93% of all online experience begin with a search engine.
This gives businesses an opportunity to attract new customers if they can rank on the first page or other search engines.
In the UK, some adwords keywords can cost up to £150 per click. For a company to pay this amount of money, they must know that they will make this money back over the customer’s lifetime.
Just imagine if you can rank first in the organic search results for some of these keywords. Think how much money there is to be made!
So, companies and people want to know how to do SEO or find people to do SEO for them.
This creates an opportunity for authority sites to teach people how to do SEO, recommend the best tools and courses or recommend agencies that can do SEO.
But is there money to be made in SEO affiliate marketing?
Let’s find out.
The Search Engine Optimization Industry
SEO Industry: By Numbers
- 60,978: Google searches per second.
- 33%: The percentage of clicks that the first organic search result will receive.
- 75%: The percentage of users that do not go on to the second page of Google.
- 93%: The percentageof online experiences that begin with a search.
- 40%: The percentage of people that search only on a smartphone in the average day.
- 57%: Percentage of B2B marketers that stated SEO generates more leads than any other marketing initiative.
What are People Searching For?
SEO Keywords
| Keyword | Difficulty | Volume (desc) |
|---|---|---|
| semrush | 19 | 40,000 |
| ahrefs | 11 | 17,000 |
| seo tools | 85 | 11,000 |
| keyword research | 80 | 11,000 |
| backlinks | 77 | 6,900 |
| long tail keywords | 52 | 2,900 |
| seo tips | 58 | 2,300 |
| buzzstream | 6 | 2,100 |
| check backlinks | 82 | 1,800 |
| free backlinks | 59 | 1,500 |
| how to do seo | 73 | 1,300 |
| how to rank higher on google | 33 | 250 |
| how to do seo on your own | 35 | 150 |
High Competition
The fact that all of your competition know how to do SEO is one of the inherent disadvantages of SEO affiliate marketing.
This means that almost all of the keywords that are monetizable are highly competitive.
It also means that a number of keywords are very competitive that are not instantly monetizable. This is because IMs are happy to get traffic to their site, even if they cannot monetize it immediately, to add visitors to their funnel and sell to them further down the line. This may be by getting them to sign up to a webinar or submit their email address.
This means that, across the board, keywords in the SEO space (and internet marketing in general) are a lot more competitive.
Branded Keywords
In terms of branded keywords, this is an area where you can have more success. Searches for tools, such as “Ahrefs”, “SEMRush” or “Buzzstream”, have high search volume and a low keyword difficulty.
This creates an opportunity to write reviews of the products to promote them to people looking to purchase the tools.
How to Keywords
How to keywords, such as “how to do seo”, “how to rank higher on google” or “how to do seo on your own”, are a great way to get traffic to add visitors to your funnel.
The people who are searching for these keywords know almost nothing about SEO. This means that they are looking for step-by-step guidance to rank their websites higher on Google.
As such, you can create a mini course.
Over the duration of the course, you can take them through the basics of SEO and recommend the tools that they require to be successful.
This is a great way to get maximum value from each visitor to your site.
Who is Doing it Well?
Authority Hacker
Here at Authority Hacker, a portion of our revenue is made up through SEO affiliate marketing. For the most part, this revenue comes from reviewing and recommending tools – like this SEMRush review.
Initially, the article looks like a simple review. There is an introduction with a clear call-to-action that has an affiliate link to purchase SEMRush.
This is followed by a summary of the product. This simple and visual section is a great way to give the reader a general overview of the tool.
You will notice that we do not simply give SEMRush 5 stars for everything. While this would, in all likelihood, increase sales, it is important in the long run to uphold your integrity if you want your audience to trust you.
However, instead of a simple review, what we did was combine a review and a tutorial.
What are the Best Offers?
| Advertiser | Category | Deal | Network |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEMRush | Tools | 40% Recurring Revenue, 10 year cookie | BeRush |
| KW Finder | Tools | 30% Lifetime Commission | Mangools |
| Long Tail Pro | Tools | 30% Lifetime Commission | Clickbank |
| Ninja Outreach | Tools | 50% Monthly recurring commissions | Post Affiliate Pro |
| Authority Hacker | Courses | Up to $500 per sale, 60 day cookie | Authority Hacker |
Pros of SEO Affiliate Marketing
- Recurring Revenue: SEO tools are usually billed by monthly subscriptions. This means that a lot of the offers give you an ongoing percentage of the fee for as long as the person you have referred is a subscriber.
- Easy Backlinks: Although you may think the opposite, the SEO community tends to hand out backlinks like their candy to worthy content.
- Complex Topic: People do not understand SEO. People need their hand held through the process and this is an opportunity for you to gather trust.
- Easy Content: If you know how to do SEO, it is very easy to create good content on the topic, especially for beginners.
Cons of SEO Affiliate Marketing
- High Competition: It is very hard to rank for monetizable keywords because the level of competition is very high.
- Require a Funnel: Because it is hard to rank for obvious keywords, you often require a lot more content (such as an online course) or a slick finnel in order to make money.
Should You Start an SEO Site?
No.
I would not recommend it.
Really, the competition is very high and it will take a long time before you make any money from organic search.
There are ways where you can make money through Facebook ads or paid search to subsidise the organic search but this takes more up front resources.
Along the same lines, because it is difficult to get traffic for clear-cut, monetizable keywords (such as “seo tools”), it takes a lot more resource to monetize this niche. This means that you need more resource and have to put in a lot more upfront.
This increases your exposure if the site turns out not to work. My advice would be to create a website that you can test out with a lot less up front investment.