7 Steps to Affiliate Profits Using KEI

7 Steps to Affiliate Profits Using KEI
How anyone can profit from overlooked keywords by reversing the keyword selection process.

You're probably aware of the Wordtracker service that simplifies the process of identifying keywords that are specific to your service or product. What you might not know is how entrepreneurs are using this remarkable tool to identify – and cash in on – overlooked keyword opportunities.

Instead of starting with a product and looking for keywords, they do the opposite – they seek out under-utilized keywords with little SEO competition that match products being sold through affiliate agreements.

Using KEI to identify potentially profitable keywords

Working this system sucessfully begins with understanding the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). In simple terms, this is a rating given to a keyword based upon the number of times per day it is used in a search and the number of pages that are competing in that keyword search. The higher the KEI rating, the more "effective" the keyword – in other words, the better your chances of ranking at the top of the search engines.

Wordtracker scores keywords on the KEI scale as such...

Looking at the scale above we see that a KEI rating under 20 indicates a poor keyword. As you approach a KEI rating of 100 you're significantly increasing keyword effectivness and anything much over 100 is very good to excellent.

The 7 Step Approach to Affiliate Profits

So, let's do some research. We'll start from the beginning and go all the way to finding potentially profitable products that match under-utilized keywords with high ranking potential for search engine optimizers.

Step One:

Login to Wordtracker and view the Short Term Top 1000 Searches.

WordTracker offers a long-term and short-term frequently searched keywords list. This list can be used to quickly locate terms that are searched for on a regular basis thus indicating products for which there is at least some demand.

Step Two:

Read through the list and locate potential product related keywords that are likely to match up with affiliate programs.

Reading this list from the bottom up (least searched-for to most searched-for) quickly indicates keywords that are less to more competitive. Add keywords to your list which correspond to a product that you think could be sold online through an affiliate program. If it's possible it could be sold that way, it probably is. Here are some examples:

atlas
yu-gi-oh
spanish dictionary

Step Three:

Once you've compiled a short list of potentials, navigate to Wordtracker's Comprehensive Search area and locate high potential keywords suitable for SEO targeting.

You can enter more than one keyword at a time. This helps you locate the most effective keywords within whatever particular batch you are testing. This will also identify additional keyphrases and will display the most highly ranked phrases according to the KEI.

Since some product keywords will have better or worse keyword phrases in terms of SEO targeting, it's best to locate products with the best available keyword phrases before we start searching for affiliate programs. The most suitable keyword phrases will be those with a sizeable number of searches and a limited amount of competition – this is, of course, the basis of the KEI formula.
For more info see: http://www.wordtracker.com/help/keihelp.html)

You could enter one phrase at a time but because WordTracker allows multiple unrelated phrases it's more efficient to enter multiple keywords if your goal is to quickly locate an assortment of keyphrases with high ranking (and profit) potential.

For instance, entering this list...

atlas
yu-gi-oh
spanish dictionary
jewelry
guitar chords
webcams

...will get you results for everything on the list. From there you can combine and sort the list of keyphrases and their search counts.

.... and a few hundred more results.

Step Four

Be sure that all the new results are checked, and then click the Perform Competition Search button at the bottom of the page. The following screen will appear.

Select the one or two search engines you wish to query – typically the engine you'll be optimizing your site for – and then hit Proceed. This produces the following results...

...followed by another 90 more results.

Now that you've sorted results, search through the keyphrases for those with the most potential – i.e., the most searches with the least competition.

Step Five

Take your refined list of high potential keyphrases, and login to one of the affiliate reseller sites. In our example we'll use Commission Junction – CJ.com (free registration required) – and locate their product search box.

Copy and paste your product-related keyword into the box to locate affiliates selling that product.

As an alternative, you can also view all the affiliate programs listed on CJ.com broken down by category. Once you've logged in to cj.com, click the Get Links tab and you'll see the following screen.

Step Six

Determine the program(s) that fit your interest coupled with the highest potential based upon KEI and apply for inclusion in their program.

Step Seven

Create your web site(s), etc. by optimizing for your high-potential keyphrases.

Conclusion

Using Wordtracker to seek out the best keywords for your existing product or service is a no-brainer – chances are, you already do that. We also know that SEO specialists are using the service to find attractive keyword niches and then matching them to clients – again, no secret.

However it's surprising how profitable it can be to reverse engineer the keyword selection process. By finding under-used keywords that are popular enough to produce traffic but obscure enough to show only limited competition you're following a formula that's making a few resourceful entrepreneurs quietly rich!

Happy prospecting