Hello Everyone!
I haven’t posted anything in a long time as I’ve been busy with my affiliate websites. This post details exactly what I did to build and grow my first affiliate website to $1000/month. Expect no fluff in this post as I really don’t have time for that. Everything will be straight-forward and to the point. If you’ve any questions, feel free to drop your comments.
A Brief Overview
Let’s start with data first.

May 2017 Earnings
This was my first ever affiliate website that I started back in September 2016. Yes, call me a newbie. The website made it’s first 70 cents in October and then next 5 bucks in November. Here is the earnings data to date:
Year | Month | Earnings (USD) |
---|---|---|
2016 | October | $0.70 |
November | - | |
December | $5.55 | |
2017 | January | $1.79 |
February | $49.19 | |
March | $338.86 | |
April | $657.06 | |
May | $1,158.00 | |
June | $636.92 |
Here are some of the key stages explained in detail:
1. Keyword Research
I didn’t waste a lot of time in keyword research. In fact, I accidentally hit this niche and found it through someone’s Facebook timeline. Before that time, I had no idea about how keyword research works. You won’t believe but I actually setup my website right after I came across the niche. All I looked at was search volume (5k+ Average Monthly Searches) and product price ($90-$200).
I had no idea how to do a competitor analysis and what it takes to rank a website. But once my first round up post was live, that was when I learned I should do keyword research. I used KWFinder and Ahrefs keywords explorer to analyze keyword difficulty and then discover more related keywords in that niche. Ahrefs is better at checking keyword difficulty, but it’s expensive for beginners. So I find KWFinder economical and useful at the same time.
Please note that if you’re solely relying on metrics from these tools to make your decisions, you are mistaken. I mostly use KWFinder for finding more keywords in a niche. I do look at the keyword difficulty values, but that’s where my research begins. Manually evaluate search results. Analyze your competitors, their on-page, off-page and everything they’ve done to rank. Only then you’ll be able to decide if you should be aiming for this keyword or not.
I tried hard but couldn’t find a good niche.
If ^^that’s your excuse for not starting a niche website, join the NicheHacks Facebook Group. This group is owned by Stuart Walker from NicheHacks who is a famous internet marketer. You will find 100’s of niche website ideas if you read his blog and follow FB group closely. I’ve started 2 new websites recently and NicheHacks FB group is where I discovered those niches.
Tools used
- KWFinder
- Ahrefs
- Google Keyword Planner
Key Takeaways
- If you’re having a second thought on whether you should do it or not, JUST DO IT. You will learn something anyways.
- If you want to learn SEO, join some good SEO groups. Lion Zeal Mastermind was probably the first ‘good’ SEO group I joined. It’s run by Daryl Rosser at Lion Zeal and he is an excellent young internet marketer.
- Don’t rely on tools completely. Do manual research and use common sense.
2. Domain and Hosting
I went with a partial match domain. Back then, I had no idea about EMDs (exact-match domains), PMDs (partial-match domains) and branded domains. I just thought it was a good name and I went with it, without thinking of any SEO aspects. But now, I prefer going with branded domains.
I see a lot of people wasting too much time on this step. Please don’t. Come up with any name and move on to the real thing. I got a domain for $12 and hosting for $9 at Namecheap. A really good hosting package for getting started. You can host up-to 3 websites which is great. Though I have started hosting my new websites on Siteground now. Expensive, but better in a longer run.
But if you are a beginner, don’t bother investing too much on hosting if you have limited funds. Save that money and spend on more important stuff like content and links.
Services used
- Namecheap
Key Takeaways
- Don’t overthink. Take massive action.
- Plan your budget wisely.
3. Content
If someone told you content is king, that’s true 100%. Good content is extremely vital to the success of your website. A well-written piece connects with readers and definitely converts well. You can outsource your content or write it yourself if you don’t have enough funds.
I didn’t have enough funds but I took a different approach. I partnered with a content writer and offered her a percentage in the ownership. There are endless possibilities when you want to get things done. All that’s needed is your desire to take action.
I told my writer to write more content than what our competitors on page 1 had. So we went with 3k+ words approx. This was published on the homepage. There was nothing else published for the next month.
Then I published another round-up in November. And the website has total 5 money posts (2500+ words) and 4 informative articles (500+ words) as we speak.
Don’t under-estimate the important of OnPage SEO. I didn’t know much about it until I came across few of the best internet marketers; Matt Diggity from Diggity Marketing and Charles Floate. Trust me, I was so sick of information overload and trying random bullshit from the internet until I found them. Both these guys really know their stuff and all their advice is based on real data and rigorous testing. I haven’t directly interacted with any of them but they all make a huge contribution towards the success of my affiliate website(s). Go read their on-page SEO guides and make sure you implement it right.
Key Takeaways
- When doing round-up posts, list all items in a table at the top. Tables convert extremely well.
- Your on-page SEO should be top-notch.
4. Off-site SEO
Being a beginner, I wasn’t aware of maintaining anchor text ratios, link velocity and all that technical stuff. I read somewhere to reverse-engineer the competition and replicate. I did the same. So one of the main competitor was having around 300 links. 90% of the links were blog comments with exact-match anchor text. I replicated. (I’ll never do that again, even though it worked well back then).
I spent some time in acquiring scholarship links as well. Like I sent out 25-30 emails and was able to secure 4 good edu links. I found it daunting later on and stopped. Now that everyone seems to be doing this, I don’t see any value though some people might disagree.
Next, I did some guest posts on a couple of websites like all those famous self-publishing platforms including HuffPost, RebelMouse, Medium, etc. And again, I was blatant with anchors. The website was stuck at page 5. Later in November, someone told me about Hatred, a vendor on Konker. That was the game-changer actually. I got 10 links from him. He didn’t only deliver excellent links but also suggested anchor text changes for my order. (I was going exact-match again :P). After Hatred’s links and kind advice, I did some more guest posts with long tail anchors and tried to diversify my anchor profile.
Now if you ask me about final anchor-text distribution, here is how it looks like:
- Target – 80%
- Variations and Long-tail – 10%
- Naked – 5% (Profile links, Image, Audio, PDF Submission, etc.)
- Branded – 5%
My site was probably sandboxed until February and it picked up after that. I didn’t maintain a good link velocity and went hard on exact-match anchors. This is something I avoid now and you should too.
Services used
- Hatred’s Links
- BlBoss (For diversity)
- Guest Posts (I run a service called Outreach Shark)
Key Takeaways
- Choose anchor text wisely. Read this. I found it late, but better late than never. Diggity’s blog is a goldmine. Every single article you read there is full of value.
- Maintain a link velocity. Don’t make anything appear un-natural.
Summing it up
This website was crazy beginning to a fruitful journey. I have started more than 5 websites after this and almost all are a success. There are a couple that have crazy success stories. One of them was actually setup on a $5 expired domain and it made a whopping $1000 within a month. If I find time any sooner, I will write a blog sharing more details about that website.
I have tried my best to write down all that popped up in my mind. Still, I am sure there’s details I might have missed. If you’ve any questions, feel free to ask and I’d love to answer.
What other type of links did you buy? PBN or mainly outreach guestposts?
The website has a mixed link profile. All type of links that were used are mentioned above. PBN links were ordered from Hatred.
Does hatred links stays on homepage? I hope ranks doesn’t drop after sometime.
They do, for 3-4 weeks at-least. And his links are good as per my experience.
Thanks for the shoutout. Matt Diggity actually told me you gave me a shoutout via FB and I thought I’d comment and say thanks! – Killer job on the earnings and rankings as well, keep up the good work.
Thanks man. Glad to see you here. I still remember how scared I was spending my first $200 towards links when I knew nothing about SEO. Your links and, more importantly, your advice played a major role towards the success of this website.
Keep selling the good stuff.
Whats ur exactly primary keyword raking in SERPS. I have one more question that can you please share the content writer details with me. Hope you will reply me soon……….. Thanks in advance
Main keywords are ranking on page 1; positions #1 to #5. I am sorry but my writer is already loaded with work and she is not available for any projects at the moment.
Hey Aqib,
Nice job on the results. We’ve spoken on Skype. Even though I’m further along than you in the seo game, I still find this inspiring!
Sincerely,
Jay
Thanks so much Jay. You’ve been so kind.
Wish you success 🙂
Hey Aqib,
This is incredible. For someone completely new to the SEO game, your progress is immense. Thanks for sharing your story and all the tips.
well done bro , i just started a 2nd site and the first one is already starting to make money. peanuts at the moment but its starting to get momentum with only 6 posts and my main article has about 15 keywords ranking so im optimistic about the future. thanks for your input its great to see you starting a blog about it and making some affiliate cash on the side too.
Thanks mate. This blog has been up for more than a couple of years but never found time to post. So finally took the plunge and started publishing my personal experiences that might help some folks.
You said you brought expired domain for $5 Does expired domains boost the ranking in 2017.
The expired domain I mentioned was used as a money site. It doesn’t boost ranking directly but can help reduce the sandbox duration that you may encounter in case of a fresh domain. Hope that helps!