Today, I'm going to show you some of the best
keyword research tips to find revenue-generating topics for your affiliate site. Stay tuned. [music] Not all traffic to your website is going
to lead to affiliate commissions. Some pages will go on to generate hundreds
of dollars, others tens of thousands of dollars, and some won't even generate a dime in commissions. Now, the thing with affiliate marketing is
that you shouldn't forcefully plug products just for the sake of getting a commission. People aren't going to click a link just because it's there. You need to find topics that a) get searched in
Google, YouTube or whatever search engine you're optimizing for; and b) topics where it's natural to
plug product recommendations. So before we get into the tactics, it's important
you understand the concept of "searcher intent." Search intent tells us about the purpose of a
searcher's query and it'll determine whether you can organically recommend products. For example, if someone searches for
"best protein powder," chances are they're in the market to purchase a product but they
want to weigh out the pros and cons, look at different brands, and assess
variables like price, quality, and so on. As a result, these searchers are more
likely to click an affiliate link in that post and possibly make a purchase. Whereas a topic like "what is protein powder"
is more informational in nature. So based on the keyword alone, we don't know
whether the searcher is writing a research paper, is exploring the world of supplements, or wants
to know which type of protein powder to buy. Simply put, this topic probably wouldn't generate
many clicks to protein powder products because the majority of people aren't in the market to buy it. So with that in mind, we'll talk about four
different types of affiliate keywords and how they fit into an affiliate marketing site. And these are: general comparisons; branded comparisons; product reviews; and T&A keywords. Let's go through the value of each type and
I'll show you how to find tons of opportunities in virtually any affiliate niche. Now, for the purposes of this tutorial, let's say we're
working on a site that promotes products for babies. Alright, the first type of keywords are
general comparisons. These are your typical "best [product name]" keywords. For example, "best strollers," "best
carriers," "best baby bottles," etc. These types of keywords are super-easy to
recommend products because that's essentially what the post is about. The keyword "best" implies that there are
comparisons that need to be made. On top of that, people searching for these
"best [product name]" keywords are likely in the market to purchase something in
the near future. Why else would they be looking for
product comparisons? So to find these keywords, you'll need
a keyword research tool. And obviously, I'll be using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer. So I'll start off by searching for a broad
keyword like "baby." Next, I'll go to the Phrase match report
since we want to generate keyword ideas. And since we're looking for general comparison
keywords, I'll click the Include filter and type in "best," which will show us keywords that include
the words "best" and our seed keyword "baby." And right away, we have a massive list
of great comparison topics. Now, since there are over 110,000 keyword
ideas, we can narrow down the list to just low-competition topics using the Keyword
Difficulty filter. So let's set a maximum Keyword Difficulty
score to something low like 10. And there are some great topics here
that are worth considering. Now, it's important to note that you shouldn't
just go after keywords with low KD scores. As you may have noticed, our set of low-difficulty
topics are reviewing cheaper products like "baby bath tubs," "lotions," and "wraps." So while these can help you generate revenue,
it'll be very much a volume's game. Whereas products with a higher price tag, like
"best car seats," will usually be more competitive. But there's a way to actually find keywords
that target higher ticket items while still being relatively low-competition. And these are topics that target a specific
person or need. And the general format for these keywords
will be "best [product name] for [user]." For example, "best car seat for small car"
or "best carrier for newborn." So let's go back to Keywords Explorer and
this time, I'll enter a few higher-priced items like "car seat," "stroller," and "crib." Again, I'll go to the Phrase match report. And finally, I'll click the Include filter and
type in "best," "for." Now, since the "All words" tab is chosen,
it's going to show us keywords that include one of our high-ticket products, and
both of our included words. And now you'll see keywords like "best convertible
car seat for small cars," "best car seat for 5-year-old," and so on. Now, a KD of 28 isn't exactly "low." But if you click on the SERP button, you'll see
that some pages are specifically targeting "convertible seats for small cars." And despite having lower website authority and
fewer referring domains, they're still outranking some of the more authoritative generic pages. So this could potentially be a great keyword
opportunity for our baby site. Alright, the next type of keywords are
branded comparisons. These are keywords where a searcher
wants to compare the differences between two branded products. For example, that might be "beats
studio wireless vs bose qc35." These types of keywords usually have lower
search demand, but they convert very well because the searcher has likely narrowed down
their purchasing decision to a few products. The easiest way to find these keywords is
to create your own list of brands and put it into a keyword research tool. So assuming I wanted to find stroller
comparisons, I could search for "bugaboo," "city select," and "uppababy." Next, I'll go to the Phrase match report. And again, I'll go to the Include search box, and this time, I'll type in "vs.," since we're
looking for comparison keywords for any of these brands. So something like "uppababy cruz vs. vista"
would seem like a really low-hanging topic seeing as these strollers retail for $500
to over $1,000! And looking at the SERP, you'll see that the
top ranking pages come from low DR sites and have few referring domains. So it looks like they can be beaten quite easily. Now, if the company you've inputted makes
multiple types of products like strollers, car seats, and bottles, then it may be better
to input model names as your seed keywords, like "uppababy cruz," "uppababy vista," and so on. Alright, the next type of keywords are detailed
product reviews. These would be keywords like "bose qc35 review"
or "uppababy vista review." Searchers that are looking for reviews on
these topics are probably very close to making a purchase. They've researched multiple products, something
caught their attention about a specific model, and now they want a more in-depth review on it. Now, just like the branded comparison keywords,
search volumes will be lackluster to say the least. So, if you're going to buy these products and
actually review them, you'll want to make sure you're reviewing products that people
are actually searching for. A simple way to find brands and models worth
reviewing is to go to a popular Ecommerce site and look through the different categories
and brand names in their navigation. So right now, I'm on buybuybaby.com and I'm
looking at their "Shop all car seats" page. Now, if I click on the dropdown for Brand,
you'll see a list of brand names that you can jot down. So I've already gone ahead and done that and
saved a list to my clipboard. So I'll paste 10 of those into Keywords Explorer
and run the search. And let's head over to the Phrase match report
and we'll hit the Include filter again, but this time we'll search for "review" with an asterisk,
which will act as a wildcard. And now we know exactly which brands we'd
want to review, and some specific models which you now have keyword metrics for. So by this point, you should have enough topics
where it's easy to include product recommendations. Now, the last type of keyword probably won't
directly contribute to revenue, but it serves an important purpose. And these are T&A keywords, which stands
for Trust and Authority. In order to rank your pages, you need to have
some kind of page-level and/or website authority. Meaning, you need backlinks. But unfortunately, all of the keyword types
we've discussed so far are commercial in nature, making it tougher to get links to these pages. I mean, would you rather link to a post of 10
random kitchen knives or one on how to sharpen a kitchen knife? Probably the latter, right, seeing as it's
non-commercial and provides more objective value for your audience. So creating non-commercial content with the
intent to educate and inform your visitors is helpful in two ways. #1. You build trust with your audience; and #2. You build authority through links. And that's where T&A topics come into play. The purpose of these topics are to provide
useful information to your audience and a linkable resource for bloggers. So to find these keywords, let's search for
a few seeds that are related to our baby site. So I'll type in "parenting," "toddler," and "newborn." Next, I'll go to the Questions report since
these will all be informational topics. Finally, I'll set a minimum Keyword Difficulty
filter to something high like 40. And the reason why I'm setting a high minimum
KD is because Ahrefs' Keyword Difficulty metric is based on unique websites linking to
the top 10 pages. And now we have a list of topics where we
know the top 10 pages have lots of links pointing at them. You just need to decide whether the topics
would be useful to your target audience, look at the SERP, and then analyze some of the
backlink profiles of the top-ranking pages. Now, even though visitors to these pages may
not be ready to make a purchase right then and there, you can link internally to relevant
money pages, which should give your revenue- generating posts a boost in rankings. And we have a full video on this SEO strategy,
called "the middleman method," so I'll link that up in the description. So by now, you should be able to find more
than enough topics to fill up your affiliate site's content calendar. But before you do that, I strongly recommend
watching our full keyword research tutorial where you'll learn how to assess ranking difficulty
and choose topics based on traffic potential. Which are two things you should be doing for
every topic you target. Now, if you enjoyed this video, then make
sure to like, share, and subscribe for more actionable SEO and marketing tutorials. I'll see you in the next one.
