If you analyze how affiliate marketers do keyword research for their sites, you will see that they do it wrong. They start with exploring low competition keywords. Then they create content and place as many affiliate links as they can.
Yes, this way will result in a huge spike in traffic. But there won't be any affiliate link clicks. As a result, it leads to zero conversions and no revenue.
It’s an amateur blogging mistake. How to solve this issue then?
Figure out keywords that have a high level of search volume. These keywords should cover the topics that will allow you to place a link to your product or service.
Besides, you can't forget about search intent. It plays a key part in the entire process. For instance, someone exploring information about "the best content design tool". This person wants to find out the pros and cons of the tool and buy it one day. Hence, it makes sense to place your affiliate link using this anchor.
However, if the person wants to find out "what is a content design tool", it is a whole different kettle of fish.
In this post, you will get familiar with four types of affiliate keywords you should target in your strategy.
Let's cut to the chase!
General Comparisons Keywords
General comparisons keywords include the keywords of the "best [product]" format. For example,
- best protein powder
- best electric guitar
- best mobile device
- etc.
When you use this keywords format, it makes it easier to recommend your products. You create a kind of comparison of the products, people explore it and decide whether to buy the product or not.
How to find these keywords?
For this, you will need to use one of the SEO tools that would allow you to explore keywords. In this case, this tool is Keywords Explorer from Ahrefs.
Let's say, your site reviews content design tools. Start with seed keywords. For instance, ad maker or bar graph.
Go to the "Phrase match" report and "Include" the word "best" to see the results.
It will allow you to explore many topic ideas that you can use in your content strategy.
If the keyword ideas are quite competitive, you can make the path easy for yourself.
How?
By exploring keywords that target a specific person or intention. These keywords belong to the "best [product] for [user]" format. A few examples:
- best guitar strings for beginners
- best wrist wraps for boxers
- best spices for chicken
You can find topic ideas by using the Keywords Explorer tool reviewing the same "Phrase match" report. However, at this time include a filter to find keyword ideas with "best" and "for" words.
There is a problem with these keywords - they don't normally have a low keyword difficulty metric. For example, "what is a bar graph used for" has a KD score of 36. And if you click the SERP results, you will see that the search results vary.
There are guides, comparison posts, etc. Plus, some of the pages don't have many referring domains. Thus, it will be easy to outrank them.
Branded Comparisons Keywords
It won't be hard to guess that branded comparisons keywords are used by users to see the difference between two branded products. For example:
- Hunter.io vs FindThat.Email
- Nike running shoes vs Adidas running shoes
- Xiaomi mi 11 ultra vs Xiaomi mi 10 ultra
Despite the fact that such keywords have a low search demand, they are pretty convertible. The thing is that the user has already narrowed down the purchasing decision limiting oneself with a few options to choose from.
To find keyword opportunities you should use the same approach as before. But instead of "best" and "for" words to include, you will have to focus on the "vs" option.
Afterwards, reap the benefits.
Product Reviews Keywords
When people are looking for detailed reviews of individual products, they use product reviews keywords. For example:
- Moz review
- iPhone 14 Pro review
- Acme Co. review
These keywords are the best option for affiliate websites. Why? Because the users are already at the third stage of the marketing funnel - consideration. To put it simply, they need a final nudge to purchase the product. And this nudge can be the product review.
Nevertheless, there is a problem. You need to know for a hundred percent what products are worth being reviewed. Not every product that you want to write a review on is in demand. Some products are out of people's interest. Hence, the search volume is low.
To sort things out, use the filter "review" in the "Phrase match" report and choose suggestions with a high volume.
The last thing to do is to identify keyword ideas with a moderate (or low) keyword difficulty.
Trust and Authoritative Keywords
You know how important it is to rank pages in Google. For this, you will need to build website authority. To build this authority you will have to acquire backlinks. But first of all, you need to have a good website developed that you need to increase traffic to.
But here is a problem - it is less possible to build links for pages that target commercial keywords. How to manage the situation then?
Try to target trust and authoritative keywords (T&A keywords). These keywords are out of commerce. They target topics that would help you educate and inform the users.
What are the benefits of such keywords?
Build trust with the audience
If you have some expertise in the topic, people will trust your product recommendations more.
Build authority with the help of backlinks
People prefer to link to some source of information, a useful piece of content rather than to the pages that have intent to sell something.
How to find T&A keywords?
If you still use the Keywords Explorer tool then go to the "Questions" report and filter down the results by applying keyword difficulty metric 40+.
You might wonder why there is a condition to set up the KD metric so high?
The thing is that this metric is based on the number of websites linking to these top 10 results in the SERP. In other words, this approach will help you find topics that could attract many links.
Finally, don't forget to investigate the results from the SERP to give you a clear idea of how many (and what exactly) links you need to build to outrank competitors.
Final Thoughts
Keyword research for an affiliate site is not as difficult as it seems. You should know the types of affiliate keywords to target. How to use them in your content strategy. And how to play with filters to find the most promising keywords for your affiliate website.
You have just got familiar with four types of affiliate keywords to take into account. Use your fresh knowledge in practice and earn money from the relevant users.
If you think the post lacks more tips, share your thoughts in the comments section down below.
