instead of
brands as our seeds we use a list of specific
[48:29] car seat models, you'll find even more
great branded comparison keywords
[48:34] to add to your list.
[48:36] Now, if you don't have an Ahrefs account,
you can do something similar with our free
[48:40] Keyword generator tool.
[48:42] Just type in something like "product
name vs" – and run the search.
[48:46] Jot down any keywords that are of interest to
you, then rinse and repeat for the next brand.
[48:52] Alright, the next type of keywords
are detailed product reviews.
[48:56] These queries will typically follow
the format "product name" review.
[49:00] And people who search for queries like this
are likely very close to making a purchase.
[49:06] They've researched multiple products,
something caught their attention about
[49:09] a specific model, and now they
want a more in-depth review on it.
[49:14] Now, just like the branded comparison keywords,
search volumes will be lackluster to say the least.
[49:20] So if you're going to buy these products and
actually review them, choosing products
[49:24] that people are actually searching
for may be a smart way to do it.
[49:29] A simple way to find brands and models worth
reviewing is to go to a popular ecommerce site
[49:34] and look through the different categories
and brand names in their navigation.
[49:38] So right now, I'm on buybuybaby.com and
I'm looking at their "shop all car seats" page.
[49:44] Now, if I click on the dropdown for Brand,
you'll see a list of brand names that you
[49:48] can jot down.
[49:50] So I've already gone ahead and done
that and saved a list to my clipboard.
[49:53] So I'll paste a bunch of these into
Keywords Explorer and run the search.
[49:57] And let's head over to
the Matching terms report.
[50:00] Again, we'll hit the Include filter but this
time, we'll search for the word "review"
[50:05] and add an asterisk at the end,
which will act as a wildcard.
[50:08] And just like that we know exactly which
brands we'd want to review, and some specific
[50:14] models which we now have keyword metrics for.
[50:17] So take some time to add more keywords
to your keyword list and when you're ready,
[50:21] we'll move on to the last type of
keyword which are T&A keywords,
[50:25] which stands for "Trust and Authority."
[50:28] Now, in order to rank your pages, you
need to have some kind of page-level
[50:32] and website authority.
[50:34] Meaning, you need backlinks.
[50:36] But since all of the keyword types we've
discussed so far are commercial in nature,
[50:41] it'll be tougher to get links to these pages.
[50:43] I mean, would you rather link to
a post about 10 random car seats
[50:47] or one about car seat safety?
[50:49] Probably the latter, right, seeing as it's
non-commercial and provides more
[50:53] objective value for your audience.
[50:56] Now, while these keywords may not
directly contribute to your revenue,
[51:00] it'll still serve two important purposes.
[51:02] #1. You'll build trust with your audience
since you're creating helpful content.
[51:07] And #2. You'll build authority through
links – hence, "trust and authority."
[51:13] So to find these keywords, let's search for
a few seeds that are related to car seats like
[51:18] "car seat," "car seats," and "booster seat."
[51:22] Next, I'll go to the Matching terms report
and then I'll hit the Questions tab since
[51:27] we're looking for informational topics.
[51:29] Let's set a Keyword Difficulty filter to
a max value of 20 and we now have
[51:34] a list of relatively easy-to-rank-for keywords.
[51:37] So I'll add some to my list until
I'm satisfied and you should too.
[51:42] Now, if you don't have an Ahrefs account,
you can use our free Keyword generator.
[51:46] Just search for a seed keyword
and then hit the Questions tab.
[51:50] Then you can rinse and repeat
to build out your keyword list.
[51:53] Alright, so by now, you should have
a nice list of keywords from each of
[51:56] of the four affiliate keyword categories:
general comparisons, branded comparisons,
[52:02] product reviews, and T&A keywords.
[52:05] But all we have at this point is
a brainstormed list of topics.
[52:10] There's no real order or structure to
the content which is important in SEO
[52:14] as it helps to build out that huge web of
related content that I showed you earlier.
[52:19] So in the next lesson, we'll take your list of
topics and actually plan out specific content
[52:24] pieces we'll need to create and start building
out what SEOs often call "topical authority."
[52:31] In this lesson, I'm going to walk you
through a simple affiliate marketing
[52:35] content strategy.
[52:36] More specifically, we'll be taking the list
of topics from your keyword research and
[52:41] organizing them into logical structures
that'll help grow your SEO traffic to your
[52:46] affiliate site.
[52:47] Now, as I mentioned in lesson 3.1., we want
to create a massive web of related content,
[52:53] covering all of the important
topics in our niche.
[52:56] And the main benefit here is that all of
these relevant pages will be connected
[53:01] and essentially work together to build
what SEOs loosely call "topical authority."
[53:07] And if we had to define topical authority, it's
when a website becomes an authoritative
[53:11] source on a given topic in the eyes
of visitors and search engines.
[53:16] Now, the two parts that make up so-called
"topical authority" are topical coverage,
[53:21] meaning content, and backlinks.
[53:24] We'll talk about the latter a bit
later because I want to illustrate
[53:27] the importance of topical coverage.
[53:30] Let's say you have a site in the golf niche.
[53:32] If you publish a post on the best
golf clubs, no one's going to think:
[53:36] "Oh yeah…they're the authority" in
golf or golf clubs or golf equipment.
[53:40] To become the go to place for information
on golf, you'd need to cover topics like "best
[53:46] golf balls," "best putters," "best golf shoes," "how
to hit a driver 300 yards," "what is a handicap in
[53:52] golf," and I could go on for hours.
[53:55] Plus, the content would actually
need to be good.
[53:59] Now, even this example hardly illustrates
becoming an authority in the golf niche
[54:03] because there's just so many things you'd
need to cover because golf is a huge topic.
[54:09] This is why focusing on a sub-niche
is a much better approach to building
[54:14] topical authority.
[54:15] And this is the way we chose
a niche in module 2.
[54:18] So you'd cover topics like: "best
golf balls," "pro v1 golf ball review,"
[54:23] "pro v1x golf ball review," "taylormade
tp5 review," "how many dimples are on
[54:28] a golf ball," "how to properly clean golf balls,"
"which golf ball generates the most spin,"
[54:33] "best golf balls for high handicappers,"
and add another hundred or so topics.
[54:38] Assuming your content is of high quality,
over time, people will begin to see you as
[54:42] an expert in your niche and because of that,
they'll more likely link to your web pages
[54:47] because it's well-trusted.
[54:50] Again, I'm barely scratching the surface, but my
point should be clear: building so-called topical
[54:55] authority a) requires extensive topical
coverage; b) is much more achievable
[55:01] in a sub niche because of a); and c) building
it is a win-win for visitors and website owners.
[55:09] For visitors, they'll find a plethora of
resources to dig through on your site.
[55:14] And for website owners, you'll likely have better
potential to rank for topically related keywords,
[55:19] assuming your content gets linked to.
[55:21] And I'll expand on why topical authority
may help your rankings later in this lesson.
[55:26] Now, if you've been building your site
with me throughout this course, then
[55:29] you should have narrowed in on
a sub-niche and done all your
[55:32] keyword research for that sub-niche.
[55:34] I chose baby products as my main
niche and car seats as my sub-niche.
[55:39] And in total, I generated a list of 239 car-seat
related keywords that I also categorized into
[55:46] the four different "types" of affiliate keywords.
[55:49] General comparisons; Branded comparisons;
Product reviews; and T&A keywords.
[55:55] The only major thing that's left to do 
in this planning stage is to map related
[55:59] topics together so we can start
building our web of related content.
[56:04] And we'll be using our keyword lists to do this.
[56:07] Now, if you get no clue what I'm talking
about, then I highly recommend going
[56:11] back to lesson 3.2. where I walked you
through how to do keyword research for
[56:15] affiliate marketing sites.
[56:17] But if you're all caught up, then let's
talk about perhaps the most efficient
[56:21] way to map affiliate topics.
[56:23] And that's by creating product clusters.
[56:26] A product cluster is a simple content structure
that connects a general comparison post
[56:30] with multiple product review posts.
[56:33] Let's look at what this might
look like for my car seat site.
[56:36] So first, I'll choose a general comparison
topic from my list like "best car seat for
[56:41] 3-year olds."
[56:42] This topic will sit at the top of our pyramid.
[56:45] Now, because general comparison topics
will require product comparisons and
[56:49] recommendations, we'll need to choose
some car seats to compare in our post.
[56:53] And in my opinion, the best place to start 
is to draw from real-life experiences.
[57:00] For example, I actually own nine car seats
– so it's fair to say that I've done my share
[57:04] of research and real-life testing.
[57:07] Now, I also have a couple kids that are
now older than three and so I know that
[57:11] the types of car seats we'll be
covering are "convertible car seats."
[57:16] One of our car seats is the Diono Radian
3RXT which I really like so I'll definitely
[57:22] include it in my round-up.
[57:23] Now, visually speaking, we would just
add a branch under our main topic:
[57:27] "best car seat for 3-year olds" and
call it "Diono Radian 3RXT review."
[57:33] Now, another car seat we have is the
Britax Marathon which I also like and
[57:38] would recommend.
[57:39] So let's add another branch.
[57:41] Now, I'm not particularly happy with some
of the other convertible car seats I've bought,
[57:45] so let's look at our product review
keywords to see which other car
[57:49] seats we could potentially add.
[57:51] Now, I've already gone ahead and
looked at product specs, reviews,
[57:54] and installation videos for 14
different convertible car seats.
[57:58] And after researching, I've narrowed
down our list of "best car seats for
[58:02] 3-year olds" to a total of six car seats.
[58:05] The two that I have hands-on experience
with, the Britax one4life, Graco Extend2fit,
[58:11] Graco 4ever dlx, and the Safety 1st Go and Grow.
[58:15] So let's add branches to our flow 
chart for each of these models.
[58:18] So to review, we know we're going to create
a post on the best car seats for 3-year olds
[58:23] plus, we're going to write six different
product reviews for each model in our
[58:27] general comparison post like "Britax one4life
review", "Graco extend2fit review" and so on.
[58:34] Now, from an on-page perspective, we can simply
"connect" these pages by using an internal link
[58:40] from our general comparison
post to our product reviews.
[58:45] And it would also make sense to link
from our product reviews to our general
[58:49] comparison post.
[58:50] We now have a product cluster.
[58:53] Now, the reason why I call product clusters 
efficient is because as your library of product
[58:58] reviews gets bigger, creating content for
general comparisons gets faster and easier.
[59:04] For example, when we go to create a post on
let's say… "the best convertible car seats for
[59:09] small cars," we've already covered the Diono
Radian 3RXT review in our best car seat for
[59:15] 3-year olds post.
[59:16] And that model just happens to be
the go-to car seat for small cars.
[59:21] Now, branded comparisons also fit
seamlessly into product clusters.
[59:26] Looking at our list of branded comparison
keywords, you'll see that there's this topic
[59:30] on "graco extend2fit vs 4ever".
[59:33] Well, we just wrote two product reviews
for these so writing a branded comparison
[59:38] post would be super-easy.
[59:40] And of course, we could easily add
internal links to the product reviews
[59:44] whether they're one-way or
reciprocal in a very organic way.
[59:49] Alright, the last type of keywords on
our list are T&A keywords which again
[59:53] stands for trust and authority.
[59:55] And these are mostly informational topics.
[59:57] Now, these topics may not directly
impact your revenue but they serve
[60:02] important purposes: they can help you
earn more backlinks, reach larger audiences,
[60:07] and build trust and authority.
[60:10] Now, unlike product clusters, informational
posts on affiliate sites typically have less of
[60:16] a pyramid-type structure to them.
[60:18] For example, if you have four pages on
T&A topics, they won't necessarily link
[60:23] together creating a perfect pyramid.
[60:25] Internal linking on these pages will mostly come
down to "do it if and when it makes sense."
[60:32] For example, let's say we're
a writing post on car seat safety.
[60:36] It would be perfectly natural to link to
another page on "when car seats expire",
[60:41] "when you should turn the car seat
around from rear to forward facing"
[60:44] and "requirements to change
to a booster seat."
[60:47] These are all related to car seat
safety and they all happen to be
[60:51] topics on our T&A keyword list.
[60:54] Now, it would also make perfect sense to link
from our post on "when do car seats expire"
[61:00] to our commercial page on "best car seats"
because people reading that post may need
[61:06] to buy a new one and could probably
use some help narrowing their search
[61:10] to an appropriate product.
[61:12] As you can see, creating these structures
and mapping content isn't so much about
[61:16] strict adherence as it is about creating
a strong foundation for your content SEO.
[61:22] When you have a big list of topics and you
prioritize based on search volumes or keyword
[61:27] difficulty scores, it's tough to visualize
the relationships between your content.
[61:33] And what happens more often than not,
is that you haphazardly do internal linking
[61:38] creating poor structure, which just makes
ranking your pages harder than it has to be.
[61:44] But by having a solid internal linking plan,
you're going to do yourself a couple favors
[61:48] that should ultimately help you rank higher in
Google and get more free traffic to your pages.
[61:54] #1. You'll create a better user experience for
your visitors by providing them with relevant
[62:00] resources that may be helpful to them.
[62:02] And #2. You'll facilitate the flow of
PageRank which will help your pages
[62:07] rank higher in Google.
[62:08] And without getting too technical, that just
means that when one of your pages gets
[62:12] backlinks, the pages that it links to
will also benefit from that backlink –
[62:17] although to a lesser degree.
[62:19] Alright, so now that we've mapped out our
content, we'll need to actually build out our site.
[62:24] And I won't go into how to create a WordPress
blog or suggest specific themes because a lot
[62:29] of that is entirely up to your preferences.
[62:32] But I do want to talk about two super-
important things related to site creation.
[62:37] And these are your homepage's content
and your website's navigation menu.
[62:42] And that's coming up in the next lesson.
[62:46] Alright, so let's talk about homepages
first and we'll get to navigation after.
[62:51] So very generally speaking, a homepage
serves three main purposes regardless
[62:56] of the type of website.
[62:57] #1. It should communicate what
your brand or company does.
[63:01] #2. It should lead people
towards a conversion goal.
[63:05] And #3. It can be used to help rank
important pages higher in Google.
[63:10] Now, the first purpose is
pretty straightforward.
[63:12] But the second and third points
may be tougher to understand,
[63:15] especially in the context of
an affiliate marketing site.
[63:19] So let's expand.
[63:20] A conversion for an affiliate marketing site
happens when someone clicks your affiliate
[63:24] link and buys something
from the affiliate merchant.
[63:27] Now, the thing is, you don't have
any control over the merchant's site.
[63:31] But what is in your control, to a certain
extent, is getting people to click your
[63:36] affiliate links in your content.
[63:38] So therefore, leading people towards
a conversion goal for an affiliate site
[63:43] just means getting visitors to engage
with your content that naturally
[63:47] recommends affiliate products.
[63:50] And the actual conversion that happens
on your website will be when a visitor
[63:54] clicks one of your affiliate links.
[63:56] Now, as for my third point on using
your homepage to rank important
[63:59] pages higher in Google, this comes
down to what we discussed in
[64:03] the previous lesson.
[64:04] When you link to pages on your site with
internal links, you're facilitating the flow
[64:08] of something called "PageRank."
[64:10] Basically, when the linking page gets
backlinks, it's passing so-called "authority"
[64:16] or "power" over to the pages it links to,
helping them rank higher in Google.
[64:22] And it just so happens that homepages are
often the most authoritative page on a website.
[64:27] Alright, let's look at a couple of examples
of affiliate websites that do all three of these
[64:31] things on their homepage.
[64:33] The first is Garage Gym Reviews.
[64:35] They state that their brand is about
"connecting the garage gym community."
[64:40] And on their site, they "provide
in-depth and honest reviews on
[64:44] everything fitness-related."
[64:46] Scrolling down, you'll see some
of their "best in-class reviews."
[64:50] These are all clearly targeting
"general comparison keywords."
[64:54] Now, according to Ahrefs' Site Explorer,
all these "best in class review" pages
[64:58] that are linked from their home page
get a good amount of search traffic
[65:03] because they're actually ranking
high for their target keywords.
[65:06] In fact, all four posts are ranking in
the top position for their target keywords.
[65:12] Here's another example from Dog Food Advisors.
[65:15] They clearly state that their site is
about Dog Food reviews and ratings.
[65:19] They're leading people towards their post
on the "best dog foods" which is obviously
[65:23] an important post for this site.
[65:25] They're also linking to a "dog food reviews A
to Z" page which is a page that links to tons
[65:31] of different dog food reviews – all of which would
naturally recommend products to purchase.
[65:36] Now, their "best dog food" page gets
around 60,000 monthly search visits.
[65:41] And yes, they rank in the top
position for "best dog food."
[65:46] Their dog food reviews page also gets a lot
of search traffic and ranks for the query,
[65:51] "dog food review."
[65:52] So when you're creating your homepage, 
consider including these three things
[65:56] because it works.
[65:57] And remember that it doesn't have to
be perfect because you can update or
[66:00] change the homepage at any time.
[66:03] Alright, let's move on to setting up
your site's main navigation menu.
[66:06] Now, your navigation menu
should serve two main purposes.
[66:09] #1. It should help provide a good user
experience for visitors so they can find
[66:14] whatever it is they're looking
for on your site quickly.
[66:17] And #2. it should make it easy for search
engines to access your content.
[66:22] Here's what I mean.
[66:23] The way Google finds content on your site is
by "following" links from one page to another.
[66:29] For example, if Google lands on one
of your pages and sees two links in
[66:32] the navigation which point to page A and page
B, then they've discovered two new pages.
[66:39] Then they can "follow" those links
and discover even more URLs based
[66:43] on the pages that page A and page B link to.
[66:47] And this process can go on
for a very long time.
[66:51] Now, if all links are removed from page
B, then the search engine won't be able
[66:56] to discover any of these URLs because
the path has effectively been broken.
[67:01] This is an overly simplified explanation
of how Google finds content.
[67:06] But the main point is that we want
to make it as easy as possible for
[67:09] search engines to discover our content
so they can add it to their search index.
[67:14] And a well thought out navigation
menu makes this possible.
[67:17] Now, your navigation links will largely depend
on the number of pages you have on your site
[67:22] or plan to have, which is typically dictated
by the breadth of your niche and sub niches.
[67:28] For a small site, the solution is easy
because you've already created "product
[67:32] clusters," which I taught you how to
do over the past couple of lessons.
[67:36] So you can simply link to some of your general
comparison posts and your blog archive page.
[67:41] This way, all your pages are accessible within
a couple clicks from any page on your site.
[67:47] Now, for a larger site where you have too
many comparison posts for your nav menu,
[67:52] you'll want to create category pages
and link to them from your navigation.
[67:56] For example, if we look at the Wirecutter
which is a huge affiliate site, you'll see
[68:01] they have various categories
in their navigation menu.
[68:04] Now, if I hover over Tech and click on
the "headphones" category, you'll see
[68:08] the majority of posts at the top of this
page are for general comparisons.
[68:13] And these pages link out to all
sorts of other posts on their website.
[68:17] Again, there's no exact formula
for navigation or internal links.
[68:22] Ultimately, you want to create a good
user experience for visitors and make
[68:26] your content accessible to search engines.
[68:28] Alright, so if you followed along from
lesson 3.1. to now 3.4, then you should
[68:34] have completed your keyword research, 
your content mapping strategy, and now
[68:38] your homepage and navigation architecture.
[68:41] Now it's time to actually create
your affiliate content.
[68:44] And that's what we'll be diving
deep into in the next module.
[68:48] In this module, I'm going to show you how
to create content for your affiliate site.
[68:52] And there are two main goals for our content.
[68:55] #1. We want it to rank in Google so we
can get consistent traffic to our site.
[69:00] And #2. We want our information to
be helpful to visitors so they can make
[69:05] informed purchasing decisions and we can
get compensated with affiliate commissions.
[69:10] Now, before we get into actually creating
this content, I want to talk about something
[69:14] that's frequently pondered upon and that's
"how much informational vs commercial
[69:20] content should I create for an affiliate site?"
[69:23] Before we can try and answer this question,
I want you to envision two different sites at
[69:28] opposite extremes – one site with just informational
content and another with just commercial content.
[69:36] Let's talk about the completely
commercial site first.
[69:39] To help you visualize the types of content
on this site, it'll be just best of comparisons,
[69:44] vs. posts, and product reviews.
[69:46] Now, the problem with this kind of site in my
opinion, is that unless your reviews are legit,
[69:51] one of a kind, and demonstrate authority
and expertise that's unmatched, it's going
[69:57] to be tough to really stand out.
[70:00] The only example I can think of that did
this well was TheWireCutter before they
[70:05] were acquired by the New York Times.
[70:07] At that time, no one was really doing
hands-on reviews of products with
[70:10] well thought-out tests because it required
a lot of time, money, and expertise.
[70:16] But the Wirecutter consistently did this really well.
[70:20] As a result, they earned the trust of people
and earned backlinks with ease, making it
[70:25] an overall authority in product reviews.
[70:28] The bar is much higher now.
[70:30] So to translate, if you're unable to at least
get backlinks to your commercial pages,
[70:36] you probably won't be able to rank, therefore,
you won't get much traffic to your site, and
[70:42] you won't make much in commissions.
[70:44] Now, let's look at the other extreme –
the completely informational content.
[70:48] This site will have tons of how-tos,
tutorials, guides, and basically anything
[70:53] for purely informational purposes.
[70:56] Now, because informational content typically earns
backlinks more easily, you'll have a better chance at
[71:02] ranking and getting traffic to your site.
[71:05] But the main downside to creating a fully
informational affiliate site is that you'll
[71:09] stunt your revenue potential because
commercial topics are going to be easier
[71:13] to naturally recommend products.
[71:16] And affiliates get paid when people click
those  affiliate links and make a purchase.
[71:21] So back to the question: what is the ideal
ratio of commercial to informational content
[71:26] for an affiliate site?
[71:28] Well, as I just explained, there's positives
and negatives to both types of content.
[71:33] And because both are important, it's my
opinion that any ratio that's roughly equal
[71:39] is completely fine.
[71:41] That might be a 40/60, 50/50, 60/40, or whatever.
[71:45] Now, the good news is that if you followed
the steps I taught in module 3, then you've
[71:50] already set yourself up for success.
[71:52] If you remember, one of the core content
structures I taught was called a product cluster.
[71:58] And again, these are groups of commercial
content pages that connect general comparison
[72:02] posts with multiple product reviews
as well as branded comparison posts.
[72:07] So if we were to transform this map into topics
for our hypothetical car seats affiliate site,
[72:12] we might have "best car seats" as our general
comparison, these topics as our product reviews,
[72:17] and maybe one branded comparison post
like Diono Radian vs. Britax Marathon.
[72:22] Boom. Our product cluster is complete
with a total of 6 commercial pages.
[72:27] Now, if we were going for a 1:1 ratio, we'd
want to choose around six informational
[72:31] pieces about car seats.
[72:33] To do that, I'll draw from my keyword research
list which I created with you in module 3.
[72:39] Now, all we have left to do is
create content on these topics.
[72:42] And creating content is what we're going
to go deep into in the next lesson, where
[72:46] I'll show you how to write commercial
blog posts that get traffic from Google
[72:51] and convert into affiliate commissions.
[72:54] Hey, it's Sam Oh and in this lesson, I'm going
to show you how to write money-making blog
[72:58] posts for an affiliate site.
[73:00] And when I say "money-making," I'm referring
to the three types of commercial posts we
[73:04] covered in module 3.
[73:06] And these are general comparisons
like "best golf balls", product reviews
[73:10] like "Titleist Pro V1 Golf Ball Review," and
branded comparisons like "Titleist Pro V1
[73:16] vs. Taylormade TP5 Golf Balls."
[73:19] Now, when you're writing these kinds of
posts for your affiliate site, you should
[73:22] have one primary goal in mind for your content.
[73:25] And that's to serve the intent of a visitor,
meaning you want visitors to be happy
[73:30] with the information they find on your page.
[73:33] Now, the reason this is important is because
when content satisfies the intent of visitors,
[73:38] you increase your chances of ranking higher
in Google because Google wants to show
[73:43] the most relevant pages for any given query.
[73:46] And because these queries have commercial
intent, when visitors are satisfied with the content,
[73:52] they're more likely to buy something from your 
affiliate merchant, leading to an affiliate commission.
[73:58] Fortunately, creating content for these
three types of keywords is quite similar.
[74:02] So I'm going to give you some flexible
templates you can use to give yourself
[74:06] the best chance at ranking high
and earning more commissions.
[74:10] So, let's talk about the first type
of commercial post which is for
[74:13] general comparison keywords.
[74:16] Again, these posts are going to be what
you use when you're targeting keywords
[74:19] like "best [product name]."
[74:21] So, "best garden hose," "best
booster seat," "best golf balls," etc.
[74:27] Now, because the word "best" implies that
a comparison needs to be made, the format
[74:32] you'll use for these general comparisons
will most likely be a listicle, which is just
[74:36] an article in list-format.
[74:39] And these general comparison posts
will typically have four main parts:
[74:43] The introduction, the summary,
the list points, and the conclusion.
[74:48] So let's start with the intro.
[74:50] Plain and simple, a listicle is not meant
to be read from start to finish.
[74:54] Nearly all readers will go in
with the mentality to skim.
[74:58] So with our intro, we want to keep it short
and sweet, while building credibility so they'll
[75:03] actually trust what you have
to say about these products.
[75:07] For example, if we're writing a post on the
best car seats for 3-year olds, in the intro,
[75:12] I might say something as simple as:
[75:14] "We tested 10 car seats and rated
them by comfort, price, and safety.
[75:18] In this post, we'll share our research
to help you find the best convertible
[75:22] car seat for your 3-year-old."
[75:24] It's short and sweet, instantly builds
credibility, and also tells the reader
[75:28] that they're in the right place.
[75:30] Alright, next up is the summary.
[75:32] As I mentioned before, listicles
won't be read in full.
[75:35] And that's because some, if not most
people just want the answer to what
[75:40] the best product is.
[75:42] That's why I suggest having a section 
like "Best [product] at a Glance."
[75:46] Here, you can simply add bullet points for
different categories like "best overall car seat,"
[75:52] "best car seat money can buy," "best car seat for
travel," and "best budget car seat" to name a few.
[75:58] Not only can this help improve clicks
on your affiliate links, but it provides
[76:02] good user experience for those
no-nonsense skimmers.
[76:06] Alright, now we're on to the list points,
which is going to be the meat of your post.
[76:10] Now, a list point is made up of
a heading and description.
[76:13] The heading will usually be the name 
of the product you're recommending.
[76:17] For example, my post on "best car seats for
3-year-olds" might have headings like "Diono
[76:22] Radian 3RXT," "Britax Marathon,"
"Britax one4life," and so on.
[76:28] As for the description, you're just
describing the heading in more detail.
[76:32] You want to give only necessary
information to help the buyer make
[76:36] an informed purchasing decision.
[76:38] Now, when it comes to writing descriptions,
it's best to keep the format consistent
[76:42] throughout the post.
[76:44] For example, if we're reviewing car seats for
3-year-olds, then we might have one sentence
[76:49] to describe the car seat, a few sentences
about how that specific car seat scored
[76:54] on our test categories like build quality,
safety, and performance – a supporting
[76:59] image of our analysis, and then perhaps
an overall score with a concluding statement.
[77:04] Predictable formats help people absorb
information more efficiently and that's
[77:09] what we want for our readers.
[77:11] Now, last but certainly not least, we want
to include links to the affiliate products and
[77:16] your product review page in the description.
[77:19] We'll get into writing product review pages in
a bit because first we need to write a conclusion.
[77:24] Here, you'll want to wrap up the post.
[77:26] You can do this by summarizing your top
picks and recommending other posts on
[77:30] your site that might be interesting to that reader.
[77:33] For example, it might make sense to link
to a post on the best car seat accessories
[77:38] at the end of our best car seats post.
[77:40] Now, these general comparison pages tie in
directly with product reviews because if you
[77:45] remember from module 3, a part of our
overall strategy is to build "product clusters."
[77:51] And product clusters are simply content
structures that connect a general comparison
[77:55] post with multiple product review posts.
[77:58] Now, when you're writing product reviews,
the intent of most visitors will likely be
[78:02] different than the intent of those
visiting a general comparison post.
[78:06] People who visit a "best of" post most likely
don't know which products they're interested in.
[78:12] Whereas someone who visits a product review
page titled something like "Diono Radian 3RXT
[78:17] review" has likely narrowed down their search
to a few products that interest them most.
[78:23] They're likely closer to making a purchase, and
want to dive deep before they spend money.
[78:29] So your goal for product reviews should
be to outline the positives and negatives
[78:33] to help visitors decide if that specific
product is right for their needs.
[78:39] So with that said, here's how I think
a product review should be written.
[78:43] First will be the introduction.
[78:44] And much like the "best of" post, you'll
want to keep it short, sweet and on point.
[78:49] And the two things that I think are
important for product reviews is to
[78:53] a) show the reader they're in the right place,
and b) to internally link back to the general
[78:58] comparison post to complete
the product cluster structure.
[79:02] For example, if I was writing a post titled
"Diono Radian 3RXT Review" I might say:
[79:07] "With its slim size and high safety ratings,
the Diono Radian 3RXT has become one
[79:12] of the most popular car
seats for kids.
[79:15] In fact, we classified it as one of
our best car seats for 3-year-olds.
[79:19] But it's not all glitz and glam.
[79:21] The Radian 3RXT is one of the heaviest
car seats and scored surprisingly low on
[79:26] some of our hands-on tests.
[79:28] In this review, we'll share the results of
our
[79:30] research to help you decide if this car seat
[79:33] is the right one for your toddler."
[79:35] Alright, now we're on to the body of the
content.
[79:38] What you decide to cover here
will vary based on your niche.
[79:41] Basically, you want to cover the most
important categories that shoppers in
[79:45] your niche care about.
[79:47] For example, with car seats, that might be
safety, size, comfort, ease of installation,
[79:53] portability and specs.
[79:55] For golf balls, that might be distance,
spin control, materials, feel, and price.
[80:01] These are the things you should cover in
your product reviews where each category
[80:05] will be your heading.
[80:06] And these categories are essentially what
will create your product review template.
[80:10] Now, with the conclusion, you'll just want
to wrap things up and perhaps suggest
[80:14] who the product is best for.
[80:16] For example, for our Diono Radian
3RXT post, I might say:
[80:20] "The Diono Radian 3RXT is a solid
choice for children ages 2 - 6.
[80:25] In fact, it scored extremely
high in all of our tests.
[80:30] On top of that, it's the only car seat we
tested where we could easily fit 3 of them
[80:34] in the back of a small sedan.
[80:36] If budget is not an issue for you, then you
won't
[80:39] be disappointed with the Diono Radian 3RXT."
[80:43] And we're done.
[80:44] Alright, the final commercial blog post type
I
[80:46] want to talk about are "branded comparisons."
[80:49] And these are your typical "vs posts".
[80:51] For example, Diono Radian 3RXT
vs. Britax Marathon.
[80:55] Now, when we think about someone who's
coming to a page like this, we know that
[80:59] the visitor has likely narrowed their product
research down to two or more products.
[81:04] But, they can't really decide on which
one is right for them so they want to do
[81:09] a side-by-side comparison.
[81:11] Basically, they're coming to your
page to weigh out the differences.
[81:15] So just like with the product review posts,
we want to address that in the introduction
[81:19] and again, help them make an informed
purchasing decision throughout the body.
[81:24] So here's what the intro might look like:
[81:26] "The Diono Radian 3RXT and Britax Marathon
are the heavy-weight champions of convertible
[81:31] car seats.
[81:32] They both have all the bells and whistles,
yet, they're completely different in just
[81:37] about every way.
[81:39] In this post, we'll compare the main features
of both models to help you decide which car
[81:44] seat is best for your little one."
[81:45] Now, as for the body, we want to take
a similar approach to product reviews
[81:50] and cover important topics that someone
looking to buy a car seat would want to know.
[81:55] So again for a car seat shopper, that might
be safety, size, comfort, ease of installation,
[82:00] portability and specs.
[82:03] But a key difference here is that instead
of
[82:05] highlighting these things for one product,
[82:07] we want to compare the differences
between the different models.
[82:11] Think of comparison tables that I'm
sure you've seen on sites like Apple
[82:15] or your favorite ecommerce store.
[82:17] Now, for the conclusion, it
would be much the same.
[82:21] Just wrap things up.
[82:22] Now, two important things to note from an
SEO
[82:24] perspective in these branded comparison posts,
[82:27] is to internally link to the individual product
reviews as well as the general comparison
[82:32] guide.
[82:33] And this is going to help you complete your
product cluster and create that beautiful
[82:37] structure we talked about in module 3.
[82:40] Now, writing money-making or commercial posts
is pretty straightforward for an affiliate site.
[82:46] Creating informational content on
the other hand is a bit more nuanced.
[82:50] So in the next lesson, I'll show you how to
write
[82:53] informational blog posts that are likely to
rank
[82:56] and show you how you can turn informational
pieces into silent profit generators.
[83:02] Hey, it's Sam Oh and in this lesson, I'm going
to show you how to write informational blog
[83:06] posts for an affiliate marketing site.
[83:09] And by informational blog posts, I'm talking
about how-tos, step-by-step tutorials, definition
[83:15] posts, and basically any type of content
where the primary intent is to learn.
[83:21] On top of that, I want to show you how
to generate affiliate commissions from
[83:24] informational blog posts that may not seem
to have commercial value at first glance.
[83:30] Let's call these silent profit generators.
[83:32] So let's get started.
[83:33] Now, before I walk you through some blog post
templates, it's important we discuss the first
[83:38] and most important step to creating content
for search – and that's search intent.
[83:44] Search intent represents the reason
behind a searcher's query.
[83:47] And the reason why it's important is because
you need to match intent in order to rank
[83:53] high in Google.
[83:54] For example, if we were creating a post about
how to clean car seats for a hypothetical
[83:59] kids'
[84:00] car seats site, what do you think
our content should look like?
[84:03] Should it be a step by step tutorial where
you walk them through cleaning your kids'
[84:06] convertible car seats?
[84:08] Or should it have a different format?
[84:10] Or wait… is this for convertible car seats,
infant car seats, or booster seats?
[84:14] Well, this was kind of a trick question because
the intent for the query "how to clean car
[84:19] seats"
[84:20] is actually about cleaning the seats in your
car – not cleaning a kids installable car
[84:25] seat.
[84:26] How do I know this?
[84:27] Well, the way we identify search intent is
by
[84:29] entering the query in Google and looking at
[84:31] the top-ranking pages.
[84:33] After all, search engines want to show
you the most relevant result for a query
[84:38] so the top-ranking pages are essentially
a guide to what Google thinks best serves
[84:43] the intent of a searcher.
[84:45] So as you can see, the top pages for "how
to clean car seats" are all about cleaning
[84:51] regular car seats so creating a post on
cleaning kids' car seats probably wouldn't
[84:56] rank for this query because
it's not matching intent.
[84:59] Now, for argument's sake, let's say that intent
was about cleaning children's car seats.
[85:05] Because the keyword has the word "how to"
in it, you might automatically think that
[85:09] you
[85:10] need to create a step-by-step guide.
[85:11] But what's interesting, is that the top 2
ranking pages are actually listicles with
[85:17] a set of tips - meaning, an unordered
list of methods to clean a car seat.
[85:23] So if you want to compete, you should follow
suit and create a post with a similar format
[85:27] to improve your chances of ranking high.
[85:30] We have a full SEO course for beginners where
we go much deeper into matching search intent
[85:35] and actually creating optimized content for
search, so I highly recommend watching that.
[85:40] I'll link that up and some SEO content
writing tutorials in the description.
[85:44] Alright, let's move on to a few blog post
templates you can use for different types
[85:48] of informational content.
[85:50] And all of these content pieces will contain
a title, introduction, body and conclusion.
[85:56] Let's kick things off with the first
post type and that's listicles.
[86:00] Listicles are blog posts that contain non-chronological
lists such as tips, product recommendations,
[86:05] tools,
[86:06] techniques, myths, mistakes, or whatever.
[86:09] For the title you can use any of these templates.
[86:13] Let's turn them into working titles:
[86:14] "11 Ways to Sneak Snacks onto a Plane"
[86:17] "7 SEO Tips that Actually Work"
[86:20] "4 Blogging Techniques to Grow Your Audience"
[86:23] Titles for listicles are about as easy as
they come.
[86:26] Now, as for the introduction, your goal
should be to build trust and excitement
[86:30] in as few words as possible because most
people are coming for the list points.
[86:36] For example, if you're writing a post on 7
SEO tips that actually work, you might say:
[86:41] "Ranking high in Google is more
challenging than ever before.
[86:44] But that doesn't make it impossible.
[86:46] As you can see, our blog ranks for over
11,600 keywords in the top 10 of Google.
[86:52] Today, I want to share a few simple
SEO tips that helped us get there."
[86:57] The intro is short and helps build trust because
we have proof that we've already achieved
[87:01] what
[87:02] the reader is hoping to achieve –
higher Google rankings.
[87:06] The last thing I recommend including in the
intro is a table of contents with jump links.
[87:11] This makes it much easier for visitors to
navigate throughout your post, especially
[87:15] since listicles need to be skimmable.
[87:18] If you're using WordPress, there are plenty
of
[87:19] free plugins to choose from, just search for,
[87:22] "table of contents" in WordPress's plugins
repository and you'll find plenty of free
[87:26] options to try.
[87:28] Alright, on to the main content.
[87:30] In the most basic form, your main content
will have a series of H2s or heading tags,
[87:35] and content that complements the headings.
[87:38] Now, depending on the type of listicle
you're creating, your H2s will vary.
[87:42] For example, if you're doing a series of tips
to achieve a goal, you'd want to use short
[87:47] and descriptive headings that would make
the reader want to read your content.
[87:51] For example, if your post was on 17 Weight
Loss Tips, rather than having point 5 as "Eat
[87:57] Spicy Foods," you might put "#5. Eat
Spicy Foods to Burn More Calories."
[88:03] Now, as for the content that goes under these
headings, you may want to consider creating
[88:07] your own mini-template.
[88:09] For example, if your post is on weight loss
tips, you might explain why your tip helps
[88:13] with weight loss in one sentence.
[88:15] Then you might explain how it works
and cite some research studies.
[88:19] Then you can end off the list point with two
sentences that will help the reader put that
[88:24] tip into action.
[88:26] Consistency creates a predictable reading
experience for your visitors and it also helps
[88:30] you as a writer to avoid tangents
which break flow.
[88:34] So with a mini template in hand, it'll just
be a matter of filling in the blanks for each
[88:38] subheading and before you know it,
you'll be onto your conclusion.
[88:41] For list posts, I wouldn't overthink the conclusion.
[88:44] The majority of people aren't even going to
get here but it's still important to create
[88:49] closure for people who do.
[88:51] My recommendation is to briefly summarize
a key takeaway and then recommend additional
[88:56] content that's related to your post.
[88:59] And internal links are good to use because
they pass link authority and overall, create
[89:03] a better user experience for your readers.
[89:06] So here's a sample of what
this template looks like.
[89:09] Feel free to pause or rewind to make sure
we're on the same page and then let's move
[89:13] on to the next blog post template
which are step-by-step tutorials.
[89:18] Step-by-step guides are your typical "how-to"
posts where you run through a series of
[89:22] chronological steps to teach how
to accomplish something.
[89:25] Now, for the title, you can use one
of these formats to get started.
[89:30] So if we turn these into real
titles, they might be:
[89:32] "How to Build a Deck (7 Steps)"
[89:35] "How to Start a Business (Even if
You Don't have Money)"
[89:38] "How to Find Email Addresses for
Link Building (Fully Automated)"
[89:41] Now, for the intro, write a short one using
the PSP method, which stands for problem,
[89:47] solution, and proof.
[89:49] For example, let's say you have a step-by-step
guide on how to do YouTube keyword research.
[89:54] Your intro might read:
[89:55] "Looking to grow your YouTube
channel and attract more views?
[89:58] The "trick" is to target topics
with search demand.
[90:02] This is the approach that helped us grow our
YouTube channel from ~10,000 to over 200,000
[90:07] monthly views in one year."
[90:09] Now, the reason why the PSP method is effective
is because people who are reading a step-by-step
[90:14] guide usually come with a problem.
[90:16] They're looking for a solution.
[90:18] And if you have proof of that solution,
you'll get their attention.
[90:22] Alright, so with the intro in the books, we
need to write the main content which will
[90:26] be your step-by-step instructions.
[90:28] And because step-by-step guides have a logical
sequence of instructions, you can use your
[90:32] H2s
[90:33] as the main steps.
[90:35] For example, our post on YouTube
keyword research might have H2s like:
[90:39] "Step 1: Map out a hierarchy of topics."
[90:42] "Step 2: Generate keyword ideas"
[90:45] "Step 3: Check search intent"
[90:47] …and so on and so forth.
[90:49] As for the conclusion, just keep it short
and sweet because step-by-step guides
[90:53] tend to be quite long.
[90:55] Again, I recommend adding internal links to
other relevant posts so you don't leave readers
[91:01] to want more at a dead end.
[91:03] So from our hypothetical YouTube keyword
research post, we might link to our guides
[91:07] on
[91:08] YouTube SEO and getting more subscribers
on YouTube – both are relevant to YouTube
[91:12] keyword research and serve what
a reader might want to learn next.
[91:17] Here's a sample of what this
template looks like.
[91:18] Feel free to pause or rewind to make sure
we're on the same page and then let's move
[91:23] on to the next blog post template which
is for the expanded definition post.
[91:27] Expanded definition posts are
somewhat similar to how-to guides.
[91:30] But rather than being written as a logical
sequence of steps, it's meant to give a high-level
[91:35] overview of a topic.
[91:37] Now, because these posts are expanded definitions,
you'll want to make your title something like:
[91:42] "What is or what are [concept or acronym]"
and
[91:46] then any additional details about your piece.
[91:49] For example, "What is an Oligarch:
Everything you need to know."
[91:53] "What are SERPs: Search Engine
Results Pages Explained."
[91:56] "What are NFTs? A Detailed Introduction
to "Expensive JPEGs."
[92:01] Now, the great thing about expanded definition
posts is that there's a clear format you can
[92:05] follow for the intro, main content, and conclusion.
[92:09] In short, you want people to come for
the definition and stay for the details.
[92:14] So for the introduction, you'll want to keep
it short and sweet by defining your concept
[92:19] or acronym.
[92:20] For example, our page on "What are SERPs"
immediately gives the definition, shows
[92:26] a supporting image, and then tells you
what you'll learn in the rest of the post
[92:29] with jump links to each section.
[92:31] Now, for the main content, I highly recommend
spending some time on your outline because
[92:36] you only want to include the most important
points that a person searching for "what is
[92:41] [something]" would want to know.
[92:43] For example, if we created a post targeting,
"what are NFTs," you can start by searching
[92:48] for ideas in Google's People also ask box.
[92:51] So from this list, these could act
as potentially good subtopics.
[92:56] You can also look in the related terms
report in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
[93:00] So based on these keywords, I'd probably want
to talk about the meaning of fungible, which
[93:04] is
[93:05] the F in NFT, I'd want to talk about how you
can buy an NFT, and how to invest in NFTs.
[93:11] Finally, look at the subheadings for
top-ranking pages for your target query.
[93:16] So this page talks about what they are,
how they're different from cryptocurrency,
[93:20] how they work, what they're used
for, and so on and so forth.
[93:24] So assuming we were creating
a post titled "What are NFTs?
[93:27] A Detailed Introduction to "Expensive JPEGs,"
we might have a main content outline that
[93:32] looks like this, where our intro solves the
"what" and the rest of the article will give
[93:38] a decent introduction to the NFT space.
[93:41] Now, for the conclusion, you just need
to summarize the key learnings.
[93:45] And again, I highly recommend adding internal
links to other articles that a beginner would
[93:50] want to learn more about.
[93:52] Because if they've made it to the bottom of
your expanded definition post, they'll likely
[93:55] want to learn more since the content
will typically be high-level.
[93:59] The bottom line with all of these templates
is
[94:01] that they need to match the intent of the
searcher.
[94:04] And the better you match it, the better your
chances of ranking higher in Google.
[94:08] Now, I've previously talked about how informational
blog posts can be silent profit generators.
[94:14] The way you do that is by
creating product-led content.
[94:18] And product-led content is simply content
that helps people solve a problem with
[94:22] the help of your product.
[94:24] Now, since you, as an affiliate, won't own
the products you recommend, you can think
[94:28] of it as creating product-led content for
other companies but posted on your own site.
[94:34] For example, let's say you have a DIY home
improvement site where you recommend various
[94:39] tools like drills, drivers and other tools.
[94:43] You might want to create a post on how to
winterize your sprinkler system which gets
[94:46] an estimated 2,700 monthly searches in Google.
[94:50] Now, as far as I'm aware, you need an air
compressor to winterize your sprinkler system.
[94:54] So it would be super-natural to organically
plug this product into your post.
[94:59] And because air compressors aren't exactly
a common household item like a hammer,
[95:04] some of these people will likely take your
advice and buy one through your link,
[95:08] leading to a commission.
[95:09] We have a full tutorial on product-led content
that I highly recommend watching if you want
[95:14] to learn how you can master silent profit
generators for your affiliate site.
[95:18] And that wraps up this module.
[95:20] In module 5, we'll be talking about
link building for affiliate sites.
[95:24] Get good at this, and you'll have no problems
generating consistent traffic from search
[95:29] engines.
[95:30] In this module, we're going to talk about
affiliate
[95:33] link building tactics and a simple macro
strategy
[95:35] that'll help you get higher Google rankings,
more
[95:39] search traffic, and more affiliate commissions.
[95:42] Now, backlinks are basically the fuel
to higher Google rankings.
[95:45] And while you may want to jump straight into
link building tactics, it's important that
[95:50] you first
[95:51] understand how you can best harness the power
of backlinks and also understand the realities of
[95:57] link building for affiliate sites.
[95:59] So, link building, whether it's for an affiliate
site, blog, or ecommerce store is most
[96:05] commonly done through email outreach.
[96:07] And this is where you contact people who might
be interested in linking to your web pages.
[96:13] Now, reaching out to some
random stranger and saying:
[96:16] "Hey, you like gardening? I sell garden tools.
[96:19] You should recommend my product
pages by linking to them everywhere."
[96:22] … is kind of awkward.
[96:24] And beyond being awkward,
it's selfish in a weird way.
[96:29] There's no benefit for the recipient of
these emails and that means you won't
[96:32] be getting any or many backlinks at all.
[96:35] Now, let's flip the script a bit and
let's say we email someone saying:
[96:39] "Hey, Sam here from thegardenseo.com.
[96:41] Just wanted to say thanks for sharing
your tutorial and detailed experiences
[96:46] with [Company A's] garden box kit.
[96:48] I bought the same model and had the exact
same
[96:51] problem with the pieces not lining up properly.
[96:54] After some tinkering, I found a cool way
to seal the gap seamlessly for under $5.
[96:58] I wrote about it in this post and
thought you'd like to check it out.
[97:03] If you find it helpful, perhaps your
readers would find it helpful too?
[97:06] Cheers, Sam"
[97:08] This is a bit less awkward because there's
inherent value for the recipient to actually
[97:13] want to share and link to your content.
[97:16] It's genuinely helpful and people
want to share helpful information.
[97:20] Now, that brings us to the realities
of the current state of link building.
[97:25] Yes, helpful content is going to be
easier to get backlinks to.
[97:29] So this will mostly be your informational
posts
[97:32] which we called T&A keywords in module 3.
[97:35] Now, as for commercial content like your
general comparisons, branded comparisons
[97:39] and product reviews, these are a bit trickier
to get links to because the only real value
[97:45] goes to you.
[97:47] And people receiving these link
pitches know that too.
[97:50] But that doesn't change the fact that you
need
[97:52] to get backlinks to these commercial pages
too.
[97:55] So I have two suggestions for you.
[97:57] #1 is to use the middleman method.
[98:00] This is when you build backlinks to the more
helpful pieces of content on your site because
[98:05] it'll be easier to get links.
[98:07] And as the links pile in, that page's
so-called ‘link authority' will increase.
[98:12] Now, since you control this authoritative
page,
[98:15] you can actually add internal links from here
[98:18] to your money pages.
[98:20] And what ends up happening is that some
of that link authority will get passed over
[98:24] to
[98:25] your commercial page that will hopefully
give you a boost in rankings.
[98:29] The informational post is essentially acting
as a "hub" to power pages that would typically
[98:34] be hard to get backlinks to and will help
you generate affiliate commissions.
[98:38] We have a full tutorial on this SEO strategy
which I'll link up in the description.
[98:43] Now, for more competitive topics, you're 
going to have to get backlinks directly to
[98:48] the commercial content.
[98:49] And the best way you can do that is to just
make
[98:53] your content really really really really
good.
[98:57] And when you actually have content that's
hit a level way beyond your competitors,
[99:02] you're going to want to promote it because
the reviews and roundups will be so good
[99:07] that it'll feel like a crime not to share
it.
[99:10] A few things you can do to improve your content
is to actually do hands-on reviews with videos,
[99:16] add custom photography or graphics, or get
unique insights from experts in the industry.
[99:22] Making your content better than your
competitors will be pretty custom to
[99:25] your niche and personal taste.
[99:28] So I highly recommend watching our 
video on how you can create content
[99:32] that's better than your competitors which
has a ton of examples to get your creative
[99:36] juices flowing.
[99:37] Now, this is just the general backlink strategy
I recommend using for new affiliate sites.
[99:42] And in the next lesson, I'm going to share
some
[99:44] proven link building techniques you can use to
[99:47] start putting this strategy into action.
[99:49] Hey, it's Sam Oh and in this lesson, I'm going
to show you how to execute a few proven link
[99:54] building tactics for your affiliate site.
[99:57] Now, link building is largely a numbers game
– meaning, you need to send a lot of emails
[100:01] to get backlinks.
[100:03] But there's one thing that can significantly
increase your chances of getting links using
[100:08] the techniques that I'm about to share with
you.
[100:11] And that's expertise.
[100:13] When you're an expert in something, that
usually means you have unique and interesting
[100:17] insights to share.
[100:18] And as a result, people will take
your word more seriously.
[100:22] For example, let's say you have a beauty blog
and in one of your posts, you mention that
[100:26] getting
[100:27] a regular teeth whitening is good
for your overall oral hygiene.
[100:30] Now, if some random person emails you
saying that you're wrong and they wrote
[100:34] a post explaining why you're wrong called
"best
[100:38] teeth whitenings", you'll probably ignore
them.
[100:41] But if a dentist emails you and tells you
that only certain types of teeth whitening
[100:45] products are good for you and the ones
mentioned in your post are downright
[100:49] dangerous, because of x, y, and z, you might
be inclined to make changes to your content
[100:54] and link to their content.
[100:56] They clearly have expertise.
[100:58] Now, being an expert, in the context of
link building, doesn't mean you need to
[101:02] be in the top 1% of your field.
[101:05] The majority of people writing content probably
aren't even interested in the topics they
[101:10] write about.
[101:11] So even being a passionate hobbyist can go
a long way as you have interesting insights
[101:15] to share from your own personal experiences.
[101:17] Now, I know absolutely nothing about
teeth whitenings, so don't pass around
[101:21] this misinformation.
[101:22] But the point is that if you're positioning
yourself as someone who's knowledgeable
[101:26] in your niche, link building will be much
easier - especially for the tactics I'm about
[101:31] to share with you today.
[101:33] And that leads us nicely into the first link
building tactic, which is to get free press
[101:37] from HARO.
[101:39] HARO stands for help a reporter out.
[101:41] It's a service that connects
journalists with sources.
[101:44] Just sign up for an account as a "source"
and
[101:46] you'll start getting emails with a list of
queries
[101:49] from journalists at various publications.
[101:52] And these include Business Insider, The New
York Times, and USA Today to name a few.
[101:57] Now, HARO is a super-easy way to get high-
quality backlinks because the journalists are
[102:02] the ones that are soliciting sources
-- not the other way around.
[102:06] Now, there are tons of requests that come
in on a daily basis and the majority won't
[102:10] be relevant to your niche.
[102:12] So you can set up a simple Gmail
filter to sort through the noise.
[102:16] Just go to your Inbox and click on the caret
to bring down Gmail's search options.
[102:21] Next, set the "From" field to
[email protected].
[102:25] Then, you'll want to set the subject to "HARO"
within square brackets since all of their
[102:31] emails
[102:32] include that in the subject line.
[102:33] Finally, set the "Has the words" field
to any keywords you want to monitor.
[102:38] And also use the OR search operator to
include multiple keywords or phrases.
[102:44] Click "Search" to see the results your
search filters would include and check
[102:47] out some of the emails to ensure
you're getting relevant results.
[102:50] If everything looks good, click on the
caret again and then click "Create filter."
[102:55] Now, even though we've filtered down the results
to relevant ones, it doesn't mean journalists
[102:59] are
[103:00] going to cite you just because you responded.
[103:02] And while you should go the extra mile to
provide
[103:04] unique and insightful information, half the
battle
[103:08] is in responding to the right questions.
[103:11] So to increase your chances of getting mentioned,
prioritize queries where journalists are
[103:15] likely looking
[103:16] for multiple experts on the topic.
[103:19] For example, in this query, Bustle is
looking for relationship therapists as
[103:23] in the plural of therapist.
[103:26] And they want to know more
about boredom in relationships.
[103:29] Now, the description is even more
clear that they want multiple experts.
[103:33] She says: "I'm working on an article
called "13 common mistakes that lead
[103:39] to boredom in a relationship."
[103:41] So more likely than not, she's looking
for multiple experts that can fill in
[103:44] the blanks in her outline.
[103:46] So if that niche makes sense for you, then
provide your best answer in as short of
[103:50] a response as possible, and then
move on to the next query.
[103:54] Now, if you're an expert in the field, then
make
[103:56] sure to state your credentials in the beginning
[103:58] of their email to set a tone and then earn
your
[104:01] trust through your knowledge and experience.
[104:04] I'd recommend using HARO without
an end date in mind.
[104:06] The quality of links are just that good for
the amount of effort it takes to respond.
[104:11] And if you're pairing HARO with the affiliate
homepage strategy I taught in lesson 3.4,
[104:17] you'll be maximizing the mileage from
these highly authoritative backlinks.
[104:21] Alright, the second tactic
I recommend is guest posting.
[104:25] Guest posting is when you create
content to be posted on another website.
[104:29] And generally speaking, that post comes
with attribution and a link back to your
[104:33] site.
[104:34] Now, while some sites won't allow you to
link to yourself within the content, most
[104:39] will,
[104:40] as long as it makes sense and
adds value to your guest article.
[104:43] So the first thing you need to do is find
websites that are likely to accept guest
[104:48] posts.
[104:49] To get started, you can use Ahrefs Content
Explorer, which lets you search through
[104:53] billions of pages and get SEO
metrics for all of them.
[104:57] Just search for a topic related to
your niche and run the search.
[105:00] Next, let's set a Domain Rating filter to
weed out
[105:03] both very low and very high authority websites.
[105:07] So I'll choose a range like 30 to 60.
[105:09] I'll also choose the "One page per domain"
filter since we don't need to pitch the same
[105:13] website multiple times.
[105:15] Finally, I'll set the "Published" filter to
the past 90 days, which will help us
[105:20] narrow in on websites that have published
or republished content in the last 3 months.
[105:26] Now, we still have around 80,000 websites
in our
[105:28] search results, which is just way too many
to pitch.
[105:32] So let's head on over to the Websites tab,
which
[105:34] will show you the top 100 websites from your
results.
[105:37] Now, it's just a matter of looking at
the domain names, visiting ones that
[105:41] look relevant, and pitching your
guest posts where appropriate.
[105:45] For example, this site gets decent search
traffic
[105:47] from Google, has a decent website authority,
[105:50] and has a bunch of authors, meaning,
they likely accept guest posts.
[105:55] So let's visit their site and take a look
through some of their articles…
[105:59] Things look fine here so let's head
over to their About page.
[106:02] And since they list their editor here, I'll
probably try and and pitch them with my idea.
[106:07] Now, if you don't know how to find these
people's email addresses, I'll link up a
[106:11] video
[106:12] on how you can do that in the description.
[106:13] Alright, the next link building tactic I
highly
[106:15] recommend is to do podcast interviews.
[106:17] Much like guest-posting, being interviewed
on
[106:20] a podcast puts you in the spotlight as an
expert
[106:23] in front of a someone else's audience.
[106:26] So if you actually have expertise in your
niche,
[106:29] this is going to be an easy one for you that’ll
[106:31] a) help you build a reputation
as an authority in your niche;
[106:35] and b) get backlinks while you're at it.
[106:38] Now, the thing I love about podcasts as a
link
[106:41] building strategy is that it only takes around
[106:43] an hour of your time and links are almost
a given
[106:47] if you choose your podcasts appropriately.
[106:49] Here’s what I mean: a lot of podcasts have
“episodes” pages on their websites.
[106:54] And these pages almost always include
a link back to the guest’s homepage
[106:59] and their social profiles.
[107:01] So to find podcast prospects that are likely
to
[107:03] link to your site, you can simply reverse-engineer
[107:06] a podcast interviewee’s homepage
backlinks or social profile backlinks.
[107:11] For example, if you’re in the SEO niche,
you
[107:13] might want to check backlinks to Tim Soulo’s
[107:16] Twitter profile, since he’s been a guest
on a bunch of podcasts.
[107:19] To get started, I’ll go to Ahrefs’ Site
Explorer and paste in his Twitter URL.
[107:24] Next, I’ll go to the Backlinks report.
[107:26] Now, to narrow in on links from podcasts,
I’ll
[107:29] set a page title filter to search for referring
[107:31] pages where the word “podcast”
or episode” is in the page title.
[107:37] From here, you can sift through the results,
visit relevant pages, and pitch yourself as
[107:42] a guest when appropriate.
[107:44] The benefit to being on podcasts
goes way beyond links.
[107:48] You get the chance to meet like-minded people
in your industry and building your network
[107:52] can
[107:53] go a long way even from an SEO perspective.
[107:55] Now, if you follow the course and rinse
and repeat these 3 tactics, you should
[108:00] have no problems getting some
traction to your affiliate site.
[108:04] If you want to go beyond these tactics, then
I recommend watching our full tutorial on
[108:07] link
[108:08] building for beginners which
I’ll link up in the description.
[108:10] And that wraps up our affiliate marketing course.
[108:11] I’ve linked up a full playlist to this
entire course in the description.
[108:12] Thanks for joining me, consider subscribing
and I’ll see you in the next tutorial.

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