How Keywords Can Enhance Your Affiliate Program Income

Key words. Everyone talks about them. If there’s one thing that everyone knows about creating a website, it’s that you have to use keywords. They’re the things that help people find you. They’re the things Google, and other search engines, use to rank you so that the right people reach your website. And these things become doubly important if you’re looking to make money from your website, either by selling your own goods and services, or working with affiliate program. But, how do you know which keywords will work for you?

The Benefits of Thorough Keyword Research

A disappointingly huge number of website owners pull keywords from the tops of their heads. Then they just hope for the best. While it’s positive that they are giving it some thought, it’s far from the best approach.

Thorough and frequent keyword research not only helps you to better reach your target audience and reach the widest possible audience available, but to most effectively describe the things that you’re trying to promote. And this applies to both your web content and paid marketing. It’s one of the best steps you can take towards achieving success.

How to Find the Right Keywords to Promote Your Affiliate Program’s Goods and Services

The beauty of working with an established online affiliate program is that they will probably have already identified some keywords for you. Your job is to find others that will promote the affiliate program’s message, goods, or services, while making your site unique. How?

1. Brainstorm. Make a list of everything you can think of with that is even remotely linked to your subject. For dating offers, for example, you might have: love, relationships, romance, friendship, heterosexual, same-sex, fun, happiness, together. Then, add anything related that might come to mind: long-term, short-term, sex, dinner dates, overseas: anything that says dating to you. Ask your friends and family to join in too.
2. Competitors. If you’re struggling to find keywords to suit your affiliate program’s subject, then check out your competitors. For dating traffic, for example, you might want to search for ‘dating blogs’. Look at the highest ranking on Google, then research the keywords they rank for. If any suit your site, add them to your list.
3. Refine. Once you’ve created a list suited to your affiliate program, paste the words into a keyword planner. There are various keyword planners available – Google, Ahrefs, Wordstream – but they all work in roughly the same way. You will usually be able to organise your results according to country, or other criteria.
4. Analyse. Next, you need to work through the list and compare them for search rate and competitiveness (how many other sites use them). Discount the words that a lot of other sites are using as it will be hard to push to the top of the ranking.
5. Niche. By this stage you should be left with a list of high-ranking keywords. All you have to do now is select the ones on your list that best describe your affiliate program products. Remember to keep your target demographic in mind so that your keywords reach the right people. Finding, maintaining and working within your niche is integral to success.
6. Once your website has been running for a while, you can then use an analytics program to see which of your keywords are drawing visitors. You can also use the data provided to follow up and search any other words that your visitors have used. Job done!

How ever you’re using your website, finding traffic is key. And finding the right keywords could make a real difference to your eventual income.