Affiliate marketing research question

by Shea

Posted: 12 years ago 8 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

So I'm in the process of learning everything I can.

Right now here's what I'm doing.

Use Adwords keyword tool to search keyword to see how many searches are done per month on a keyword.

Then typing the keyword into Google in "" to see how many results come up.

Hoping for at least hundreds of monthly searches for a keyword without too many thousands of search results on Google..looking for a good ratio.

Good method?

Well I've researched dozens of keyword this way and found potential good ones.. recording the keyword, # of monthly searches, and # of Google results.

I just found a keyword phrase that has tens of thousands of monthly searches but ONLY less than 10,000 "" results in Google. TWENTY times more searches/month than results in Google. Even without "" there are only three times as many Google results as there are monthly searches.

Plus there are several products in Clickbank that perfectly match the keyword phrase.

How common is it to find results like this, and have I found a potential "gold mine?"

#affiliate #marketing #question #research

Alexa Smith Banned 12 years ago

Originally Posted by Shea

Hoping for at least hundreds of monthly searches for a keyword without too many thousands of search results on Google..looking for a good ratio.

Good method?

A little flawed, I'm afraid.

Look at it this way: which you would you rather compete for, a keyword with 5,000 competing sites of which the whole of the first page comprises age-old authority-sites each with multiple, relevant, high-PR backlinks from other age-old authority-sites, or a keyword with 5,000,000 competing sites with nothing much to speak of on the first page, some article directory articles and this sort of nonsense which one can beat in about 3 days? (There are many keywords like this).

It's a no-brainer, isn't it?

The reality is that this idea that "the more pages the harder the competition" - however popular and widespread it it - is a fundamentally misguided one.

When I'm researching a keyword, what I care about is the SEO quality of the top 5 listed results for it in Google.

I need to study those in detail because those are my only 5 competitors. If I can't replace any of them, there's no point in my trying the keyword, because I can't get any traffic for it (to speak of). I don't care whether those top 5 results, which I'll analyse and examine in detail, are followed by 4,995 other results or 4,999,995 other results: those others are simply not relevant to me at all.

Systems based on/around "numbers of pages" are therefore somewhat flawed.

SEO isn't about "numbers of things", really. It's about quality and relevance. At all levels, from keyword research onwards.

This is not to suggest that the keyword you found is no good, of course! But as always, you can judge that only by assessing the quality of the competition, and don't take too much notice of its quantity.

Originally Posted by Shea

Plus there are several products in Clickbank that perfectly match the keyword phrase.

That's potentially good, if they're good quality products whose sales pages will convert the traffic you can generate. That has to be your starting position, though, because without that being so, it doesn't matter how much traffic you send there.
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- Shea 12 years ago
  
  Thanks Alexa..yeah I'm pretty much aware of that..I do look to see what the actual results on the front page look like. Not so sure how to check on how good the seo is of those five sites though.
  
  For the one I mentioned, there is only one actual site dedicated to the subject itself on the first page(comes in at #5). The rest are Yahoo Answers, a Youtube link, how-to sites, things like that.
  
  Thanks
  
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- theultimate1 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Alexa Smith
  
  When I'm researching a keyword, what I care about is the SEO quality of the top 5 listed results for it in Google.
  
  Alexa, that was a great post. Eye-opener indeed, at least for me.
  
  I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on how you go about getting the SEO information of your top 5 competitors? What tools/plugins do you use? What all aspects do you look for information on?
  
  Thanks a BIG BIG ton, in advance
  
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  Alexa Smith Banned 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by theultimate1
  
  I would appreciate it if you could elaborate on how you go about getting the SEO information of your top 5 competitors?
  
  I check out their sites and backlinks (using a few different backlink checkers, because none is really reliable). I check the age of their domains, see who owns them (if I can) and do a subjective assessment of "whether I think their SEO's likely to be any good". All very scientific stuff ... :p
  
  But it's good enough for me to be able to tell whether or not I want to compete with them, to be honest.
  
  I don't let numbers of backlinks alone influence me, though. (If someone has a million forum profile and article directory backlinks which they've had mass-produced with no regard to quality at all, then I know that even an incompetent technophobe like me can overtake them in a week just by syndicating three or four articles to quality, relevant sites. Which is where looking at quality is so important).
  
  These days, it's so common for lower-PR pages to outrank higher-PR pages, and for sites with 20 - 30 quality backlinks to outrank sites with 200,000 craplinks that it's glaringly obvious that quality and relevance are what matter to Google. So they do to me, too, to the extent that I'm thinking of SEO. And you can normally tell fairly easily if a site's done "quality SEO".
  
  Subjective, of course, and approximate (allowing for slightly varying search results, and so on - not usually a very significant factor), but it's been reliable enough for me so far ... and Google certainly seems (as all the text-book authors say in their newer editions) to be accentuating quality and relevance more and more, and taking less and less notice of "numbers of backlinks" and non-context-relevant backlinks, and even page ranks, with every change to their algorithms.
  
  Thankfully, the "old-fashioned SEO techniques" are fast declining in importance. In my opinion, from what I've read and seen, quality, relevance and user-experience are to some extent "the new SEO".
  
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nthmarketing 12 years ago

When doing keyword analysis there are four areas you want to be aware of. Here is a basic listing of what is needed.
1. You need to find Relevant keywords which I'm sure you understand.
2. You need to find High Traffic keywords again I think you know why.
3. You need to assess the Competition. This is where a lot of the work begins unless you know who your competing with you don't know how easily you can enter the market. For instance, if you were searching for "word processing software" you might get huge traffic and very relevant keywords however, you see that Microsoft owns the top 10 spots on the first page of Google. Odds are your not going to be able to compete with them.
4. Finally you need to know the Commerciality of the keywords. Meaning are people buying that are searching for those keywords.

So unless you have a keyword(s) that is relevant, has high traffic, low market competition and has decent commerciality. Your most likely NOT going to make much money off it.

You can easily search Google on any of these phrases to give you more detail on how to get answers on how to find these things I mentioned. Or you can find quite a few keyword research products that will help you automate these processes.

Hope that helps,
Fred
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Affililancer 12 years ago

I think Alexa and nithmarketing have provided you some really great insight. I would like to add that affiliate marketing is not only about generating traffic (in your situation SEO) it is also about the visitor and the fact that your selling to a human being. I would add that you need to look at the psychology behind the keywords you are researching. There is a difference between a keyword like "what acne causes" vs "best acne solution". Plus, understanding what drives your niche market is extremely important. What are their fears? What are they angry about? What is frustrating them? This way when you do rank in the first spot on the search engines you have a chance to actually make money with the solution you provide them.
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Kurt 12 years ago

The problem with Alexa's advice is, which Top 5?

The top 5 for her IP? The top 5 for your IP? The Top 5 for one person's customized search?

There's multiple Top 5s now-a-days.

Plus, optimizing for a single keyword only brings ranking. Professional, experienced SEOers realize that more than half of all SE traffic is for "one of a kind" keywords. And for these searches, Google actually struggles to find relevant search results.

Many experienced SEOers, such as Dave Kelly (he helped develop Word Tracker and now is better known for Linkvana), John Robinson of X Factor and myself take another approach.

Instead of worrying about your competition for any given keyword, remember that ALL words in your articles are keywords. And each of them can bring traffic, individually and in combination. And it's these combos that can rake in the traffic.

Pick a few main keywords. Research the top sites for each keyword. Find the related keywords they are using.

Next go here and reserch the keyword themes for your list of keywords:
http://lsikeywords.com/

Gather them all in a list.

Now, add some money keywords, such as "cheap" "discount" "buy", etc.

Toss in popular related product names and models.

Now you should have a big list of keywords.

Write your articles naturally, working in these keywords where you can. Go back over your article and add more keywords from your list, where you can.

Most keyword advice you read is for getting a rank for a particular keyword or phrase. I suggest you focus more on getting TRAFFIC from a variety of keyword combos.

And, instead of spending time with keyword research, use that time to build authority to your sites. Over the long-haul I'll bet you'll have more success.
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murtuza 12 years ago

I personally don't follow this formula. Here's what I do and the research is quick for me. Download and install SEOQuake. When you do this it will instantly give you research data right on your google search page for every google listing.

I mainly look for no. of backlinks of that page, no. of backlinks the total site has, PR of the site and possibly no. of pages of content that site has.

I take average of how much work I have to do seeing first 20 results. If I get a feel that the average page rank is 3, no. of backlinks on the page is approx. 150, then I give that keyword a try, I have a goal to shoot, that is 150 backlinks.

In many cases you will find that sites with page rank 0 and with almost no links to the internal page are on the first page for moderate searched keywords, which makes me think, if that guy landed up there, I can easily reach there....
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